Notre Dame football is wrapping up its Transfer Portal work and getting ready for the 2026 season. Along those lines, the Fighting Irish received some excellent news on Thursday as defensive lineman Boubacar Traore announced he's returning to South Bend for another season.
A former four-star prospect in the class of 2023, Traore appeared in five games in each of his first two seasons. He took a redshirt (four regular-season games and a bowl) in 2023. In 2024, he got off to a fantastic start to the season, only for an injury in the Louisville game to prematurely end his breakout season.
In 2025, he returned to action and continued his meteoric rise as a sack master who can terrorize Notre Dame opponents' offensive lines. While he was banged up again a bit this past season, he appeared in 10 games, logging 37 tackles and 7.5 sacks.
Boubacar Traore opts for another season as Notre Dame’s front reloads
Those numbers had him standing out as someone who could be an early-round NFL Draft pick. Some reports had him guaranteed to go on the second day of next spring's draft.
However, the defensive lineman has decided that he'd rather have at least one more go with the Fighting Irish. Considering there were a couple of other guys, including several other players people thought might head to the NFL, the Notre Dame defense looks like it could open next year as one of the best in the sport.
Chris Ash's unit will have plenty of veteran returnees to go along with new additions for 2026. There's the added benefit of his group not needing to go through the growing pains of the start of the 2025 campaign, and Boubacar Traore's return to Notre Dame is a biggie.