Our last scholarship update came back on March 18th this year, and wow, a lot has changed over the last 4 months. Not only has Notre Dame been on a hot streak of recruiting, we are now opening the new era of 105 scholarship/roster limits with a $20.5 million spending cap beginning with this upcoming 2025-26 academic year. Remember, that $20.5 million is set to be spread across a school’s entire athletic program, not just football. However, most expect about $15 million (or $142,000+ per rostered player on average) to go towards football while college basketball teams will likely grab a significant amount of the remaining share.

If Notre Dame elects to spread $2 million on both of its basketball teams that would leave $3.5 million for the roughly 770 remaining Fighting Irish varsity athletes, or about $4,500 apiece.

With the 105-man rule, I’ve updated our scholarship chart which I’ll now call our roster chart from here on out:

***NEW 18 Stripes ROSTER Tracker CLICK HERE***

I’ve simplified the chart by removing the Composite team rankings, players signed, and players leaving. In the transfer portal era the recruiting websites are doing a great job of tracking these moves these days. Now, we have all rostered players included in each class with the traditional non-scholarship or walk-on players marked in blue.

Out of Eligibility Following 2025:

RB Jake Tafelski
WR Malachi Fields
WR Will Pauling
WR Tyler Buchner
TE Kevin Bauman
DE Junior Tuihalamaka
DE Jordan Botelho
DT Gabriel Rubio
DT Jason Onye
DT Jared Dawson
CB Chance Tucker
CB Davonte Smith
S Jalen Stroman
PK Noah Burnette
P James Rendell

We’ll dive a little deeper into the roster limit in a second but for now running back Jake Tafelski is the only walk-on who is out of eligibility after 2025, plus Tyler Buchner too whom it’s rumored will be moving back to quarterback this fall.

Buchner, kinda sorta a walk-on but all that matters now is being on the roster.

Jordan Botelho turned 24 years old back in May and tore his pectoral muscle recently after missing 13 games last year. It’s possible he returns to Notre Dame for a 7th season in 2026, we’ll see.

2026-27 Academic Classes

22 Verbal Commits
26 Sophomores
28 Juniors
27 Seniors
17 Graduates
120 Total Roster Spots

Looking ahead to the future, there are a lot more players to manage with the 105 rule! Notre Dame’s hot streak in recruiting has caused a flurry of commits recently and we’ve had 15 new verbal pledges in the 2026 class since our last article:

RB Javian Osborne
RB Jonaz Walton
WR Bubba Frazier
TE Ian Premer
TE Preston Fryzel
OT Gregory Patrick
OT Grayson McKeogh
OT Charlie Thom
DE Rodney Durham
DE Ebenezer Ewetade
DT Tiki Hola
LB Jakobe Clapper
CB Khary Adams
S Joey O’Brien
S Ayden Pouncey

Since spring football ended Notre Dame lost a pair of players to the transfer portal. First up was safety Kennedy Urlacher entering on April 16th and eventually choosing USC. A day later, quarterback Steve Angeli jumped into the portal and ended up at Syracuse.

If you look at the roster spreadsheet, you’ll see Notre Dame is sitting on 113 players, 8 over the limit. A full list of the “walk-ons” for 2025 includes:

QB Anthony Rezac, Sophomore
RB Dylan Devezin, Senior
RB Jake Tafelski, Senior
WR Tyler Buchner, Senior
WR Xavier Southall, Sophomore
WR Matt Jeffery, Sophomore
WR Leo Scheidler, Senior
WR Alex Whitman, Junior
TE Justin Fisher, Senior
TE Henry Garrity, Junior
OL Max Anderson, Sophomore
OL Robbie Wollan, Sophomore
LB Tommy Powlus, Sophomore
LB Jerry Rullo, Senior
CB Isaiah Dunn, Senior
CB Mickey Brown, Senior
CB Charles Du, Senior
PK Marcel Diomede, Junior
LS Andrew Kros, Junior
LS Joseph Vinci, Freshman

A big piece to this puzzle is the rule grandfathering in any current rostered players for the entirety of their careers. In other words, college football programs will be able to go over the 105-man roster limit for quite a long time. Giving school’s this type of flexibility makes sense for the most part, although we’re unlikely to see programs carrying super bloated rosters way over the 105 limit.

