There’s no doubt that roster churn in college football is very real these days. I can remember back in the early Brian Kelly days with these scholarship articles discussing the difficult decisions of having 1 or 2 players not making their mark on the field having sit downs with the coaching staff to look elsewhere for their future. Is it pushing guys out? Plenty of people weren’t super comfortable with it.
Nowadays, a lot of more recruited players are not finishing their eligibility at Notre Dame. Be prepared for a lot more of these stories coming up this off-season.
Before we turn our attention to the 2024 recruiting cycle, let’s look at the current projections for the 2023 football season.
Current Notre Dame Scholarships for 2023: 92
From the graduate students:
Wide receiver Matt Salerno, grad transfer wideout Kaleb Smith the Elder, offensive guard Andrew Kristofic, cornerback Cam Hart, and long snapper Michael Vinson are all on the roster for 2023 and confirmed to be coming back. We are still awaiting decisions from the following players:
OC Zeke Correll
DE Justin Ademilola
DE NaNa Osafo-Mensah
DT Howard Cross
LB Marist Liuafu
LB JD Bertrand
LB Jack Kiser
S D.J. Brown
We’re always ready for a surprise but the expectation is that Correll, NaNa, Cross, Liufau, Bertrand, Kiser, and probably Brown will all come back for 2023.
Braden Lenzy tweeted out on Saturday that he will not be returning for a 6th year and is taking a job in the real world this month. Brandon Joseph also sent out a message on social media that he’s headed to the NFL.
We’re expecting 10-12 or more players to transfer out of South Bend in the coming weeks and months. There also needs to be room for 2-3 more grad transfers as Notre Dame keeps pursuing those, as well.
***18 Stripes Scholarship Tracker CLICK HERE***
Out of Eligibility Following 2023:
WR Matt Salerno
WR Kaleb Smith the Elder
DE Justin Ademilola
S DJ Brown
LS Michael Vinson
We are almost done with the free 2020 Covid year making these scholarship posts utterly chaotic. The rising academic senior class will be the last affected with the extra free year.
As we’ll discuss more below, this is a tiny group of players who are exhausting eligibility but it’ll be larger as some guys won’t be taking their extra season for various reasons.
2024-25 Academic Classes
7 Verbal Commits
24 Sophomores
20 Juniors
23 Seniors
20 Graduates
94 Total Scholarships
Back in the “old days” before the transfer portal craziness I’d look at this total number of scholarships 50 weeks from Signing Day and think the 2024 class would be on the smaller side, like 17 or 18 players total. However, we should probably get used to their being room for about 22 players no matter what, until proven otherwise.
List of Eligible 2024 Grad Students
* Indicates no redshirt, 2024 eligible only due to Covid.
$ Indicates 6th-year 2024 eligible due to Covid.
# Indicates regular 5th-year eligible for 2024 but also 6th-year eligible for 2025 due to Covid.
Tier 1
DT Howard Cross $
CB Cam Hart $
OC Zeke Correll $
LB JD Bertrand $
LB Jack Kiser $
DE Rylie Mills *
DE Jordan Botelho *
CB Clarence Lewis *
DE NaNa Osafo-Mensah $
LB Marist Liufau $
S Xavier Watts *
S Ramon Henderson *
This is a huge group of 12 players most of whom are already starters or will have starting experience coming off the 2023 season. It’s kind of funny to see people already replacing the current trio of starting linebackers when they all can play through 2024. I envision a lot of head banging about their status moving forward!
Some of these guys will go pro (Cam Hart based on how he publicized his 2023 return almost assuredly will be in this group), some may enter the workforce, and some may transfer elsewhere.
Maybe 6 or 7 come back for 2024?
Tier 2
RB Chris Tyree *
OG Andrew Kristofic $
DE Alex Ehrensberger *
This feels a bit harsh for Tyree and Kristofic. However, Tyree’s carries declined a lot in the second half of 2022 and we’re not even sure yet if he’ll return for 2023. It’s possibly he re-invents himself as a receiver in 2023 and comes back for another run. Still, he’d have played 4 full seasons and it may be more than enough time at Notre Dame.
