Notre Dame's Roster Rebuild Nothing Short Of Impressive

The Notre Dame Football program is all in on 2026. The Irish feature a very talented roster, returning starting quarterback with great odds to win the Heisman, and a second-year defensive coordinator with terrific athletes to deploy. Combining this with a very manageable schedule, and expectations will justifiably be sky-high next season.

Notre Dame has done a terrific job building the current Irish roster. The Irish have been able to lean into existing strengths to build depth while also addressing areas of perceived roster weakness with top-end talent.

Notre Dame's roster retention is beyond impressive

Everyone likes to measure teams' rosters by how highly rated a recruiting class is and how many high-priced portal prizes are won, but this ignores the biggest piece of the puzzle, roster retention.

Aside from players going to the NFL, the only player leaving the program that hurts the two-deep is Joshua Burnham, and he was replaced by Keon Keeley, who has a notably higher physical ceiling.

This is an amazing job by the Irish staff. We all hear about big money NIL paydays for transfers and how much money is spent on landing top recruiting classes, but rarely is it talked about how hard it is to keep the existing players on a roster happy.

Notre Dame has done this, and it reflects wonderfully on the program's culture, Marcus Freeman, and the buy-in level from all involved.

Notre Dame's defensive line and receiving corps just got a mega boost

It was no secret as portal season got underway that while the Irish's roster is super talented overall, there were a couple of spots that needed a depth chart boost. At defensive line, the Irish added three transfer players in Keon Keeley, Francis Bruwu, and Tionne Gray.

Aside from all three being gifted athletes, I really like how all three players have completely different body types and skill sets. This provides the Irish maximum lineup flexibility. Adding these players to the existing talent makes Notre Dame dangerous up front.

For whatever reason, one of the few positions Notre Dame hasn't recruited well enough recently is wide receiver. The Irish know this, and responded with a splash in the transfer portal, landing not one but two former five-star recruits,

Mylan Graham and Quincy Porter, both from Ohio State, the best school in the country when it comes to the receiver position.

I'm beyond impressed with how improved Notre Dame's roster is from the time Freeman inherited the team until now. It has taken years of work to get to this point; all that's left is to cash in for Notre Dame's next national title.

MYLAN GRAHAM WILL JOIN QUINCY PORTER AT NOTRE DAME

Both former 5⭐️ WRs coming out of high school, @MylanGraham will join his former Ohio State teammate @QuincyPorter18

Huge wins for Notre Dame this portal season, although next year might be a what-if year for the Buckeyes.… pic.twitter.com/BizVDDl0bF
— Nathan Chavarria Byrne (@biteforces) January 16, 2026