If you were looking forward to the openiong of the transfer portal to get a few big offseason wins for Notre Dame, this past weekend was probably a little disappointing. Let\u2019s quickly recap some of went on, and then maybe we can exhale a little bit, and put things into perspective.<\/p>\n
GONE<\/p>\n
Arguably two of the biggest targets on the Notre Dame transfer portal wish list were Michigan State WR Nick Marsh, and Iowa State CB Jontez Williams. Notre Dame was looking to replace Malachi Fields with Marsh as a proven talent at WR, and Williams was likely lined up to be Notre Dame\u2019s annual nickelback pull out of the portal.<\/p>\n
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Both players had visits scheduled with Notre Dame, and both players committed to the first school they visited. Marsh committed to the Indiana Hoosiers, and Williams committed to the USC Trojans.<\/p>\n
While there are a number of Irish fans lining up to criticize Notre Dame for these losses, I\u2019m not privy to what every offer looks like (as far as contracts are concerned). One complaint that might be the loudest is that Notre Dame chose not to host any players this weekend. I\u2019ve heard multiple reasons why that was the case, but I\u2019m not sure it matters as much as we think. With portal players, the first visit seems to be the school they have targeted themselves as the top choice (probably after some back channel talks) and as long as things check out \u2014 they\u2019re in. This is quite different from high school recruiting when you want the last visit most of the time.<\/p>\n
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So\u2026 as much as Notre Dame fans thought the Irish should get both players, they were likely already going to commit to their top choice right off the bat.<\/p>\n
OUR OLD FACES IN NEW PLACES<\/p>\n
Several Notre Dame transfer portal entries committed to their new home over the weekend. The most notable players are defensive end Josh Burnham who committed to Indiana, and quarterback Kenny Minchey who committed to Nebraska. Fomer walk-on quarterback Anthony Rezac also committed to South Dakota State through the transfer portal this weekend.<\/p>\n
IN<\/p>\n
OUT<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
QB \u2013 Kenny Minchey \u2013 Nebraska<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
S \u2013 Taebron Bennie-Powell<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
RB \u2013 Gi\u2019Bran Payne<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
S \u2013 JaDon Blair<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
CB \u2013 Chance Tucker<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
S \u2013 Ben Minich<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
K \u2013 Marcello Diomede<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
DB \u2013 Karson Hobbs<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
DE \u2013 Joshua Burnham \u2013 Indiana<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
DT \u2013 Armel Mukam<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
CB \u2013 Cree Thomas<\/p>\n
\u2013<\/p>\n
QB \u2013 Anthony Rezac \u2013 South Dakota St.<\/p>\n
STILL VISITING<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s hard to say, \u201cyeah man that guy is visiting\u201d after the Marsh and Williams incident, here is the list of players currently scheduled to visit Notre Dame:<\/p>\n
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Tuesday \u2014 Penn State DT\u00a0Xavier Gilliam<\/a> A QUARTERBACK?<\/p>\n Yes. On the latest Earned 5-Star Podcast I strongly advised that Notre Dame should find a QB to come in and battle for the #2 job even though that player would need to come from a small pool of players. It looks like Notre Dame pulled something out of the pool in Mercer QB Braden Atkinson, but we will have to see how this plays out.<\/p>\n A KICKER?<\/p>\n Obviously yes, Notre Dame is going to grab a kicker in the portal \u2014 but who? I\u2019ve heard conflicting tidbits about a couple different players, but unfortunately I can\u2019t really say much more. I do firmly believe the Irish will land a kicker early this week, and it\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n SETTLE DOWN<\/p>\n There are a lot of complaints out there, and to be fair, I think most of the complaints are also fair.<\/p>\n However\u2026 change your underwear.<\/p>\n The \u201cbad news\u201d so far hasn\u2019t been devastating to the 2026 campaign. Notre Dame has an incredibly deep and talented secondary right now, and if the Irish need just ONE wide receiver, there are still a number of really good targets in the portal. Notre Dame currently has 14 receivers set to play in 2026 and I\u2019m still willing to bet that guys like Elijah Burress and Micah Gilbert step up in a big way with CJ Carr throwing the football.<\/p>\n Notre Dame\u2019s biggest need really is along the defensive line, and they are still very much in the mix for the guys they have targeted.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n While we are living in a transfer portal world, you should probably remember that Notre Dame just signed its best recruiting class in at least 30 years. That doesn\u2019t happen at Notre Dame (in the NIL world) by chance. Notre Dame is doing everything it can to field the best roster they can in 2026 and beyond.<\/p>\n COMING IN HOT<\/p>\n The news all weekend has been fast and furious. I expect much of the same this week, so be on the lookout for good (and maybe bad) news over the next few days. I caution everyone from making a bunch of definitive statements that may look foolish in the coming days, weeks, and months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you were looking forward to the openiong of the transfer portal to get a few big offseason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[952,25688,7,69211,4725,6691,2950,40525,33980,27002,343,1003,49534,1401,948,1875,967,4156],"class_list":["post-655587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-boston-college","tag-cj-carr","tag-football","tag-ian-strong","tag-indiana-hoosiers","tag-iowa-state","tag-jalen-thompson","tag-jontez-williams","tag-kenny-minchey","tag-malachi-fields","tag-michigan-state","tag-nebraska","tag-nick-marsh","tag-notre-dame","tag-penn-state","tag-players","tag-south-dakota","tag-transfer-portal"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115841878241089862","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Monday \u2014 Central Florida DT\u00a0Horace Lockett<\/a>
Tuesday \u2014 Michigan State DE\u00a0Jalen Thompson<\/a>
Monday \u2014 Wake Forest DT\u00a0Mateen Igirogba<\/a>
Monday \u2014 Iowa State WR\u00a0Xavier Townsend<\/a>
This week \u2014 Rutgers WR Ian Strong<\/a>
Monday \u2014 Tulsa TE Brody Foley<\/a><\/p>\n