List of Eligible 2026 Grad Students

Tier 1

RB Jadarian Price
TE Eli Raridon
OL Ashton Craig
OL Billy Schrauth
OL Aamil Wagner
DE Josh Burnham
DT Donovan Hinish
LB Jaylen Sneed

No changes in this section since spring practice where everyone is either a starter, on the two-deep, and/or highly valued and a need to return for 2026. Of course, we’re likely to see a 2-3 of these players leave anyway either via the portal, NFL, or other means.

Tier 2

RB Gi’Bran Payne

I was a little surprised that Payne has remained with Notre Dame thus far as he’s coming off an injury and the carries for the running backs will be a fight every single game. He’s from Cincinnati and was previously committed to Indiana before flipping to the Irish way back when. I think he’ll be a quality veteran presence this year and transfer to Ball State, Miami (OH), Louisville, Ohio, or Marshall for 2026–basically somewhere close to home with a decent chance of playing time.

Tier 3

TE Ty Washington
RB Dylan Devezin
WR Leo Scheidler
TE Justin Fisher
LB Jerry Rullo
CB Isaiah Dunn
CB Mickey Brown
CB Charles Du

See, here we have 7 players from the walk-on squad that can be cleared off the roster for 2026 which seems highly likely. Notre Dame will probably tweak the way it recruits freshmen for a while to accommodate a grandfathered player or two over the next 4 seasons but that’s it. Heck, in a year or two these rules could be drastically changed anyway. A few of these players have brought quite a bit of value in their career so it’s possible they would return in 2026 over trying to find freshmen replacements from the PWO mold.

Washington committed over 6 months ago and hasn’t practiced with ND yet, it’s just weird sometimes.

In my last article, I mentioned Ty Washington having 2 years of eligibility remaining after coming over from Arkansas but I still think he’ll leave after one campaign in South Bend. The Irish just landed a pair of tight ends for the 2026 class, as well. Maybe Washington will be really good and prove me wrong! But, if Eli Raridon returns there should be enough young talent at Notre Dame and Washington may want another shot somewhere else.

Positional Needs

LOW NEED: QB, RB, TE, OL, CB, S

Notre Dame currently has 15 players verballed to the program right now from these positions in the 2026 cycle. You could maybe argue for another corner or safety if you really wanted more depth but the Irish appear happy to stand pat for now.

MEDIUM NEED: DE, LB

Rodney Durham is one of the best players in this class so I’m not surprised they aren’t interested in a 3rd edge rusher. With last year’s haul, I am a bit interested to see if they revisit adding another linebacker for 2026. Right now, that doesn’t look like the plan.

HIGH NEED: WR, DT

Things at wide receiver should be cleared up very soon. Kaydon Finley (0.9499) is committing on July 4th and looks to be down to Notre Dame and Texas. The day after, Devin Fitzgerald (0.8858) is announcing with the Irish favored. Additionally, Brayden Robinson (0.8991) is favored to pick Notre Dame, too. How about a 5-man wide receiver class!?

Finley locked up?

Notre Dame is circling around Cardinal Mooney defensive tackle Elijah Golden (0.9273) at a major position of need. He’s coming off another visit to campus recently and is reportedly looking to decide on July 26th.

New Calendar

As we wrap up the 2026 class in the coming months I can’t help but think about the 2027 class being the Earliest Class Ever™ if the recruiting calendar changes come into effect next year. The Irish just added long snapper Sean Kraft as the first official commit of the 2027 class and yet the whole cycle could be wrapped up in the next 11 months.

That’s if the June signing period rule actually passes. As we’re seeing right now, the summer June visit period has been fruitful and a good time of the year to really bring the class together and solidify commits. I’m curious to see how this will change if this once visit heavy few weeks in June becomes the time when rising seniors in high school are now signing their NIL packages and officially committing to Notre Dame. That could put more emphasis on recruiting during the spring–either way the best recruiting operations throughout the country will adjust the best and adapt. It’d be nice if it was warmer during the spring in South Bend.