The scholarship numbers game is a lot more clear now than it was back during the wild football season played during the on-going pandemic. The Notre Dame roster has been sufficiently shaken up by off-season moves and now it’s that time again for another update.

These early calendar winter scholarship posts are always broken up into 2 parts: First, how Notre Dame is tracking for scholarships in the upcoming season. Secondly, how the Irish are shaping up for scholarships in the upcoming 2022 recruiting class and beyond. Once it becomes clear how the numbers look in the former area our subsequent scholarship posts will transition to only dealing with the latter signing recruiting class, almost exclusively these days, in late December.

The NCAA has ruled on the scholarship situation for the 2021 football season, we’ve clipped the most important points here:

  • For the 2020-21 season, the team has 25 seniors on scholarship. Let’s say all of these seniors get an extra year of eligibility.
  • For the 2021-22 school year, this program could bring back up to 25 seniors and all of those seniors are eligible to keep their scholarships.
  • If the school is able to fund the maximum number of scholarships it can for the 2021-22 school year, they could have 110 athletes on scholarships. That means 25 returning seniors and 85 others.

As we’ll see below, Notre Dame is obviously not in any danger of bringing back 25 seniors from the 2017 class, nor can I imagine any other program in the country will be coming close to bringing back so many players and filling a quota up to 110 scholarships. Only a few programs in the country have the money to pay for such a large amount of extra scholarships anyway.

Current Notre Dame Scholarships for 2021 Football: 88

*The count of 88 does include running back commit Logan Diggs who hasn’t signed yet. 

Our previous scholarship post from back in mid-November laid out why Notre Dame likely wouldn’t carry a huge roster for 2021 and that’s already proven itself out. We can expect the Irish to be active in the transfer market to add additional pieces this fall but only 88 scholarships right now is actually even lower than I imagined so far out from the season.

In the past it’s not uncommon for the program to be in the low 90’s in scholarships around this time of the year. For example, the program was at 88 scholarships back in mid-April 2020 and it’s quite possible Notre Dame is well below that figure in April 2021.

***SCHOLARSHIP CHART CLICK HERE***

We figured no one was coming back for a 6th year and that is exactly what happened. There were 9 rising 5th-year seniors who were able to come back for 2021 and all but 3 have decided to return to Notre Dame. Those that did not include running back/receiver Jafar Armstrong, offensive lineman Aaron Banks, and offensive lineman Colin Grunhard.

From the true seniors, defensive tackle Kurt Hinish and kicker Jonathan Doerer are coming back but tight end Brock Wright and offensive lineman Robert Hainsey are not.

While quarterback Jack Coan has been added from Wisconsin a bevy of players have recently entered the Transfer Portal, including: safety Houston Griffith (some scuttlebutt that he could be convinced to stay by new defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman), linebacker Jack Lamb, defensive end Ovie Oghoufo, wide receiver Micah Jones, and corner Isaiah Rutherford, while tight end Tommy Tremble became the 18th Notre Dame player in history to turn pro after just 3 seasons on campus.

Out of Eligibility Following 2021:

QB Jack Coan
DT Kurt Hinish
K Jonathan Doerer

Barring injury and additional eligibility provided by the NCAA crystal ball these are the only players technically unable to return in 2022.

2022-23 Academic Classes

5 Verbal Commits
27 Sophomores
17 Juniors
20 Seniors
21 Graduates
90 Total Scholarships

Looking this over, 90 scholarships accounted for when the 2022 recruiting class just welcomed its 5th member seems like an excessively high number. Will this lead to a smaller 2022 class?

List of Eligible 2022 Grad Students

Tier 1

OL Jarrett Patterson
DT Myron Tagavailoa-Amosa*
LB Drew White*
WR Kevin Austin
OL Josh Lugg*
DT Jayson Ademilola
DE Justin Ademilola
LB Shayne Simon
WR Braden Lenzy
S D.J. Brown
LB Bo Bauer
TE George Takacs
LB Paul Moala
CB Tariq Bracy

Tier 2

RB C’Bo Flemister
LB Isaiah Pryor*
WR Avery Davis*
WR Lawrence Keys
WR Joe Wilkins
OL Dillan Gibbons*

Tier 3

OL John Dirksen

The (*) indicates players who are eligible for a 6th year due to the Covid rules from 2020. We’ll continue to assume that it’ll be exceedingly rare for any of these players to decide to come back. Remember, this additional Covid year will continue to be available for the 2018, 2019, and 2020 classes. In other words, all of the non-starred players above can be eligible to be back on this same list for 2023 and the same will happen for 2024 and 2025 before last year’s freshmen class cycles out.

