Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 3, 2026 13 UNDER THE DOME LOREN MACY COMMITS TO NOTRE DAME, JOINING SISTER LEAH Notre Dame women's basketball has a new sister act coming. Loren Macy, the younger sister of Irish sophomore forward Leah Macy, has announced her commitment to Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey with plans to sign with the Irish during the November signing period. The 6-foot forward from Elizabethtown, Ky., joined five-star forward Eve Long in a 2027 class that the Irish coaches hope to grow to four or five over the next couple of months. Long, a 6-3 forward and the nation's No. 8 player in the Rivals Industry Ranking, verbally committed to the Irish May 20. The Olathe, Kan., product chose Notre Dame over the likes of Connecticut, UCLA, Duke and Kansas. The early signing period for women's basketball is Nov. 11-18. Loren Macy averaged 18.2 points and 10.4 rebounds a game last season for Bethlehem High (17-10) in Bardstown, Ky. She broke Leah's single-game school scoring record with a 49-point performance in a regional semifinal playoff game against Campbellsville last March. Leah Macy, a 6-2 forward and former five-star prospect, sat out her freshman season while rehabbing an ACL tear she sustained at the end of her high school senior season. She is expected to have a major role on this year's Irish team, which opens the season Nov. 1 against Villanova in Rome, Italy. The last pair of sisters to play for Notre Dame women's basketball on scholarship were Michaela and Marina Mabrey, who overlapped in the 2015-16 season. Four years later, twins Catherine and Margaret Murdock were on the Irish roster as walk-ons in Hall of Fame coach Muffet McGraw's final season. Loren Macy went on all of Leah's recruiting visits when the older sister was being recruited. She fell in love with Notre Dame at that time and decided it was the only school she would consider in the recruiting process. — Eric Hansen Late at night in Week 3 at the Rose Bowl, in a game that ended at 2:37 a.m. EDT without a weather delay, Purdue put up 425 passing yards on UCLA in a 52-38 shootout won by the host Bruins. Notre Dame freshman safety Joey O'Brien ended up making his first collegiate start against whatever the Boilermakers (1-2) had in store for a sequel. The 6-foot-5, 200-pound safety did so against the na- tion's No. 3 team in passing offense and No. 16 in pass efficiency entering the matchup. Led by senior quarterback Ryan Browne, the Boilermakers put up the third-most passing yards in a game against a Power Four team through three games. Only SMU (430 versus Florida State) and Miami (428 against Stanford) passed for more yards. And Notre Dame's defense, and possibly O'Brien in a significant role, will face those two top-five passing offenses in November. O'Brien's résumé with the coaching staff is considerably longer than those 22 defensive snaps sug- gest. His work on special teams has helped build the trust that could now accelerate his defensive role. He had 24 special teams snaps over three games, most of them on kickoff coverage. "He's one of those freaky athletes, who can run and can cover and can hit," head coach Marcus Free- man said, "but now he's building trust that he can get his job done and consistently. And so that comes from preparation. That comes from additional meetings, additional instruction, meeting with coaches, and then going out and practicing and doing it. "And so now coaches have a lot of trust that, 'Hey, if we're going to put him in the game, he's going to get it done.' So he's done that pretty consistently over the past couple of weeks." And O'Brien isn't an isolated case. The NCAA's 5-for-5 eligibility model has changed the calculation for Notre Dame in using freshmen on special teams — and, in the process, preparing them for larger roles on offense and defense. So far, 23 players in Notre Dame's 30-man freshman class have seen game action this season, with 19 of them either doubling up on special teams or seeing their time exclusively in that phase of the game. Last season, when freshmen were limited to four regular-season games in the quest for a redshirt year being granted, 19 freshmen saw action on special teams, but most in minor roles. More than half of them saw special teams duties in only one game, and most of them for a single snap. This year, with the old redshirt calculation removed, five of Notre Dame's top 10 special teams per- formers through three games, per PFF, are freshmen. And O'Brien is one of them. The others are line- backers Ja'Kobe Clapper and Thomas Davis Jr., defensive end Rodney Dunham and tight end Ian Premer. "There's a lot of fundamentals that make you a successful special teams player that will also translate and carry over to the offense and defense," Freeman said. "The thing that's probably helped us more than anything is the 5-for-5, right? Where in previous years you say, do I want to burn a freshman's redshirt just for special teams? "You don't have to think about that this year. And so now you say, 'OK, can this guy get a role done at the highest level?' And maybe you take a play or two off of a starter. And how can we conserve some of those reps off starters? And so, we have talented freshmen that as long as they can get the job done at a high level, we're gonna put them out there." — Eric Hansen Loren Macy, a 6-foot forward and the sister of current Irish sophomore forward and former five-star prospect Leah Macy, averaged 18.2 points and 10.4 rebounds a game last season for Bethlehem High School. PHOTO COURTESY BETHLEHEM HIGH SCHOOL Special Teams Helping O'Brien, Notre Dame Freshmen Earn Bigger Roles Freshman safety Joey O'Brien made his first col- legiate start against Purdue Sept. 26 in the place of injured senior Luke Talich. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER