Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 26, 2026 53 N o t h i n g a b o u t Spencer Porath's t ra n s f e r f r o m Purdue to Notre Dame should be considered conventional. Following his sopho- more year at Purdue, he skipped entering the transfer portal this past winter and instead ap- plied to Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business. After he was accepted by Notre Dame as a transfer student, he started to sort out the process of joining the Irish football program. That was Porath's ac- count when he first spoke with Notre Dame reporters in February. But there's no deny- ing that Porath also filled an obvious football need for Notre Dame. The Irish needed an experienced kicker for their 2026 roster, and it took more than good fortune for Porath to fill that void. Regardless of the path Porath, who made 22 of 28 field goal attempts (78.6 percent) in two seasons at Purdue, took to Notre Dame, the Irish needed to for- mulate a plan to get the best version of him. The previous two kickers to trans- fer to Notre Dame battled injuries in their lone seasons with the Irish. Former South Carolina kicker Mitch Jeter missed most of three games with a groin injury during an uneven 2024 season. He finished memorably, how- ever, making the winning field goal with seven seconds remaining against Penn State in the Orange Bowl CFP semifinal. Noah Burnette, who transferred in from North Carolina, didn't have the same happy ending with the Irish. Bur- nette went 5 of 6 on field goals for the Irish, but he played in just six games due to a hip injury and missed the final four games of the 2025 season. The Irish knew more about Porath's ba c kg ro u n d b e ca u se No t re Da m e special teams coordinator Marty Bi- agi recruited him as a young player at Brownsburg (Ind.) High when he was coaching at Purdue (2020-21). Porath looked like what Notre Dame needed. "He is very consistent and has a really good ball flight," Biagi said in March. "That was something that we were looking for. We went through all our checks and balances to make sure he's healthy. He was good. He came in fresh. He fits this culture academically." Porath impressed the Irish in the spring, so head coach Marcus Freeman worked on finding ways to challenge him in preseason camp. Although Po- rath preferred simulated-pressure at- tempts scattered throughout practice, Freeman also required him to work through repetitive field goal periods. Some days Notre Dame lets Porath kick sporadically through practice. Other days he has to line up and push through the repetitions. "Just because you told me you don't like it," Freeman said he told Porath. "Just because you don't do it as well — because you have to be intentional about making guys struggle. "If it's perfect, then I don't know if we're really getting better. I wanted to b e i n te n t i o n a l w i t h Spence to know you didn't do great in this field goal period, but we're going to keep do- ing it every Tuesday." "That's your trig- ger to say, OK, this is a situation I've struggled with. I've got to be bet- ter in whatever ways I need to do to be better. When he gets out in the game, there's just a lot of confidence in him." So much confidence that Notre Dame ran Porath out to try a 52-yard field goal in his first attempt in an Irish uniform. Porath made the kick in the season-opening win against Wisconsin. He also made the two other field goals he attempted in Notre Dame's first two games of the season. Even in a blowout against Rice, Free- man sent Porath out to make a 36-yard field goal with 4:24 remaining in the third quarter. That was before Freeman went for it on a fourth-and-4 at Rice's 9-yard line with backup quarterback Noah Grubbs leading the offense early in the fourth quarter. Freeman will likely face much tougher field goal decisions as the season pro- gresses, but Porath's reliability should make those decisions easier. "On the one field goal that we tried [against Rice], would I have gone for it in a different situation?" Freeman said. "Maybe, there's a good chance. I like to be aggressive on fourth down, but I thought it was a great opportunity for us to get him out there and go kick. And he hit it right through the uprights. "And it does dictate how you call third down sometimes. We have a lot of con- fidence in Spence, and we're going to kick him as much as we need to." ✦ Porath made all 15 of his kicks (3 field goals and 12 extra points) in his first two games with Notre Dame. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER Transfer Spencer Porath Is Already Making His Mark Tyler James has been covering Notre Dame athletics since 2011. He can be reached on X @ TJamesND FIRST AND LAST TYLER JAMES