Notre Dame football: Top 5 wide receivers in school history

Taking a look at the five best wide receivers to ever play for Notre Dame football, with emphasis on the player’s overall resume while in South Bend.

Whether with Notre Dame football or anywhere else, judging wide receivers can be difficult. For one, eras change. If you go back far enough, no one would line up at wide receiver. They just had multiple ends. For the longest time teams wouldn’t pass until third down, or if they needed to score in a two minute drill. This is the era that produced the legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes, who said, “There are three things that can happen when you throw a pass, and two of them are bad.”

There’s some debate as to whether Hayes said that, with others arguing it was Tennessee’s General Neyland or Texas’ Darrell Royal. Either way, the point stands. Run the ball.

Of course, this mentality did change over time. Passing became more commonplace in the NFL, before college. This was largely due to Sid Gillman’s vertical offense and Bill Walsh’s west coast offense.

Once that leaked into college football, offenses exploded and haven’t looked back. BYU was able to recruit a string of elite quarterbacks because of their open, aerial attack. Then Hal Mumme came up with the Air Raid offense, blending the BYU offense and Walsh’s west coast, for a pass-first attack. There is also the run and shoot, which was developed in a high school, made popular at Portland State, and made famous at Hawai’i under June Jones. On the back of this offense, multiple passing records were set.

Since then, the inherent approach to the game has changed. Teams have moved to spread offenses that tend to pass more than they run the ball. While there are still some holdouts, like Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs, those teams can’t keep up with the great passing teams of the modern age.

This also means that there are tons of great wide receivers playing today, and getting the exposure that those of past eras didn’t get. This adds a layer of difficulty in judging who is the top five wide receivers in Notre Dame history. How do you compare Golden Tate to Raghib Ismail to Wayne Millner? They played in different eras with different expectations set upon them.

That’s why you can’t base a list like this on stats alone. It has to be based on their overall resume of success while playing for the Notre Dame football program. It will help them to be a decorated player, have had a memorable career, and been on winning teams. Stats do matter, but no more than anything else.

With all of the being said, here are the top five wide receivers in Notre Dame football history: