Heading into the 2025 season we talked about worries with the defensive tackle position on defense and on offense it was the tight end position that looked on really shaky ground. The interior defensive line was able to work things out and even flourish a little bit, although this past fall was a little more complicated and not as rosy for the Irish tight ends.

12 Personnel

Through some scheme tweaks but really necessity, Notre Dame went into the 2025 season preparing to use less tight ends than the past. Mitchell Evans (19 receptions, 171 yards, 2 TD as a 5th-round rookie with the Panthers, not bad!) was off to the NFL while key backup Cooper Flanagan was coming off a late-season Achilles tear and not expected to contribute much if at all.

The Irish even did what was once unthinkable by dipping into the tight end transfer portal to grab Arkansas’ Ty Washington who had 2 years of eligibility remaining. Depth was really needed above all else. Things got more complicated when Washington dealt with a not-insignificant wrist injury during fall camp, too.

Snaps

As expected, very little depth was utilized at tight end in 2025. Eli Raridon tore the ACL in his right knee way back in December 2021 and then re-tore that same knee in October 2022. He did play in every game of 2024, although there were real concerns with how Raridon would deal with the work load as the starter going into 2025.

In that light, he gave Notre Dame one heck of a season playing 85.2% of all offensive snaps and virtually all non-garbage time snaps.

Column 1 Column 2
Eli Raridon 641
Ty Washington 244
Jack Larsen 70
James Flanigan 51
Cooper Flanagan 4
Justin Fisher 3
Henry Garrity 1

Washington was able to play in every game and provide decent snaps in a backup role. Still, I think Notre Dame would’ve loved to take some of the work load off Raridon and Washington simply wasn’t able to do that, especially after being slowed early in the season coming off that fall camp setback.

The Irish, somewhat miraculously, got Cooper Flanagan back mid-season but smartly decided to withhold his snaps and not burn a year of eligibility. It’s not entirely clear if he would’ve been 100% ready to be inserted into the lineup, either. With an Achilles, that seems doubtful but advances continue in medicine every week.

More is expected from Flanigan in 2026.

Jack Larsen got some steady work and made 3 catches in just 6 games during his sophomore campaign–he’ll be someone under the radar heading into 2026. Big things are expected for James Flanigan moving forward, although he just got his feet wet as a true freshman.

Grade: C

This won’t go down as a memorable tight end season at Notre Dame, that’s for sure. The blocking was really iffy at times, although it seemed to improve as more experience was gained by the front line players in the scheme. This certainly wasn’t a line ’em up two tight end set heavy season where the blockers were tasked mostly with getting after it in the run game.

I do think Raridon probably gets an underserved bad rap for 2025, though. He didn’t find the end zone and struggled at times creating plays after making catches with awkward vision and cutting ability. Still, his 482 receiving yards were the most for a Notre Dame tight end since 2022 (more than either of Mitchell Evans’ final 2 years with the Irish) and he was 15th among power tight ends in yardage. I’ll also note, Raridon produced in the first 2 losses to open the season (182 combined yards) which not many players on the team can walk away and say they played pretty damn well during those weeks.

The depth and production behind Raridon was just subpar and not reliable for the season–a big change for Notre Dame in the modern era with their tight ends. You could argue a higher grade here for an offense that did a lot of good things in 2025 but I didn’t quite get there.