Being a college football head coach in 2024 is next to impossible. Recruiting high schoolers to come play for you is already hard enough, but now when you add in the portal and NIL, I’m not sure how any college head coach, at any level, keeps sane.

The job is even harder right now for those coaches whose teams made the College Football Playoff, as they have to manage and monitor the transfer portal, on top of recruiting multiple high school classes, on top of keeping their own team intact, on top of getting prepped for PLAYOFF GAMES!

With that being said, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman has a tremendous staff around him and Notre Dame is firing on all cylinders in every facet of running a college football program effectively.

The Fighting Irish defeated Indiana in the first round of the CFP this past Friday night in Notre Dame Stadium, just days after signing a top-15 class for the 2025 cycle.

Now, focus has shifted (slightly) to recruiting some of the athletes entering the portal that the staff believes will make Notre Dame better in 2025 and beyond. It seems that the names I am about to discuss were intended to stay quiet until after Notre Dame’s CFP run was over, but things can only stay quiet for so long once national reporters get ahold of it.

The first name, a wide receiver from Virginia, would have been drafted in the NFL Draft this upcoming April but decided to come back and appears to be coming to Notre Dame for the 2025 season, according to early reports.

Fields has been tremendous for Virginia and would be a welcome addition to Notre Dame’s receiver corps that has struggled to find a true WR1 this season.

Another name to know is former Alabama cornerback DeVonta Smith. No, not that DeVonta Smith, but another one from Alabama that is also a star, but on defense. The grad transfer started in every game for the Tide this past season and appears to be joining Notre Dame to play the nickel position.

Notre Dame will be taking a grad transfer nickel corner for the third straight year (Thomas Harper, Jordan Clark) and with how well it has worked out so far, hard to blame them.

Stay locked to Notre Dame on SI for more transfer portal names/targets as they emerge.