Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1544292
34 APRIL/MAY 2026 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED "I talked to doctors, saying that there probably would be teams who would look past it." But that's when he kept the promise he had made in the hospital bed for the first time. But it didn't come without some frustration at first. "I definitely want to highlight Coach Freeman in a good light here. It's some- thing I want to make sure — he was of the more 'in my corner' type of people. And he was there for me through it all and he understood and he continues to impact in my life. Like I just texted him [in December], when I was going through the interview process for the job that I have now in my company. "I texted him the whole premise of my interview presentation — the golden standard, something I learned from him at Notre Dame. Like, how I do every- thing is how I do that. And that's con- tinued past Notre Dame. "So I definitely don't want to put the coaching staff in a bad light there, but there was a bit of frustration but that ended up turning into thankfulness and really being able to cherish those moments." WHY NOTRE DAME IN THE FIRST PLACE? Getting to Notre Dame, though, and the entire football journey once he ar- rived was never easy. Schweitzer had originally verbally committed to Nebraska, but once Notre Dame started to show some interest, he was open to a change of heart. The prob- lem was the COVID-19 pandemic made the whole recruiting cycle a wonky pro- cess for virtually everyone at every school, with no national or regional camps, no coaches able to go out on the road to eval- uate, no officially hosted campus visits or meeting with coaches on campus or anywhere but a Zoom meeting. Safety Khari Gee, a member of the same recruiting class, never set foot on the Notre Dame campus until mov- ing into his dorm room in June 2021. Cornerback Chance Tucker gleaned his scholarship offer by doing cone drills on video that assistant coach Mike Mick- ens had designed for him, then sending the video to Mickens. Of the 27 players in the class, eight we re f l i p p e d f ro m o t h e r sc h o o l s ' classes, including Schweitzer. Fifteen of them ended up transferring. Four oth- ers, beyond Schweitzer, walked away from football but not from their Notre Dame education. Defensive tackle Jason Onye, who in January was granted a petition for a sixth year, and linebacker Kahanu Kia, whose NCAA clock paused during a two-year Mormon mission (2023-23), are two from that class still on the Irish roster. Schweitzer showed up every bit the 6-foot-4 he was listed as being on his high school roster, but he weighed just 204 pounds. As a defensive end. He enrolled early, and got injured early — the eighth practice of the spring in 2021, in fact. In a practice drill, Irish offensive tackle Michael Carmody awk- wardly landed on Schweitzer, resulting in a fractured tibia, a torn quadriceps muscle and a torn medial patellofemoral ligament in his left kneecap. Yet by November of his freshman sea- son he was able to earn some cameos. But in December, Freeman — the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach — was promoted to head coach. And he brought in Al Golden as the new defensive coordinator and James Lauri- naitis as a graduate assistant linebacker coach, both of whom determined a then-230-pound version of Schweitzer was a much better fit at linebacker than at defensive end. But he never was. "I was struggling in the linebacker room," he said. "Like, I hadn't played that position in a while. I was getting Schweitzer, a linebacker who logged only 37 plays for the Irish in 2021, received medical clearance to play football again but instead opted to stay at Notre Dame and continue to make a difference through player development. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS