Notre Dame football part of the Group of 5 'feeder league' emerging problem

When talking about the transfer portal, different people are going to come up with different reasons why they don’t like it. Heck, Notre Dame football lost several wide receivers who had the potential to start this season. However, there is no group of people who rightfully have a problem with it than Group of 5 coaches.

On Saturday morning, On3’s Pete Nakos put out a report on just how badly the G5 conference teams have been hit by the portal. That report showed that a whopping 63 all-conference players from the Group of 5 level of competition are on new squads this fall.

Not just on new squads, but those 63 players “moved up” to Power 4 conference schools like Notre Dame football. The Irish got one of those all-conference players in former Florida International’s Kris Mitchell. They plumbed another G4 school when they hauled in Marshall’s Jayden Harrison. 

Notre Dame football part of the problem for G5 feeder league schools

Since the transfer portal took on its latest iteration, the Group of 5 has never looked more like a feeder league than it does right now. It’s clear that quite a few of these players are going to schools like FIU or Toledo just to prove they can play at a higher level.

There’s also the fact that the higher level, the Power 4 level teams have more money to spend on NIL. It shouldn’t be ignored that the two systems work hand in hand with each other.

It’s also worth pointing out that Notre Dame isn’t the baddest of the big bads of Power 4 type teams. While they did take Mitchell and Harrison, they pulled from their own level of teams more than they went to G5.

Tyler Buchner (Alabama), RJ Oben and Riley Leonard (Duke), Rod Heard (Northwestern), Mitch Jeter (South Carolina), Beaux Collins (Clemson), and Jordan Clark (Arizona State) all came from Power Conference schools.

Still, the Irish are partaking of the larger problem. It’s one that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. After all, there’s real excitement around Notre Dame about what Mitchell - a guy who had 64 catches for over 1,000 yards - can do with better talent around him.