Notre Dame football: Team needs and transfer portal wishlist

With losses to Ohio State, Louisville, and Clemson, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish finished at 9-3 in Marcus Freeman’s second season and earned a bid to the Sun Bowl. That’s not where Freeman wants his team to be, and he’ll need to turn over the roster to get Notre Dame back into the College Football Playoff conversation, even with the expansion to 12 teams in 2024.

Notre Dame will likely lose around 30 players off this year’s roster, some to the NFL, some to the transfer portal, and some who just finally ran out of eligibility. Nine players have already entered the portal including Zeke Correll, Nana Osafo-Mensah, and leading receiver Chris Tyree.

Freeman has brought in back-to-back top-15 recruiting classes, but where the young players aren’t ready to step in he’ll need to fill key positions with stop-gaps.

That includes the most key position on the football field. Quarterback Sam Hartman, who transferred from Wake Forest to take over the starting job in 2023, is done after the Sun Bowl, but Freeman appears to have his sights set on Hartman’s replacement.

The transfer portal officially opened on Monday, December 4, and players will continue to jump in throughout the month. Still, we have a pretty good picture of what the portal looks like, and who should be on Notre Dame’s wishlist.

Quarterback

Sam Hartman had a solid year in 2023, throwing for 2,689 yards and 24 touchdowns with eight interceptions. He completed 63.5% of his passes and averaged 8.9 yards per attempt. The Notre Dame passing game ranked 53rd in the country and the Fighting Irish gained 6.6 yards per play, which was 10th best in the nation.

Sophomore Steve Angeli was Hartman’s backup, but he doesn’t seem earmarked for the starting job. Instead, Freeman will turn to the portal for a solution, but not a more permanent one. Teams are still coveting the one-year grad transfers like Hartman was, but starting each season with a new quarterback might not be sustainable long-term.

Notre Dame could look for a transfer quarterback with a track record of success and multiple seasons of eligibility remaining, but it looks like Freeman has already chosen his guy. If he doesn’t get him, then he’ll need to turn to Plan B.

Riley Leonard has been the starter at Duke for two seasons, and this year as a junior, he played seven games due to an injury. He only has one year of eligibility remaining, and entered the transfer portal after his head coach, Mike Elko, left for Texas A&M.

Leonard entered the portal with a “do not contact” designation, which typically means the player has a good idea of where they’re going. Most suspect that place is South Bend, but he could be following Elko to College Station.

This season, Leonard had his breakout moment in Week 1 when he knocked off Clemson. He finished the year completing 57.6% of his passes for 1,102 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions. He averaged 6.7 yards per attempt, and the numbers were not pretty across the board.

Leonard was very limited due to his toe injury, and the Duke roster was not exactly loaded with talent at the skill positions. The ceiling is still very high for Leonard, even as a veteran player.

It didn’t work out for Moore, a top-rated QB in the 2023 recruiting class, out in LA, so he may want to come back closer to home. Moore was a five-star out of Detroit, Michigan, and ranked only behind Arch Manning and Nico Iamaleava.

This year, Moore was forced into action due to injuries and poor play from UCLA’s veteran QBs and he finished with 1,610 yards and 11 touchdowns, but only completed 53.5% of his passes and threw nine touchdowns.

Moore has three years of eligibility remaining. He could be a long-term answer at the position for Marcus Freeman. Despite the tough year, Moore is still a hyper-talent thrower with gobs of potential.

Wide receiver

The Notre Dame passing game was serviceable in 2023, but in big games, like against Ohio State, it struggled. In that game, Sam Hartman only threw for 175 yards and he certainly didn’t have receivers running open all night.

Well, the passing game could easily go from serviceable to disastrous this offseason if Marcus Freeman doesn’t act. Freeman decided to replace wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey with Mike Brown from Wisconsin. That change has led to a lot of turnover in the receiver room in South Bend.

Leading receiver Chris Tyree is in the transfer portal, as is big play threat Tobias Merriweather, and four-star freshman Braylon James. Expect Notre Dame to add multiple wide receivers from the portal this offseason and these are a few that the Fighting Irish should target.

Burks jumped into the portal on Monday morning and instantly became one of the most highly-coveted players at the position. The 5-foot-11 redshirt sophomore caught 47 passes for 629 yards for Purdue in 2023 and scored seven touchdowns.

A downfield threat, an average target to Burks traveled 13.7 air yards, but he’s also capable of making plays with the ball in his hands.

Burks did only average 1.46 yards after the catch per reception this year, but he can break tackles and turn a slant into a big play. His Big Ten pedigree might make him the most appealing wide receiver option, but others put up more gaudy numbers at G5 schools and are ready to make the jump.

In 2023, Notre Dame’s top receiver, Chris Tyree, finished with 484 receiving yards. Caullin Lacy finished 2023 with 843 yards after the catch. The 5-foot-10 redshirt junior led the country in YAC, averaging 9.3 yards after the catch.

His average target came just eight yards downfield, which ranked 387th among eligible receivers, but he averaged 14.5 yards per reception which ranked 154th, a staggering discrepancy. A receiver like that is a quarterback’s best friend, and receiver-needy schools like Notre Dame are lucky Lacy entered the portal.

Oh, and he’s not just a shifty underneath receiver either. Sure he was fourth in the country in missed tackles forced, but Lacy has the speed to flat-out blow by cornerbacks on the outside.

Nearly 70% of his snaps came from the slot, but he can play outside and get downfield. He caught 10 of 18 deep balls for 447 yards and four touchdowns. He finished the year with 91 catches for 1,316 yards and seven touchdowns.

Kris Mitchell provides something that Burks and Lacy don’t, size. Mitchell is 6-foot-1 175 pounds and made 12 contested catches this season. In his final year at FIU, Mitchell caught 64 of his 100 targets for 1,118 yards and seven touchdowns.

Mitchell has already visited Notre Dame, so there appears to be mutual interest. As a graduate transfer, Mitchell would give Notre Dame immediate production, but he may be waiting to see who is at quarterback for the Irish to sign.

Offensive line

It’s evident that one of Marcus Freeman’s highest priorities in recruiting is the offensive line. In his two recruiting classes, he has added six offensive tackles and a few more interior offensive linemen. Nearly all have been at least four-star recruits, and yet it’ll still be very difficult to replace Joe Alt, who is almost certainly off to the NFL. Right tackle Blake Fisher might leave for the league too.

On top of the NFL departures, guard Zeke Correll has entered the transfer portal, so the Irish could be replacing three starting offensive linemen from a really good group. In that case, Freeman is almost forced to look to the portal to add a veteran for stability, or at least depth in case one of his highly-touted underclassmen struggles.

It would be a big jump for a DII offensive tackle to play at Notre Dame next season, but Herron might be up for it. After just two seasons at Shorter, Herron entered the portal and quickly received offers from many of the best programs in the country, including Miami, Clemson, and Penn State.

Scott primarily played on the interior at Southern Mississippi with 656 of his 761 snaps at left guard. He could be a one-for-one replacement for Zeke Correll, though maybe not as talented a player. In those 761 snaps, he allowed 15 pressures from the inside. That’s often bad news for a quarterback, but none of the pressures went for sacks.

He may not be a huge addition, but depth is crucial on the offensive line, and Scott can provide some. He’s only given up eight sacks in 2,543 snaps at Southern Miss.

Smith played 795 snaps at left tackle in 2023, his second year at Indiana, but is ready to move on after his head coach was fired. Smith has multiple years of eligibility remaining but has much more experience than the underclassmen who have sat behind Joe Alt for one or two seasons in South Bend.

In 129 true pass sets this season, Smith only allowed 12 pressures which ranks outside the top 100 among offensive tackles in the country, and is the same amount as Blake Fisher allowed in 152 true pass sets. Alt only gave up five in 155 true pass sets. He’s an irreplaceable player who will be a top-10 NFL draft pick.

Linebacker

The Notre Dame defense was good in 2023, ranking seventh in the country in total defense, and sixth in yards per play allowed at 4.4. The only problem is that Freeman’s defense was old, especially at linebacker. JD Bertrand, Jack Kiser, and Marist Liufau have been mainstays at the second level for years and were all graduate students in 2023.

Leading tackler, Bertrand does have a year of eligibility remaining, as does Liufau, but realistically both could move on with Kiser. It remains to be seen who will come back at linebacker, but there is the potential for massive turnover.

Marcus Freeman obviously knows more about who is returning than we do, so maybe he does not prioritize the linebacker position, but he probably should.

Pace was a part of the 2021 Cincinnati team that took the final CFP spot away from Notre Dame. He’s been a part of great Bearcats defenses for years, but this season he couldn’t hold things together by himself.

Back in 2020, Pace started for the Bearcats defense, which was coached by Marcus Freeman. 

In 2024, he led the team in tackles for the first time and is technically a box safety, but would easily transition to linebacker with his 6-foot-2 212 212-pound frame. He could also play the Xavier Watts role as a hybrid safety if Watts departs for the NFL.

It’s not easy playing for the SEC’s punching bag and Barr has taken his lumps in Nashville for four seasons. This year he made 54 tackles with one sack, one forced fumble, and one pass breakup. 2021 was his most productive year with 85 total tackles four pass breakups and three interceptions.

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