Jack McNamara knows that deep, deep down, he’s got a bias towards the Notre Dame football team. Despite that, the 2028 prospect tries to ignore that bias as he goes through the recruiting process. After all, if he had to pull the trigger today, he might pull it for the Fighting Irish, even if another school offered a better fit. At the same time, the towering tight end target knows that sometimes blocking out the power of an offer from Marcus Freeman isn’t always easy.
“I try to block out all my biases and go to whatever school is going to fit me best,” McNamara reportedly told On3’s Tyler James. “But it’s difficult.”
Notre Dame wants to make it as hard as possible to make it hard for Jack McNamara to ignore the pull of South Bend. While it seems unlikely to happen, the Irish would be perfectly fine seeing the 3-star tight end pull the trigger on a commitment before the Irish Invasion wraps up.
Even if that doesn’t happen, McNamara is using this weekend’s visit as a way to get a better look at the kind of offense he’d run, were he to eventually commit. The pull of Tight End U will be able to show how he could grow into the next great tight end and eventually go on to the NFL, should he decide to become a Golden Domer.
2028 TE Jack McNamara grew up a Notre Dame fan and already has an ND scholarship offer, but he wants to be fair with his recruitment.
— Tyler James (@TJamesND) May 29, 2026
“I try to block out all my biases and go to whatever school is going to fit me best,” he said. “But it’s difficult.”
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Jack McNamara gives Notre Dame football a Tight End U recruiting chance with real pull
“I think it's going to be a good opportunity for me to see how Coach Denbrock will coach me personally and how he'll develop me,” McNamara told Irish Sports Daily earlier this week. “And how I'll build that relationship through football and practicing on the field with Coach Denbrock.”
Having received a “shocking” offer last fall, the Brother Rice (Chicago, IL.) star believes there’s a little bit less stress about this visit. Rather than having to impress the coaches and show he deserves to play at Notre Dame, he can look at things from a more confident perspective.
Still, the tight end has impressed plenty of coaching staffs. McNamara already owns one of the more impressive offer lists in the country. In addition to Notre Dame, the Chicago native has offers from Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, Miami, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Northwestern, among others.
The No. 14 tight end in the 2028 class and the No. 12 player in the state of Illinois in the cycle according to the Rivals Industry Rating, the fight for Jack McNamara is likely only to heat up once he begins his junior season. While effective with the ball in his hands during his sophomore season, the tight end didn’t put up eye-popping numbers as he had just 8 catches for 81 yards, according to MaxPreps. Even still, he did find the end zone twice for Brother Rice.
Considering the schools heavily recruiting Jack McNamara, those numbers don’t come close to telling the whole story. Notre Dame football coaches certainly believe he’s good enough to go after him as they try to keep their spring recruiting heater going.
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