We’ll start this off-season series with an area we might normally save for last. However, after a memorable season I’m in the mood to cover some Irish special teams now. We’ve finished up year 3 with Marty Biagi coaching these units and it’s been a roller coaster of emotions with some of the top moments for the team but also some really dark times in other areas.

Punt Returns & Coverage

This area was a huge win for the Irish boosted by a great punt coverage unit. Miami would take back a punt for 9 yards in the season opener and then Notre Dame wouldn’t allow a return in 10 out of the 11 remaining games–for a grand total of 11 yards allowed in 2025.

James Rendell’s final season with the program was also a strong one with a solid 44.6 yards per punt average, 13 punts inside the 20, and incredibly only 1 touchback. Coming from Australia after a shaky start to his career, this was a huge development story for Biagi which they’ll look to replicate again in the future.

Marty Biagi Era Special Teams Rankings

YEAR SP+ FEI
2025 49 39
2024 85 31
2023 53 4

The team also blocked 4 punts (no punts were blocked against Notre Dame) with 2 of those being returned for touchdown, one by Tae Johnson against Texas A&M and one by Luke Talich against Syracuse.

Notre Dame also faked 3 punts for 127 yards, led by a 40-yard reverse pass against Arkansas and a 84-yard touchdown pass from Josh Burnham to Luke Talich against Stanford.

Wideout Jordan Faison was squirrely on punt returns totaling 153 yards on the season. It might not seem like much, but in the modern game that was tied for 38th most by a player in the country.

Kick Returns & Coverage

He probably won’t complain about it, but Jadarian Price leaves behind a legacy on kick returns that will be remembered as much as his running back skills. He returned kickoffs for touchdown against Purdue and did USC dirty a second time in his career. Those 2 scores were tied for the national lead, and Price finished 25th in kickoff return yardage, as well.

Whether through refusal or inability, Notre Dame allowed far too many (38!) kickoff returns in 2024 and brought that number down to a much more manageable 15 returns in 2025. However, the average yards allowed shot up considerably to 21.6 which was 87th nationally. Without allowing a touchdown, that unit did leak yardage a bit too much.

Field Goals

If I’m being kind, Notre Dame’s opponents missed 3 field goals in 2025, so the Irish only ended up -1 in net field goal makes!

Watching the 2025 Irish field goal team.

On a more serious tone, Notre Dame signed veteran kicker Noah Burnette in the transfer portal out of North Carolina and flipped one of the top recruits in the 2025 class in Erik Schmidt. The season was set up so well! A year after suffering through an injury-filled season from Mitch Jeter (missed 8 of 21 field goals) the same thing happened to Burnette who was limited to just 6 field goal attempts this past year.

Burnette did make his first 5 but after a miss against USC, he never attempted another field goal for the Irish. More concerning, Schmidt looked wholly unready missing all 3 of his field goal attempts (including a pair inside 40 yards) while missing 1 extra point and kicking 3 balls out of bounds on kickoffs for good measure.

That’s how Notre Dame didn’t end up making a field goal over the last half of the season.

Grade: B

Notre Dame is set to welcome a lot of new faces to the 2026 special teams units, and that will include the field goal holder after Tyler Buchner moves on and had one of the biggest gaffes in recent Irish history fumbling the late PAT snap against Texas A&M. This is a volatile area of football where mistakes and success are magnified tremendously.

The Burnette injury blew up the field goal situation but Notre Dame at least lucked out that the struggles didn’t cost them a game later in the season. Some points were left on the field, though. The other areas of special teams were a big part in the success of the 2025 team.