What's next for Notre Dame at wide receiver with position again in rebuilding mode?

New York Times

08-04-2025

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The wideouts sprinted 10 yards, turned, then came back to the football, bursting between two tackling dummies. Receivers coach Mike Brown fired the footballs, one after the other, until the entire position group took a rep. Almost every football was caught, which still isn't enough for a group seemingly stuck in rebuilding mode the past few seasons.
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Notre Dame would love greatness at wide receiver, the position that produced Golden Tate, Michael Floyd, Will Fuller and Chase Claypool not that long ago. But it probably would settle for competently good, considering an actual wide receiver hasn't led Notre Dame in receptions in six years, going back to Claypool's senior year. Head coaches, offensive coordinators and quarterbacks have changed. The production has not.
Now it's Brown's turn to solve the problem, which begins with doing the basics better. It's why those rudimentary drills during last weekend's spring practice were worth watching. Forget 50-50 catches. Notre Dame is simply trying to figure out how to make the automatics automatic.
'Obviously there's way too many (drops). There's no excuses for it,' Brown said. 'We got to make plays when the ball's thrown our way. It just comes through repetition, man, repetition and then obviously a point of emphasis for us in the room.'
Beaux Collins (seven) and Jordan Faison (six) led Notre Dame in drops last season, with their drop percentages, per Pro Football Focus — their number of drops divided by their number of targets — among the worst by starting Irish receivers in the past five years. Faison dropped 16.7 percent of his targets, the highest percentage by a frontline receiver since Claypool's sophomore year. Collins wasn't much better at 14.6 percent.
Considering the scarce opportunities in Notre Dame's pass game with Riley Leonard at the controls, those basic failures were compounded by the lack of targets. That should change no matter who wins the quarterback job among CJ Carr, Steve Angeli and Kenny Minchey. But the receiver position must improve alongside that offensive development.
'I don't know if you'd call them ordinary plays, but we need to make the plays — the ones that are 100 out of 100, we gotta be 100 out of 100. That comes with consistency in depth, consistency in route running,' offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock said. 'For a receiver, to be honest with you, it really shouldn't matter who the quarterback is. I need to understand space and spacing and depth and specifics of techniques of route running.'
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That was a problem much of last season and a dire one early as Leonard didn't throw his first touchdown pass until the season's fourth game. Route concepts were off. Spacing didn't match how it looked in practice. And when wideouts did get an opportunity, it bounced off their hands. Jaden Greathouse was dinged with just one drop last season, but it came against Northern Illinois, which would have been a 25-yard gain.
Make that catch, and the worst loss of the college football season might not happen.
Yet, considering how Greathouse finished the season — 13 catches for 233 yards and three touchdowns against Ohio State and Penn State — there's reason to think the position can take a step forward. Greathouse and Faison return for their junior years. Will Pauling, a transfer from Wisconsin, joined for spring practice. Malachi Fields, a transfer from Virginia, will arrive during the summer. There's younger talent, too, although there appears to be a gap between the top four and everybody else.
Pauling could offer something last year's three-man receiver transfer class couldn't: prior knowledge of Brown's coaching and Denbrock's system. Pauling signed with Cincinnati and played two years for Denbrock and Brown with the Bearcats before transferring to Wisconsin, where he played for Brown again.
'He understands what things are supposed to look like. He's played in this exact offense,' Brown said. 'He's technically probably played in the system longer than anybody else that's here, which is kind of weird with him being a new guy.'
Pauling was limited during Saturday's open practice, still recovering from foot surgery, but his ability to know where to be and when to be there showed. During a seven-on-seven period, Pauling found an opening in Notre Dame's zone defense and Angeli hit him for a 25-yard gain. The pitch-and-catch was hardly spectacular. Knowing exactly how to run the route meant it didn't need to be.
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'We were not very confident in anything we did in the passing game a year ago,' Denbrock said. 'That I think you'll see take a huge leap into year two. I think that will come from a number of positions, not just the wide receivers.'
Yet it's the receiver group Notre Dame needs to grow the most, whether that's doing the basics better or making contested catches more than once per month. When Denbrock demanded the position improve, he basically put the receivers on notice that a repeat of last year won't be tolerated. The Irish can't afford it with its tight end room thinned out and the quarterback position not the run threat it was under Leonard.
Basically, Notre Dame needs a growth arc like Greathouse had in the College Football Playoff, but applied to the entire position. There are signs it can be.
'We got a little bit more juice than last year, maybe because we're a younger team and have a lot of young guys who are ready to be stars now,' Greathouse said. 'Everybody is more familiar with how things are supposed to be going, besides the freshmen of course. Everything is more in a flow now and we're just tuning up the small details.'
Maybe there will be a step behind the basics, too. But for now, Notre Dame's receiver room needs to sweat the small stuff. If there's something bigger, it will have to wait.
(Top photo of Jordan Faison: Trevor Ruszkowski / Imagn Images)