In a normal year, Notre Dame typically carries anywhere from 6 to 8 graduate players so we can assume nearly two-thirds of these players above will not be with the Irish in 2022. We’ll cross off all the 6th year eligible players and move on from there.

That would leave 10 players from the Tier 1 list:

Jarrett Patterson – Coming off an injury, I would think he’ll return unless he blows up into a Day 2 pick possibility.

Kevin Austin – How can we presume anything at this point? If he has a big year he’s probably gone. If he’s injured again, maybe he tries some new scenery at a different college? If he’s serviceable to good maybe he returns?

Jayson Ademilola – Likely a starter in 2022, he should come back.

Justin Ademilola – A possible starter in 2022 along with his brother which would be pretty cool. We still need to see how the new defense under Marcus Freeman shakes out for someone like Justin.

Shayne Simon – Tough call, potentially 2 years of starting under his belt. It’s possible he’s ready to try professional football.

Braden Lenzy – Due to his size I don’t see a great draft grade luring him. But, he has the skills to play in the NFL and may need more work on his resume.

D.J. Brown – Unless the prospects at safety improve dramatically I would think Brown is in line to start for the next 2 years.

Bo Bauer – I’m hoping he returns, he could possibly start at middle linebacker finally.

George Takacs – Made some big plays kind of out of nowhere in 2020 and should become a much bigger part of the offense now with Tremble leaving early and Wright moving on.

Paul Moala – If he comes back fully healthy you’d think he’s a part of the plans for 2022, but I also wonder if his injury will set him back in the middle of a defensive scheme transition.

Tariq Bracy – Can he shake off 2020’s disappointment? It’s entirely possible he’s a starter for the next 2 years but also possible he transfers this summer.

My best guess right now is that these 7 players will come back: Patterson, both Ademilola’s, Lenzy, Brown, Bauer, and Takacs.

Using those 7 as our guide that would put the projected scholarship number at 76 for 2022 and leave 9 more spots in the 2022 class for a total of 14 overall. That’s a tiny class!

2022 Positional Needs

Although that figure of 14 players in the class is scary, it’s unrealistic for it to stay that low. We have years upon years of evidence that the program will prefer new freshmen instead of modestly decent graduate players so there’s really no danger of Notre Dame packing in a dozen 5th-year players in any of the upcoming cycles to come.

We have to build in natural attrition, of course. The Irish went big in the 2021 cycle (27 players!) and the history suggests a few from such a large class will shake free sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, the Covid rules are likely to present max class sizes in the 20-21 player range unless we see abnormally large amounts of attrition, which is certainly possible as we enter uncharted waters.

For example, check out this official text from the NCAA:

Recruits need to be realistic about the possibility of fewer scholarship opportunities and available roster spots. Recruits will need to re-evaluate their list of target schools to widen their college search geographically and consider programs across all division levels. This means student-athletes may find themselves at a school that wasn’t originally on their list.

Recruits who are set on competing at the D1 level should expand their search to include D2 and competitive NAIA programs. Student-athletes looking to attend college in a certain region of the country should expand their search to include other regions, as well. Recruits who planned on receiving an athletic scholarship should look into other alternatives to cover college costs, such as merit-based scholarships, grants, work study and etc. It’s now more important than ever for student-athletes to keep an open mind about where they plan to compete for the next four years.

This could be a rough couple of years for borderline Power 5 recruits and borderline FBS recruits. We’re likely to see a lot of squeezing at the big schools which will force many recruits and transfers into the lower levels of college football. The Power 5 programs especially are going to want to get back to normal as soon as possible, aka sign large classes, and the excess players have to go…somewhere.

I have 4 positions of focus for the 2022 class:

Quarterback – With a one-and-done grad transfer and another quarterback with an injury concern, this feels like a cycle to follow up Buchner with a top-notch prospect. It’s a really important year to boost the talent at this position.

Defensive Tackle – Unless other players add weight and grow into this position only Rubio, Mills, and Keanaaina have been brought into the fold over 2020-21. At least a couple really strong players for the interior will be crucial for the future.

Middle Linebacker – It’s likely Marcus Freeman shuffles some linebackers around but until then a traditional middle linebacker body-type was not recruited over the past 2 seasons. I have to imagine Freeman is looking over the country keeping an eye out for someone that fits his mold.

Safety – I mentioned it in the introduction to the Marcus Freeman defense article last week that we’ll probably see some corners, particularly the young ones, get some looks at safety. Right now, we have 7 corners from the 2020-2021 classes to just 2 safeties. Freeman may balance that out, but if not safety is a huge, huge need in 2022.