Kristofic may win a starting guard job this off-season in which case we’ll bump him up to Tier 1 in the future scholarship posts.
I can’t get a good read on Ehrensberger, but he’s entering year 4, has played 22 games over the last 2 seasons, isn’t used very much, and has totaled 4 tackles in his career. He was a bit of a flyer taken in the 2020 class and it may be time to move on if it’s more of the same in 2023.
Tier 3
TE Kevin Bauman #
OT Tosh Baker *
OT Michael Carmody #
DT Aidan Keanaaina #
LS Alex Peitsch #
Bauman has seemed to be favored in the tight end rotation when he’s healthy but has broken his leg and tore his ACL in consecutive seasons while falling behind other younger players.
Baker saw action mostly on special teams in 2022, while Carmody (1 game), Keanaaina (1 game), and Peitsch (0 games) all look like players who could be exiting the program before the 2023 season and almost assuredly will not be on the roster in 2024.
2024 Positional Needs
LOW NEED: QB, TE, OL, LB
Notre Dame has their quarterback and tight end for the class and should be all wrapped up at those positions for 2024. The Irish have taken 9 offensive linemen over the last 2 cycles and should be focusing on quality over quantity for this year. I’d be leaning towards 3 linemen for this cycle rather than 4 overall. Linebacker is in a similar category with 6 recruits since 2022, including some of the highest rated players in each class. That won’t need to be a huge priority for 2024.
MEDIUM NEED: RB, CB
A few weeks ago, Notre Dame was looking to sign 3 running backs for 2023 and instead took only 1 in Jeremiyah Love. I am sure they will be tracking the health and recovery of Jadarian Price as they decide upon numbers for this cycle. There may not be any reps available in 2024 (the current 2 starters will seniors, boy Diggs and Estime could have long fruitful careers if they stick around!) but the depth chart could really open up in 2025. You could argue for 1 tailback or 2 in this class.
Cornerback will be tough to gauge, as well. Ben Morrison will be a junior when the 2024 class steps on campus, is he an early candidate to the NFL? Jaden Mickey is also looking like he’ll be a starter when the incoming ’24 class are underclassmen. Whether to bring in 2 or 3 corners will be a cycle long debate.
HIGH NEED: WR, DE, DT, S
The bulk of the 2024 class should be coming from these positions.
You may say with 4 wideouts in the 2023 class this isn’t necessary. I beg to differ. There’s only one receiver from the 2021 class (Merriweather) and Lorenzo Styles plus Deion Colzie (should they stick around that long) will be out of eligibility after 2024. This should be another class with 3 if not 4 receivers again.
All of the positions along the defensive line are going to be super important for 2024, so all eyes are on Al Washington’s heading up this recruiting effort. The class already lost a decommit from this position recently and the 270-pound Owen Wafle has been committed since May 16th of last year. The Irish have over 30 offers out and have a lot of work to do. It doesn’t have a ton to do with 2024 depth and beyond but the Irish are looking at Utah State defensive end Byron Vaughns and Wake Forest defensive end Rondell Bothroyd–clearly they aren’t happy with the numbers up front right now.
The loss of Peyton Bowen still stings, although Notre Dame signed 3 safeties last month. However, we don’t know if Brandyn Hilliman will ultimately stick at safety, and if reports are true, the Irish are kicking the tires on Arkansas grad transfer Jalen Catalon who has eligibility through 2024. There’s still too much uncertainty at this position and bringing in 2 more bodies for 2024 would be smart.
These posts are always great. Thanks!
To your point about the attrition: it seems like ND is just constantly about just a little bit behind major trends that would be helpful in making the football program competitive. I’m happy they’ve more openly embraced attrition, and I disagree with people who think it’s unseemly so long as they’re doing it the right way by making sure everyone they want off the team can stick around and go to school for free. It’s 4-for-40, but if ND keeps up the promise of the 40 and doesn’t want the 4 they get in return, that strikes me as perfectly fine (and, really, is a minimally necessary aspect of doing business these days).
So, at this rate, we’ll have names on the backs of jerseys in 2025 and finally start offering recruits “acquisition fees” in 2027.
Can they run kids off the team and still let them go to school for free ? I think they’d still count as a scholly on the program. Am I wrong ?
ND can give an academic scholarship to whomever it pleases. The rules are (appropriately) set up so that you can’t play football on an academic scholarship. But if a guy is off the team, he can still go to school for free.
Also as a practical matter ND has been a bit more aggressive in discovering career-ending injuries for players in recent years and calling it a “medical scholarship.”
If the first is true why do the second ?
Can you name me a player that has lost his FB scholarship and gotten an academic one ?
Most recently Joey Tanoa
Tanona was for medical hardship reasons.(Car accident) He certainly doesn’t apply. I’ll rephrase. A player ND no longer wanted on the team that had their FB scholarship taken away and was given an academic?
Yeah I can’t think of a single player ND has done this with. ND technically could do it, but I don’t think they have.
(I also don’t really think ND has “discovered” career-ending injuries for any guys. I think all of them have had pretty legitimate, serious injuries that have led to the medical scholarships. But I could b wrong.)
The only one that I think there was even a whiff of doubt may have been Darnell Ewell back in the summer 2019.
In any event, it’s not a real scholarship saving measure.
Nearly every player not good enough to see the field will transfer. Most of the remaining percentage will eventually suffer an injury–and if you’re 4th string through 2.5 years and having shoulder surgery, you’re effectively medically retired.
There may have been a medical issue with Ewell, but he stuck it out for a couple years on the team, was very bad at football, reportedly didn’t want to play anymore (maybe had family issues? Did he have a kid?), and stayed to finish his degree.
Medical hardship (Stress related), probably the most suspect looking case, due to it not being a physical issue and his spot on the depth chart.
Right, I don’t think they ever have invented or exaggerated an injury to take an athletic scholarship away, they’ve all been serious actual issues.
I’ve seen what Eric said in that Freeman was being very open and real to players that are not likely to see the two-deep about the reality of their playing future at ND about what they want to do about staying or going. Hell, that chased away the starting QB which is still wild to think actually happened ha.
We have not seen the end of ND players entering the portal just yet.
Agreed, we need more than a few to leave. I don’t like this game much. I don’t see a lot of kids eligible for medical switches.
It’s a two way street now. I hear there’s lots of fancy cars in the players parking lot. You need to produce. It’s what the players asked for.
Many/most will be more than happy to go somewhere they can actually play these days (just look at Bellamy). I think there will be plenty more “easy come, easy go” like that
Ah, ok…then how about Matt Hegarty? Or more recently Isaiah Robertson, Trevor Speights, and Cole Mabry…all three of them were the same time and necessary to get the team to 85.
Hegarty got his degree, wasn’t asked back for a 5th year and grad transferred to Oregon (where it looks like he also did not play), so that doesn’t count.
I believe the others were all legit injuries. Neither Mabry nor Speights were able to play in the 2019 season and were still not healthy by summer 2020 when they were removed from the roster. Speights was a grad transfer and doesn’t truly fit the mold for “kid kicked off due to space” being as they literally just brought him in.
Robertson is a curious one, since reports say he went into the portal in Aug 2020….but it also says he had a degree (plus he did not play again for anyone else, so presumably he wasn’t that healthy).
All those examples to me don’t speak to evidence of ND taking a kid’s scholarship and essentially kicking him off the team prior to graduation unless legitimately medically disqualified. That doesn’t mean they are going to allow every post-grad to come back who aren’t good enough, but I think we all know that’s a different matter.
Regarding academic vs medical scholarships, ND didn’t offer any academic-merit based scholarships until 2014. Obviously they’ve always offered lots and lots of need-based and activity-based scholarships, but no academic-merit based.
Since then there’s only a single academic-related scholarship program that’s as generous as the medical retirement scholarships, and that’s the Stamps Scholar program, which is half funded and run in partnership with a national foundation and averages about 7 or 8 awarded scholarships per year. Obviously not a good vehicle to manage athletic scholarship limits.
So in terms of either “doing right” by the injured athletes or campus politics of awarding incredibly generous “academic scholarships” that only injured football players are eligible for the current system of having medical retirement scholarships works way better than trying to shoehorn a guy into one of very limited, very very competitive academic scholarships.
I don’t know if you guys have heard this one, but here’s the scenario: You’ve been kidnapped! The kidnappers allow you to continue posting to pretend that everything is alright. What would you post to make others aware something is wrong?
Should we, perhaps, organize a wellness check for Eric? Only three offensive linemen? Doesn’t sound like him.
I would think if there’s any debate between taking a lower number or a higher number (like 2 or 3) at a position, now it’s always take the higher number if possible. With all the transfers there’s basically always going to be room and with the difficulty of getting transfers in we need to recruit more high school players.
TCU this year – an outlier in getting to the NC game I believe had 13 transfers. We are behind the 8 ball with not being able to take more undergrad transfers this way so more high school kids will have to be taken it seems.
In the interest of trying to be as diplomatic as possible, I’m sure that he’s a great teammate and works his ass off, but bringing Salerno back seems…generous.
6th year too.
BUT…numbers at wideout still aren’t where they should be so…
Always helpful with decisions to think “As opposed to what?”
Yep. I think he has enough value on special teams and as a blocker to be worth keeping. And, after Lenzy’s retirement, they’re only a surprise portal departure and injury away from being back to the danger zone of being thin, considering that freshmen WR usually don’t contribute much for one reason or another.
As opposed to giving more snaps to younger and more talented players on the depth chart, of which we have a sufficient number now.
This assumes that we don’t have defections among the other receivers, which is still just an assumption for the moment. But if we’re talking about how to lose 10+ players from the current roster, Salerno would be a reasonable place to start.
How do you know that won’t happen? Just because he’s brought back doesn’t mean he’ll be given game snaps this year with a lot of younger talent around.
This is ND, we could definitely have a couple two-deep wideouts transfer soon.
I just went through the roster quickly and found about 12-13 non-freshman players who will contribute nothing, without even getting to Spindler/Tyree level of players you could potentially lose that you’d rather not lose. Not sure about the extreme malice towards Salerno, I bet he’s easily ranking more 55-70 on the list of scholarship players rather than being No. 70-85..
Off-season Top 95* Player Rankings content, anyone?
We can rank the best walk-ons too.
lol that would be great!
It could probably be done, with relative ease, in tiers anyway (leaving aside ranking within tiers).
Found this interesting for the NIL talk…
https://theathletic.com/4044579/2023/01/03/college-football-recruiting-nil-2/
–Six of the 15 All American kids surveyed said NIL cash amounts were either vague, small ($75k and an apartment) or non-existent for acquisition fees in the lead up to their signing
–Five of the 15 cited seven figure offers, with a two citing offers of $800k per for four years
–One player claimed he was offered $1 million on signing day out of the blue and turned it down to sign with the program he had verbally committed to
–14 out of the 15 listed the NIL factor of very low importance compared to coaching relationships, player development, fit, etc.
It was anonymous and probably easy at this point to downplay, but unless we’re going to outright write it off as lying I came away fairly encouraged about the overall atmosphere. The attitudes of these kids looked pretty smart about seeing the big picture and not being too lured about murky future payments that may or may not happen depending on how they play in college.
It will take a few years for that to fully filter down. Watching TAMU and the transfer portal this year, given the number of kids leaving, other kids will get the hint.
Vague promises and ‘guarantees per year’ won’t really exist. See the field or lose the dough.
True. And I should have said, we don’t know which of the 15 players the reporter talked to, it’s possible a different sample could have yielded different results. But, overall, I was struck and heartened by the general tone of the kids and the common themes.
I think we all know ND is going to have a super uphill battle to sign a top 10, 20 kid from the south, but that was always a true statement and probably would be even with Freeman and no NIL.
Another interesting tidbit: some of them already have transfer schools picked out! So finishing 2nd might mean more than ever these days (maybe not for ND currently with undergrad transfers).
Ya, don’t hold your breath on that happening. As Dante Moore said,” (ND) is probably the smartest school in the world”.
I forgot to add kicker Spencer Shrader from USF.
I’m assuming he’s on scholarship.
Updated for Moore, I see. I imagine a new one is coming from the Scholarship Czar after assessing positional groups, potential room for a transfer in spring while sitting at 94 scholies.