Evaluating Notre Dame's Biggest Asset: Depth

With the spring portal opening up, Notre Dame is destined to lose some players to the portal because of the depth across the roster. While seeing promising players leave hurts, it is indicative of Notre Dame's biggest asset.

Photo by The Irish Tribune

When the portal first opened on Wednesday morning, the departure of Kennedy Urlacher could've been seen as a major cause of concern for Fighting Irish fans. An NFL legacy that showed great athleticism and instincts during his limited playing time last season, both on special teams and at safety during the 4th quarter in blowout games.

Yet, even with Urlacher's immense promise, he would've entered this summer camp sitting as the fifth-best option at safety and looking at another year filled with special teams duty. For a prospect as skilled as Urlacher, burning another year on special teams ultimately wouldn't make any sense, leading to his entry in the portal, and eventual decision to transfer to Notre Dame's arch rival, USC.

The same could be said about Steve Angeli. One of the heroes from Notre Dame's college football playoff run a year ago, and the most seasoned quarterback who was competing in the three-man battle.

While losing these types of prospects may have sunk Notre Dame a couple years ago, the recruiting and reloading effort made by Marcus Freeman during his tenure has made this a move with very little impact on the Irish.

Notre Dame's depth was on full display last season as the Irish had to deal with, what seemed to be, a never-ending list of injuries. Even when dealing with plenty of starters being lost for the year, the ability to plug-in-place the young talent acquired through high school recruiting resulted in and powered the Irish's national championship run.

Now, three months removed from last season's championship game, Notre Dame's biggest strength last season has carried over into the 2025 season.

Just look at it position-by-position:

At quarterback, Freeman has even stated that there are three guys who have enough skill and talent to be the starting quarterback at Notre Dame. The ongoing battle that will be extended to summer ball has now shifted into a battle between Kenny Minchey and CJ Carr.

At running back, the Irish host one of the deepest and talented rooms in the nation. Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price are both top 10 running backs across the country, only to be coupled by Aneyas Williams and Gi'Bran Payne who have both served as the third-down backs in 2023 and 2024.

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The offensive line lost three starters, all to Power 4 teams, from last season because of the depth and young talent that the program possessed.

The defensive line has enough talent off the EDGE to rotate three solid groups.

The linebacker room will rotate five guys in and out, as they did a season ago.

And finally, the secondary is loaded with NFL talent, which is being curated by one of the best young minds in college football, Mike Mickens.

Long story short, the entries into the portal might scare Notre Dame fans because of the prestige some of the prospects had coming out of high school. While it is disappointing to see them not live up to their full potential in a golden helmet, the reasoning behind them leaving the Irish is probably largely due to the fact of the number of talented players on the Irish's roster. This deep level of skill is what bridges the gap between Notre Dame and the rest of college football's elites.