Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1543321
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM MARCH 2026 35 2026 FOOTBALL RECRUITING ISSUE Notre Dame put together a top-10 transfer portal group nationally, ac- cording to the 2026 On3 College Football Team Transfer Portal Rankings, and general manager Mike Martin and his personnel staff played a key role in those efforts. The Notre Dame personnel office grew in January, adding two new staffers from Penn State amid the transfer portal chaos. News broke on Jan. 7 that ex-Penn State director of player personnel Kenny Sanders joined the Irish staff in the same role he held with the Nittany Lions. Sanders was a longtime Penn State assistant under former head coach James Franklin, who was fired during the 2025 season. Sanders first joined the Nittany Lions in 2014, serving as a recruiting staffer until 2019 before leaving to join Mario Cristobal at Oregon as director of recruiting. In 2021, Franklin brought Sanders back to Penn State to become the Nittany Lions' director of player personnel in April 2022. Jourdan Blake, who joined the Notre Dame staff last offseason from Colorado, previously held the DPP title and is now the pro- gram's director of recruiting ad- vancement. The essence of Blake's new role is right in the title: ad- vancing Notre Dame recruiting. Blake's primary goal is to find ways to improve Notre Dame's recruit- ing operation while handling im- portant day-to-day responsibili- ties. The former SMU and Baylor cornerback (2014-18) worked at both SMU and TCU prior to his time with the Buffaloes. Blake, 29, also gained NFL experience as a scouting intern with the Houston Texans in July 2024. Notre Dame hired former Irish defensive lineman Myron Tago- vailoa-Amosa last year for the di- rector of recruiting advancement role, and his job will change sig- nificantly. He was a key member of the personnel department and now serves as Notre Dame's direc- tor of player development. The Ewa Beach, Hawai'i, native played at Notre Dame for five seasons from 2017-21. He was named a team captain in his last go-round, during which he totaled a career-high 25 tackles, tied a career high with 6 tackles for loss and added 2 sacks — with Marcus Freeman as defensive coordinator. Ex-Notre Dame playmaker Amir Carlisle held the position for two and a half years before leaving in September to become the NFL's senior manager for player engagement and financial empowerment. Blue & Gold Illustrated's Eric Hansen noted last fall that Notre Dame didn't have immediate urgency in replacing Carlisle, because the job's most impact- ful months are in the offseason. "Perhaps Carlisle's biggest contribution was guiding players to make the most of their Notre Dame experience while at the school and afterwards," Hansen wrote. "That included helping players transition beyond football once their playing careers ended, whether that be at the college or NFL level. "He started a program called 'Close The Gap' to do just that, and invited speakers to come to Notre Dame to share their knowl- edge of how to proceed with life after football." While Tagovailoa-Amosa will be out of the day-to-day recruiting side of things for the Fighting Irish, his impact will continue by assist- ing the Irish roster in living out the four-for-40 mission. Notre Dame also recently hired DJ Bryant — another former Penn State staffer — to work in its per- sonnel department. He does not have a job title yet. At Penn State, Bryant served as recruiting coor- dinator for personnel and recruit- ment. Bryant and Sanders are joining a personnel team that, beyond Blake and Martin, includes director of re- cruiting Carter Auman, director of football strategy Anthony Treash, director of scouting Matt Jansen, director of recruiting operations Becca Sites and director of on-cam- pus recruiting Ariella Ellis. — Mike Singer frogged the Irish in the final rankings despite both teams being idle. There has been plenty of speculation, but no com- plete closure. "It doesn't make 100 percent sense to me," Nichols said. "But it is what it is." Miami did justify its inclusion with a run to the title game. O'Brien remains more understanding of how it played out, though even he cannot fully rationalize it. "It was confusing," he said. "It could have gone either way. Obviously, I want to see them win, but I understand why the committee didn't put them in." The fallout has helped shape Notre Dame's mantra for 2026. While many, including Freeman, felt the Irish should have been playing in the national championship game, they have already turned the page. When the team returned to campus Jan. 11 for the start of the spring semes- ter, Freeman's latest message carried a sharper edge than the one delivered 35 days earlier. "It's our responsibility to make sure we leave no doubt," Freeman told re- porters in mid-January. "Moving for- ward, we can't blame it on somebody else. Although I may still be confused about some of the criteria and the com- mittee's rankings, it's our job to make sure we leave no doubt." According to Nichols, that mental- ity had already taken hold before Free- man addressed it publicly. The incom- ing freshman class is equally invested, even though it was not directly affected. Notre Dame believes it missed its mo- ment, and it does not intend to let it happen again. "From the guys early enrolling, start- ing the day they get there, they're going to make it their mission to not be left out of it this year," Nichols said. "That's the big thing for all those guys and for me, too, once I get there." ✦ Jourdan Blake, who was Notre Dame's director of player personnel in 2025, will serve as the program's director of recruiting advancement moving forward. His primary goal is to find ways to improve the recruiting operation while handling important day-to-day responsibilities. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL Notre Dame Updates Job Titles For Personnel Office Staff