It has been a busy, frustrating, and fruitful spring and summer for Notre Dame football recruiting. With each of these scholarship posts that we try to publish quarterly, new rules are emerging throughout college athletics. Last time around, it was news of the first signing period (affectionately referred to as the Early Early Signing Period or EESD by me) that’s set to come in June 2025. Now, there is expected to be an explosion in scholarships allowed starting with the 2026 recruiting cycle.
Buckle up, it’s going to be a wild time come next summer as schools across the country race to adjust to the changes.
***18 Stripes Scholarship Tracker CLICK HERE***
Out of Eligibility Following 2024:
QB Riley Leonard
WR Kris Mitchell
WR Jayden Harrison
WR Beaux Collins
TE Mitchell Evans
TE Davis Sherwood
OT Tosh Baker
DE Jordan Botelho
DE RJ Oben
DT Howard Cross
DT Rylie Mills
LB Jack Kiser
CB Jordan Clark
S Xavier Watts
S Rod Heard
S Devyn Ford
PK Mitch Jeter
Yes, this is a lot of players to be losing off the roster–before you factor in transfers and other personnel losses to the NFL or elsewhere. I get the feeling the 2025 football team will have a very new feel to it with a refreshed roster.
2025-26 Academic Classes
22 Verbal Commits
23 Sophomores
23 Juniors
14 Seniors
8 Graduates
90 Total Scholarships
Summer used to be the hotbed of recruiting visits and commits, but no more. Only a few years ago, we would’ve mentioned how many more scholarships the Fighting Irish added to the books since our update in April. Instead, Notre Dame actually lost a net of 2 scholarships over the last 4 months.
In the spring punter Bryce McFerson transferred to Maryland while cornerback Micah Bell transferred to Vanderbilt. In recent weeks, defensive linemen Aiden Gobaira and Tyson Ford were put on medical scholarship.
There have been only 5 new commits in the past 4 months with the 2025 class:
DL Gordy Sulfsted
CB Mark Zackery
CB Dallas Golden
S Jadon Blair
S Brandon Logan
Notre Dame just flipped Vanderbilt baseball commit Brandon Logan to come to South Bend and be a dual-sport athlete on the football team.
The program lost wide receiver Shaun Terry in the recruiting class who duly committed to Missouri while elite blue-chip safety Ivan Taylor left for Michigan.
We should note the addition of Australian punter James Rendell who was added to the roster this off-season and might have additional eligibility beyond 2024. We’re including him as possible for the 2025 team right now.
List of Eligible 2025 Grad Students
Tier 1
WR Jayden Thomas
OG Pat Coogan
DT Gabriel Rubio
OG Rocco Spindler
DT Jason Onye
P James Rendell
Tier 2
WR Deion Colzie
TE Kevin Bauman
Tier 3
CB Chance Tucker
Fall camp is in full swing and I don’t think we have a shakeup for our 3 tiers right now. Both Coogan and Spindler are battling it out for a starting position and both probably play quite a bit in 2024 (although I suppose the person who plays less will be an increased transfer risk after the season). Rubio is dealing with an injury now but he and Onye are key backups who could be moving into starting positions in 2025. Jayden Thomas looks set to be a top wideout on the team again while the aforementioned Rendell would be the punter should he be allowed to play beyond 2024.
A couple weeks into camp and it looks like Colzie is trending down on the depth chart and embraces his role as a solid backup veteran presence. Remember, the Irish saved a year of eligibilty for Colzie last year and I’m not sure he’s gunning for a 5th season in South Bend for 2025. Similarly, Bauman is hoping to break free from his injury history and even if he does would he want to come back for a 6th season?
I dare say Chance Tucker is pretty old school. He’s barely played, there were reports he got cooked a few times in the opening of fall camp, and he’s probably going to be passed on the depth chart by at least one freshman this year. Yet, he’s stuck around all 4 years and looks like he’ll graduate from Notre Dame.
Positional Needs
LOW NEED: RB, OL, CB, S, DE
MEDIUM NEED: QB, TE, LB
HIGH NEED: WR, DT
During our last scholarship post we listed the high-end talent that Notre Dame was chasing for the remainder of the cycle. Since then, the cards have fallen this way:
WR Derek Meadows (0.9657) – LSU
OT Jack Lange (0.9383) – Missouri
DE Damien Shanklin (0.9503) – LSU
DL Darren Ikinnagbon (0.9539) – Ohio State
LB Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng (0.9613) – TBD
LB Gavin Nix (0.9336) – Miami
LB Noah Mikhail (0.9596) – Texas A&M
CB Mark Zackery (0.9421) – Notre Dame!
S Jadon Blair (0.9372) – Notre Dame!
S Dallas Golden (0.9547) – Notre Dame!
Great job in the secondary! Elsewhere the vibes aren’t as great right now. NOB, brother of our famous JOK, is down to a top 5 of Notre Dame, Michigan, USC, Florida, and Texas but is reportedly stretching out his decision process into the fall where he’s planning official visits to the Gators and Longhorns.
We’ve moved quarterback from low need down to medium need as Notre Dame begins the search for someone else. Deuce Knight hasn’t decommitted yet but things look to be on awfully shaky ground.
The Scholarship Increase–What Does It Mean?
Here’s the important snippet from Ross Dellenger at Yahoo:
As part of the new revenue-sharing model — beginning in 2025-26 academic year — by-sport scholarship restrictions are eliminated, and schools are permitted to offer scholarships to the entirety of their rosters…Football, with a current scholarship restriction of 85, will now have a roster limit of 105 — a 20-scholarship increase for those schools willing to give the maximum. In an important note for football, the 105 may not be a requirement until the start of the competitive season, giving coaches flexibility to go beyond that figure during preseason camp, for instance.
Some discussion points…
1) The verbiage being used by the media is pretty clear that the term ‘roster’ is going to start taking precedent over scholarship limits.
2) Obviously, schools don’t need to give out 105 scholarships each season and walk-ons can still exist.
3) One would think the richer schools will use the increased scholarship limit to pad their rosters with more talent. But in the transfer portal era this also feels like a pretty risky move. History tells us there are limits to your depth chart before you lose players and that’s never been more true than today.
4) I’m sure many coaching staffs across the country would love to give out 40 scholarships in a single recruiting class and pray only the worst players transfer. If that’s the case, expect some schools to limit the amount of scholarships given to walk-ons. However, I’d think we’ll end up seeing a nice balance. More walk-ons will get scholarships but recruiting classes will also get a little larger.
4) This is yet another huge cost for teams that choose to go down this path, especially with Title IX factored into things. According to Yahoo, this could add anywhere from $3 million to $7 million in additional costs for schools that are planning to spend the additional scholarship money, totaling up to $30 million per year in costs with revenue sharing to players included.
5) Smaller sports are going to feel the pain from this and have their spending and coaching cut back in order for schools to allocate more money to football, basketball, baseball, etc.
I’m open to being corrected, but it’s my understanding that both the scholarship increase and revenue sharing are tied to settling the antitrust cases House, Carter and Hubbard. The document that’s public so far is just a proposed settlement by the NCAA, so before it’s effective it has to go through preliminary approval and then a hearing where other claimants against the NCAA will get to weigh in before it’s finalized.
There’s a pre-preliminary approval hearing for the case September 5th, which is probably the first time we’ll get any indication whether this will move forward, but there are a lot of other claimants who do not want it to.
Here’s a Sportico article that covers some of the objections: https://www.sportico.com/law/analysis/2024/house-ncaa-settlement-athlete-objections-1234793035/
That is correct!
When/if the 105 number becomes the standard, few teams will probably have issues with the number (at least in terms of “scholarship players”). The biggest limit will probably just be that guys won’t want to come be so far down the depth chart at a school so you won’t be able to stack a lot of veteran talent.
I imagine high school recruiting classes will get bigger and guys will essentially have a year or two to prove themselves to be on track to start. If not, they will want to leave to find that track or will be pushed out. But that leaves a lot of leeway for how many “scholarship” players are on the roster of 105 and so basically they’ll always be room for guys that you really want.
Realizing that QB room next year might be a bit of a questionable situation. Hopefully will keep 2/3 of Carr/Angeli/Minchey… but if Carr is the clear starter coming out of spring practice I’m not sure we can even count on that. But, optimistically assuming we can keep two, our third stringer is going to be (probably) whichever low-4 or 3-star recruit we can flip in the likely event Deuce Knight decommits.
We should enjoy this year’s QB room, I guess is the point!
That is pretty crazy to contemplate that we could lose the whole QB room if the youngest (non-freshmen) becomes the starter. But it seems realistic. (We could lose both Carr and Angeli if Minchey somehow was the guy – but maybe hold on to Carr if Angeli was the guy, assuming he would have 1 more year left – I can’t keep track anymore how many years guys have!).
I don’t know if Angeli or Minchey could graduate if they stayed a year (they may not care obviously) or if either might think about being 1 play away (it’s still not easy to go to a new place where nothing is guaranteed). But it is hard to think either would stay otherwise unless they just loved ND so much.
We’d probably have to take a veteran transfer that already had his shot to start elsewhere and couldn’t but would be happy to be 1 play away at ND for a year or two.
Would Tyler Buchner’s story factor in, even a little, with any of the QBs hanging around until they get their degree at least? How many ND QBs have left, due to playing time, and had any NFL success ? I would think with early entry, QBs would have 2 years of eligibility left, if they stayed until getting their degrees. Most likely Angeli is nearing that soon.
In fairness, in the last 20 years, how many ND QBs have stayed and had any NFL success?
Certainly none have stayed, not played, and had any NFL success.
Again, the ones that DID play haven’t had any success, either, so it’s not really a valid argument either way.
Yes, I should have left that sentence out.
Or stayed, played, and had any NFL success. BK had what, 2 QBs drafted? Kizer, Book. Neither had any success in the NFL. We have not had a good QB room in a decade.