While Notre Dame is in the middle of spring practice I thought it was time for a roster and scholarship update. We had a brief winter look at the roster back in December but haven’t done one of these full posts in nearly 5 months. It is time. Plus, now we get to make the transition to look at what kind of player losses are coming after the 2026 season and what that may mean for the future.

A reminder that we are now operating under the 105-man roster rule for football players and adjusted our old scholarship spreadsheet to that fact, which includes players formerly known as (but still called) walk-ons. Notre Dame currently sits at 108 players, over the limit yes, but there was a grandfather clause for any player on the roster prior to April 7, 2025 which means programs can be over 105 for the next several seasons. The Irish have even been trying out several new walk-ons this spring which will likely take the number over 110 players for the 2026-27 season.

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Out of Eligibility Following 2026:

WR Jordan Faison
TE Ty Washington
OL Ashton Craig
DT Jason Onye
DT Elijah Hughes
LB Drayk Bowen
LB Jaylen Sneed
CB DJ McKinney
CB Christian Gray
S Luke Talich

Bowen & Sneed head into their final year with the Irish.

This list is a little smaller than last year but could include as many as 8 starters. That’s a significant chunk of experience to be losing. Of course, it’s easy to see how light the losses are projected to be on the offensive side of the ball. Perhaps that can be a selling point for CJ Carr to come back in 2027. You’ll be surrounded by so many returning players!

2027-28 Academic Classes:

8 Verbal Commits
30 Sophomores
24 Juniors
28 Seniors
17 Graduates
107 Total Roster Spots

Notre Dame just added Waco, Texas running back Lathan Whisenton to the 2027 class which brings the haul to 8 players. He’s also the first commit since this 2026 calendar year began. A couple of roster articles ago we mentioned the possibility of an early, early signing period coming sometime this summer of 2026. However, there hasn’t been any reporting on this change that I’ve found and I think with all the other transfer portal/playoff calendar/lawsuits etc. the sport continues to deal with perhaps this change isn’t coming any time soon.

An early signing day when it’s not snowing, perhaps?

I’d be curious if Notre Dame and Marcus Freeman are in favor of such a move. They essentially wrap up recruiting before fall camp most years anyway. For the recent 2026 class, a couple of special teams players were added very late in the cycle while defensive end Elijah Golden (commitment August 8th) was the only verbal to come after fall camp began. Long gone are the days of adding a third to half of your class during the football season.

List of Eligible 2027 Grad Students:

Tier 1

WR Jaden Greathouse
TE Cooper Flanagan
OL Charles Jagusah
OL Sullivan Absher
DE Boubacar Traore
DE Keon Keeley
LB Jaiden Ausberry
S Adon Shuler

This is a very nice collection of players with different career paths, especially with injuries factored into the equation. For sure, Greathouse and Flanagan will want to get fully healthy and put together a strong 2026 season. Who knows what we’ll see in the continued long recovery process for Jagusah, or whether his eligibility will extend past 2027 in fact. In this day and age I think he may be able to play through 2028 but we’ll see if he’s able to get healthy enough to see the field this fall, first.

Absher is in line to start this season but if not he’d be a prime candidate to transfer to another school with a nice NIL raise and starting minutes on the offer.

Absher is fully in the spotlight for 2026.

Traore may have his eyes set on the NFL and it’ll be interesting to see how Keon Keeley’s career at Notre Dame develops and whether he’ll actually spend 2 seasons with the Irish.

Ausberry has been steadily improving throughout his career and could come back in 2027 as one of the top leaders on the defense. More on the linebackers below.

Shuler feels like he’s been with the Irish forever, and is in line to be a two-time captain this fall. Would he come back to be a three-time captain? That would make Shuler the only Notre Dame football player in modern times to have that honor.

Tier 2

OL Joe Otting
DL Armel Mukam

A bit harsh to have these down in the second tier, more so for Otting who has 6 starts to his name and could end up starting more in 2026 should Ashton Craig’s knee not heel quickly enough. I’d imagine Notre Dame would prefer Otting come back and slot in at center for 2027 but there are so many linemen on the roster now and he could be swayed by other opportunities with another program.

Mukam tried to transfer out before he didn’t, this past off-season. That doesn’t give me great vibes that he’ll want to stick around again, plus he has to prove it a lot more on the field this year compared to last season.

Tier 3

WR Alex Whitman
TE Henry Garrity
OL Chris Terek
OL Devan Houstan
DL Brenan Vernon
LB Kahanu Kia
LS Andrew Kros

This past season the tier 3 was reserved for walk-ons but not this year! Terek has been hurt quite a lot throughout his career and was banged up again to start spring practice. Houstan came to South Bend as a defensive lineman and is heading into year two as a reserve offensive lineman. Once a blue-chip prospect, Vernon has been invisible during his career at Notre Dame.

Kia was a part of the 2021 recruiting class and left for his mission before coming back to Notre Dame. That means if he were to come back in 2026 he’d be somewhere around 25 years old. He hurt his knee during his mission, tore his ACL in 2024, and just had another knee cleanup to limit him during the spring. Not great health-wise for him, although his younger brother is with the team with a higher ceiling and perhaps they will want them together again in another year.

Portal vs. HS Recruiting Needs

The balance between recruiting high school seniors and creating and keeping roster room for college transfers continues to be the hardest thing to project for these articles on the future of Notre Dame’s personnel. So this is a projection of what we think the roster could look like which will then inform how to proceed with the 2027 recruiting cycle and acquiring transfers 9 months from now.

QUARTERBACK
Recruiting: 1
Transfers: 1

Blake Hebert will need to make a big leap this spring, summer, and fall to feel like he’s a favorite to start in a world without CJ Carr. If Carr doesn’t come back for 2026 surely a transfer will be targeted for a starting role. With 2 quarterbacks coming in for this year you could make the case Notre Dame doesn’t need a 2027 quarterback. They don’t seem to be super aggressive in that chase but are courting Illinois commit Kamden Lopati out of Salt Lake City.

RUNNING BACK
Recruiting: 2
Transfers: 0

This position should be all wrapped up soon. Whisenton just committed and Massachusetts running back Isaiah Rogers is committing today and could be a verbal to the Irish already by the time you’re reading this right now.

Will Isaiah Rogers join the club?

WIDE RECEIVER
Recruiting: 2
Transfers: 1

If you scroll up near the top you’ll see Notre Dame is only losing one receiver in eligibility. Signing 5(!!) freshmen and bringing in a pair of high-profile (and likely, very expensive) transfers from Ohio State probably doesn’t leave a whole lot of roster budget for this 2027 cycle at receiver. Quality over quantity is the theme here.

TIGHT END
Recruiting: 1
Transfers: 0

It just dawned on me that the Irish took 2 players at every position for the freshmen 2026 class, including tight end of course. Notre Dame has signed a pair of tight ends in a class more often than many other programs, it’s just 2027 isn’t expected to be one of those years again.

OFFENSIVE LINE
Recruiting: 3
Transfers: 0

The Irish already have top 100 commit James Halter in the fold at tackle and fellow commit Richie Flanigan (younger brother of current tight end James Flanigan) is a defensive lineman who it seems like the coaching staff would prefer he play offensive line but are giving him a wink and a nod for defense. There could be a lot of offensive linemen leaving the program after 2026 (a minimum of 3 seems likely and 5 or 6 could be even more likely) but a huge 6-player class was just signed and the overall numbers are super healthy across the board.

DEFENSIVE LINE
Recruiting: 3
Transfers: 1

Oh, how the tables turn when it looked like Notre Dame was struggling to bring in transfers this off-season and now we’re looking at several new players with a ton of eligibility remaining. Still, I never like going too light on the defensive line and it’s always a good idea to keep supplementing with more bodies for the future. Especially if they really want to move Flanigan to offensive line–they are then starting from scratch in this 2027 cycle.

Flanigan prefers to play defense, but the Irish may prefer him on offense.

LINEBACKER
Recruiting: 2
Transfers: 1

There’s already plenty of talk about Notre Dame going into the portal after the 2026 season to target a linebacker. Bowen and Sneed will be a big loss of experience and there’s a chance (a small one) that KVA comes back from injury and is off to the NFL after impressing this season. Or, KVA, Ausberry, and Faraimo are all back and that’s an excellent core for 2027.

The Irish already parted ways with former commit Ellis McGaskin and have landed Amarri Irvin from IMG Academy. They’ll surely add another commit out of high school and if a transfer target isn’t in the plans maybe a third high school commit, as well.

CORNERBACK
Recruiting: 3
Transfers: 1

A pair of corner recruits have already committed and that’s off the back really strong numbers at this position for both the 2025 and 2026 cycles. A transfer coming each off-season seems locked in for the foreseeable future, especially with Leonard Moore projected as a 1st round pick after this fall. We’ll include a nickelback in this section.

SAFETY
Recruiting: 3
Transfers: 1

Most of our readers may keep an eye out on the roster comings and goings pretty well. For others, it may be a little of a surprise to see a bigger need at safety. I don’t think Tae Johnson is going to leave for the NFL but the way he’s being talked about during spring ball it’s something Notre Dame has to plan for, just in case. Then again, this will be a fluid situation. Johnson and Shuler could come back as starters again. Or maybe they will target 2 safeties in the portal.

SPECIAL TEAMS
Recruiting: 0
Transfers: 1

There are kickers on the roster with a combined 9 years of eligibility so this shouldn’t be a positional target for 2027 unless things get really, really bad on the field. Notre Dame also has a long-snapper committed for this cycle so that’s taken care of, as well. Punter will be interesting to watch. Australian punter Jasper Scaife was just brought in but if he struggled won’t they look to the portal for someone more reliable?