Notre Dame Offers Utah St DE Transfer Byron Vaughns

Notre Dame has to replace the program’s all-time leader in sacks, Isaiah Foskey and lost out on their prized 5-star edge rusher Keon Keeley in the class of 2023. It looks like part of Notre Dame’s answer to those losses is to look in the transfer portal. The Irish offered Utah State defensive end Byron Vaughns who entered the portal last week.

Notre Dame is not the only major program to offer Vaughns in the few days since he entered the portal. Arizona State, USC, Cal Georgia Tech, and Houston also extended scholarships.

PFF graded Vaughns at 77.8 overall on the season with an 82.1 pass-rush grade and credited him with 35 pressures on 301 pass-rush snaps. Vaughns racked up 56 tackles on the season with 8.5 TFL and 2.0 sacks. Only Jack Kiser and JD Bertrand had more tackles on Notre Dame’s roster in 2022. Only Foskey had more than Vaughns 8.5 TFL this season – Bertrand also had 8.5.

In the Gator Bowl, Notre Dame started Jordan Botelho in Foskey’s place, and the senior to be responded with the game of his career to this point. Botelho played a career-high 47 snaps and recorded 2 sacks and 9 total pressures. Those 9 pressures came on just 40 pass rush snaps. Freshman Junior Tuihalamaka played at VYPER after being recruited as a linebacker. Tuihalamaka totaled 2 pressures on 24 snaps (17 pass rush snaps).

Justin Ademilola started the season as Foskey’s backup at VYPER but ended up playing from the strong-side end position, with Rylie Mills getting more snaps on the interior of the defensive line. