When was the last really good-to-great season from Notre Dame receivers? Notre Dame went into 2025 with 5 straight seasons without a 1,000-yard receiver and I don’t think many Irish fans would’ve bet that milestone would be surpassed by anyone during the pre-season. Spoiler alert, it did not. But, did Notre Dame rely on its depth and turn out a quality season at the wideout position? Well, maybe.
Those With Size
A lack of size was a concern for 2025, which may also have contributed to the tight end position helping out more in a detached role. The Irish dipped into the portal for 5’10” transfer Will Pauling but the more important move was bringing in Virginia transfer Malachi Fields. At a stout 6’4″ he was a key piece to rebuilding the offense with an inexperienced quarterback.
The injury to Jaden Greathouse really threw the receiver room into some chaos and who knows what 2025 looks like if he was able to build upon his performance in the 2024 playoffs? Would he come back to the field? When? How injured was he? Was Greathouse on track to sit out and transfer?
We probably haven’t talked enough about Jordan Faison being so reliable (not a strength of his prior to 2025!) and the duo of Fields/Pauling really being crucial pickups who came through many times this past fall. How many even remembered that Pauling led everyone at Notre Dame with 6 receiving touchdowns last year? Fields also became the first Irish wideout since Kevin Austin in 2021 to total at least 500 receiving yards with 17+ yards per reception. Not bad!
Snaps
As expected, Fields and Faison basically never came off the field unless it was garbage time. That Greathouse didn’t play in the final 8 games and still finished 5th among the wideouts in snaps shows how much Notre Dame was reluctant to rely on its depth further down the roster.
| PLAYER | SNAPS |
|---|---|
| Malachi Fields | 600 |
| Jordan Faison | 583 |
| Will Pauling | 374 |
| Micah Gilbert | 115 |
| Jaden Greathouse | 112 |
| KK Smith | 107 |
| Cam Williams | 67 |
| Elijah Burress | 52 |
| Logan Saldate | 32 |
| Matt Jeffery | 26 |
| Jerome Bettis Jr. | 11 |
| Leo Scheidler | 8 |
| Alex Whitman | 8 |
Micah Gilbert is someone worth talking about. Remember, he caught a touchdown pass in the opener against Miami and followed that up with a nice performance in the romp over Purdue. He also finished with 4 receptions over the last 2 games. However, he dealt with an injury during the middle of the season and essentially disappeared from the action for a super long stretch of time.
It’s no surprise that KK Smith decided to transfer out to Michigan State following the season. He was basically best of the rest non-starters (123 receiving yards on the season) and was stuck in a situation where he was likely still the 5th or 6th option at best for the Irish but showed enough in 2025 to command more playing time with the Spartans. We’ll see Smith on the field and back in South Bend on September 19th when MSU visits town.
Grade: B
This was a really good group of receivers who, at the top of the depth chart, really seemed to play within themselves and played very close to their perceived ceilings. You could make the case that if their weren’t a couple of All-Americans in the backfield this could’ve been a season where CJ Carr threw the ball over 30 times a game with Fields and Faison pushing closer to 1,000 yard seasons.
A lack of quality depth held this group back a little bit. Maybe more than a little bit.
I’d also argue–again because of the running back room, freshman quarterback, and maybe because of the schedule–this wasn’t a wide receiver group that we really ever saw take over a game in a big way. For example, the Irish threw for enough yards in the 1-point brutal loss to Texas A&M but Faison only totaled 17 receiving yards.
