Now that the Notre Dame football season is officially over, this would normally be the time that Drayk Bowen would be trading in his pads for a batting helmet. As it turns out, the young linebacker isn’t going the way of Jordan Faison this season.
Instead, Bowen has decided that he won’t play baseball this year and will instead work on getting just a little bit better at football. After a fantastic 2024 season, that decision seems like the right one considering he spent last spring with the Notre Dame baseball team and only had a handful of appearances.
As Notre Dame football looks like the place that holds Bowen’s future, his baseball teammates and coaches appear behind his decision. Though coach Shawn Stiffler does expect Bowen to actually address the squad and officially give his rationale for why he’s focusing on just one sport, at least this year.
Notre Dame football star stepping down from two-sport role
“He’s actually going to come in and speak to the team, hopefully within the next week or so, just about their run,” Stiffler said last week according to the South Bend Tribune. “He loves this program, he loves our players and did not want to stop.”
Stiffler also made it clear that it was less about the linebacker’s talent and more about when he joined the baseball club last year that led to him getting so little playing time.
“Drayk came in midsemester and wasn’t ready to play for us, but I just wanted him in the clubhouse because I knew what type of leader he was. He brings that leadership, that toughness around. I just think at times the games tell us what we need to do.”
Count Stiffler among those that thinks Bowen’s future is on the gridiron for sure. Even if he thinks he’s got the talent to do well on the diamond as well. The coach and his teammates understand why Drayk Bowen has chosen the Notre Dame football program. And there is always a chase to adopt a two-sport approach sometime in the future, though that seems unlikely considering his success (78 tackles, 1 sack, 3 forced fumbles) under Marcus Freeman in 2024.