Talent surges as Notre Dame's wide receivers transform, blending returning stars with promising newcomers to help the offense continue to evolve.
Notre Dame’s wide receivers room is bursting with talent - both home grown and via the transfer portal. It’s only been a little more than two years since the room was turned upside down after the dismissal of receivers coach Chansi Stuckey and the transfer portal defections of Tobias Merriweather, Braylon James, Rico Flores Jr and Chris Tyree, but the makeover position coach Mike Brown has done is noteworthy.
“Shout out to Coach Brown and the job he's done in recruiting and developing,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said after his team’s sixth spring practice. “He’s done an excellent job of attracting the right guys to this program and really creating a great relationship with them and getting them to trust him, and now they're practicing and playing at a high level.”
The position group was down to five scholarship receivers when Brown took over in December of 2023, and one of them was a former walk-on (Jordan Faison) who came to Notre Dame as a scholarship lacrosse player. Faison has since given up lacrosse as he prepares for his senior season. After leading the Irish with 49 receptions and 640 yards as a junior, this is his first time practicing football and not playing lacrosse at this time of year.
“I’ve never seen him in a spring,” Freeman remarked. “So, it's hard to compare what he can do, given that he would be here in the spring and has previous experience. But he committed to the football development thing, and again, it shows where his mindset is and how much he wants to continue to develop to reach that full potential.
“But he’s as solid and as consistent as any person on our team,” Freeman continued. “And his leadership, the way he's able to help those young guys, this is invaluable time for him, and not just the physical aspect, the mental aspect, the leadership aspect. This spring ball is important, and to have him here is gonna help him get closer to reaching that full potential, but it's helping our team too.”
Jaden Greathouse is back with the Irish this spring as well after missing a majority of his junior season with a severe hamstring injury. Greathouse had just four receptions for 73 yards last season in Notre Dame’s first four games of 2025 but miss the last eight games due to the lingering injury. He is back on the field this spring and Freeman has seen the same explosiveness from Greathouse that he was used to seeing prior to the hamstring injury that derailed last season.
“Oh yeah,” Freeman said. “When he’s out there, man, you know why Jaden Greathouse has been a huge playmaker for our program, and we’ve just got to continue to be smart with his return to play. We can't just go from 0 to 100, and we all know that, and he knows that. He wants to be out there every play, but we've gotta be smart with his progression back. He is just a playmaker, explosive, smart, tough, he's really, really good.”
Other receivers like Cam Williams and Micah Gilbert, who both enrolled early in 2024, are going into their third springs with the Irish and are still looking to make their mark. Gilbert broke his hand early in spring practice a year ago.
“It's good to see Micah back out there after an injury-plagued ‘25 season, and he's making some plays, and he's competitive,” Freeman explained. “I mean, he would make a lot of those plays last year. Cam's getting better, Logan Saldate is getting better, and you're seeing Mylan Graham out there and doing some really, really, really good things.”
Graham, who transferred to Notre Dame after one season at Ohio State, was one of a handful of receivers who were featured by Notre Dame’s social media department after making highlight reel catches at practice this week. Devin Fitzgerald, the son of Hall of Fame receiver Larry Fitzgerald, and Irish legacy Jerome Bettis, Jr both made highlight grabs as well.
“The young guys, right,” Freeman gushed. “For some of those guys that just got here in January, I mean, I remember, shoot, at the end of practice, Larry — not Larry, Devin Fitzgerald. They started screaming ‘Larry,’ that's what I said. But Devin made a heck of a catch right there on the sideline, and Bettis and (Elijah) Burress, they're all getting better, and they're all making plays when opportunities come to them in practice, and they all got room for improvement, like we all do. But really pleased with the recruiting and development of that room.”