The transfer portal for college football opened up this past Friday, January 2nd and will close in approximately 10 more days. Taking a step back, that seems like more than enough time to continue adding pieces to the 2026 team–if only players weren’t skipping visits and committing elsewhere thick and fast.
So, Notre Dame football–coming off a snub with the college football playoffs–might’ve been more incentivized than ever to open up the wallet and supplement its roster. There was a growing consensus that all the chips had to be put on the table for 2026 in what could be CJ Carr’s final season in South Bend. After half a week of the portal being open though, the Fighting Irish look to be struggling in this ever-evolving off-season world.
What’s going on?
First, let’s take a quick look at the roster. As of this writing, Notre Dame’s roster is down to 109 players which drops down to 94 players when you remove the “roster” players aka the walk-on group. In the past, the program would still be scrambling to reduce that number and open up scholarship spots. Not anymore! Broken down by position the numbers (scholarship players only) look like this:
QB – 4
RB – 5
WR – 13
TE – 6
OL – 20
DE – 8
DT – 9
LB – 13
CB – 6
S – 8
PK – 1
P – 1
It’s funny to look at things purely from a numbers standpoint because it doesn’t always reflect transfer portal priorities. Any way you slice it, 20 offensive linemen is kind of hilarious but at the same time in this NIL era are we sure that’s a smart use of funds?? Why haven’t more linemen transferred out yet?
Quarterback, running back, and tight end are fine numbers-wise, just really young and mostly unproven further down the depth chart. The Irish are fishing more for some wide receivers in the portal but 13 is more than plenty to work with. It’s proven quality over quantity on the mind.
The same goes for the defensive line (I still have Onye included until we know for sure he’s not coming back as we await his waiver request) where numbers are fine but the program really, really needs 2-3 impact players to solidify the defense.
Notre Dame doesn’t really need a corner, it would be a luxury, but the numbers suggest well maybe they do.
A kicker has to be a priority with the rising sophomore Erik Schmidt coming off a rough first campaign. The Irish have brought in Australian punter Jasper Scaife but he’s the only addition so far.
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To understand what’s going on, I thought it would be easier to work backwards from a roster point of view. Is it possible Notre Dame looked at its roster and believed it didn’t need to make a big nationally-recognized splash in the transfer portal this month? Yes, I tend to think that is the case. I would agree if you looked at 85% of the team right now. This was never going to be a transfer portal where Notre Dame was adding 12 or 13 players with a whole bunch of commits pouring in through these early days of the portal window.
So, how much of this is a money thing then?
GM Mike Martin is in the spotlight right now.Â
It’s one thing to lose Michigan State wide receiver transfer Nick Marsh to Indiana if they gave him a massive deal. But what about losing Rutgers transfer Ian Strong to California? That part of process is weird at best. I think we can all agree that wide receiver is a position of need and there probably shouldn’t be a financial figure where Notre Dame is losing out to California in the year of our Lord 2026.
Is there something off with Notre Dame’s operation? Are they being caught off guard by the suddenness of some players committing elsewhere, and even avoiding a visit to South Bend? Was the allocated pot of transfer money too small, they’ve missed on a couple early targets, and are now scrambling to adjust their targets?
Is it possible the old culture fit issue is playing a part in these early days of the portal drama?
Let’s assume Notre Dame gets quality players and ends up with 1 wide receiver, 3 defensive linemen, and 1 kicker. Despite the ‘poor start’ right now would that end up being a good transfer portal window? Is it not enough help and are more players needed? I looked and Ohio State so far has welcomed a backup quarterback and long snapper through the portal–are their fans freaking out, too?
This is a chaotic time where millions of dollars are being tossed around over a 2-week period. It’s even more crazy when certain programs are trying to overturn large chunks of their roster and nearly a third of FBS players have entered the portal. Toss in agents and promises of playing time and this is a messy business. I’d be curious to know if Notre Dame continues to prefer this sole transfer portal window for the future. Right now, it’s looking like a struggle but there’s still 75% of the window remaining.
Surely, Notre Dame will end up signing players but this early January period with a handful of perceived recruiting “whiffs” may linger for a while.
Thanks for this — captures well the (rapidly, scarily) unfolding angst.
The Matt Freeman post on the ISD site kind of underlines the potential serious trauma for the defensive tackles. Which is in itself an historically tough position for us to recruit.
Honestly, I’m good with CJ and our current wide receiver set — especially with Greathouse sticking around, and Faison leaving lacrosse for full time football. But an awful lot seems to be riding on Onye, which is very concerning. Looks like this Xavier Gilliam is the only target left?
I am thinking two things:
1, The way this current scene is unfolding is so Wild West that our NFL-origin Manager may be having a truly hard time with coping.
2, Given there’s sort of a salary cap, which other schools seem to be devising unseemly ways to avoid, I am thinking we have probably signed up to pay top dollar to keep a lot of our guys. Which rolls the dice on developmental — which ought to be good with HCMF and his approach to running the program. Except big guys in the middle of the D-Line?
Does anyone know why Josh Burnham chose to leave?
He graduated, probably making more than he was offered to stay at ND, and will get more snaps. That’s one where it stinks to lose him but strikes me as eminently reasonable.
I’m less sanguine on losing out on Nick Marsh. He appears to be a difference-maker/might have been the second- or third-best player on our offense, and now we’re scrambling. That IU made it such a compelling offer that he didn’t even bother to come to ND/ND wouldn’t match in that context actually strikes me as fairly concerning. I think that probably indicates either we’re trying to follow the spirit of the House settlement – which would be an extremely ND thing to do historically, tie one hand behind your back while nobody else is – or we just don’t have a big NIL pile like had been intimated for this year by many.
Or, alternatively, we’re about to sign 3 top-10 portal defensive linemen and that’s where our cash is going. That’d be fine too!
With Marsh, I think that we all have to realize that he is a fairly young guy (without decades of life experience as an adult), and that these schools are probably using reliable sales / persuasion techniques.
For example, imagine that you went into visits expecting offers around 1 million, but then during the first visit you were offered closer to $2 million, with the caveat that it was a limited time offer that expired when you walked out the door. You might be tempted to jump at that offer, especially if you thought that school and it’s playing time offer was good.
And on top of that, they were probably negatively recruiting against ND by reminding him that (at ND) he would have to attend classes, MF might not be fully committed to ND, blah blah blah
These guys all have agents, which at least theoretically should make it a little less impulsive than just the whims of a 20 year old. Also the II podcast said that ND wouldn’t/couldn’t match IU’s offer. If that’s true, there’s at least something to be a little concerned about. Also just not getting Marsh on the team is something to be concerned about – he’s pretty darn good and was clearly the top WR target, and he never stepped foot on campus.
It has to be insanely difficult to manage this for coaches and GMs. It probably isn’t just about giving a big offer to one player in the portal, but crosses over into managing the position room you already have. If someone like Marsh wants $3mil, are you going to have to renegotiate with Greathouse and Faison?
This was apparently the reason ND canceled a campus visit from a TE transfer, the guy’s agent wanted TE1 money for someone who would be a depth piece, and that’s just not going to happen. There’s a balance between swinging big for high money transfers who can push your team to the next level and misallocating resources by overpaying players while making the current ones mad.
Agreed on it being eminently reasonable. I didn’t know if he had made a statement or if his parents made comments that shed some light.
Here’s a little more about Burnham. Apparently he wanted to be a 3-down player but ND could not promise him that (especially with Young also being at his position, as well as pass rush specialists such as Sneed, KVA, etc. available for 3rd down packages). A second issue is that it sounds like he wasn’t happy with his lack of playing time near the start of last season
Makes sense. Thank you!
Apparently Mark Cuban made a huge increase in his donation to the football program this year (last year was the first time he had done that in a while, supposedly because he and Curt are fellow Pittsburgh natives), so that helps explain how Indiana is making the huge offers to top portal players.
I think the portal needs to be moved to just after Spring practices wrap up, I think the opening needs to be two weeks for players to enter, but I also think that they should get more than two weeks to decide their destination. Give them 6 weeks from the day the portal opens to make a determination. Right now, it is to much pressure to make a sound decision in their best interest.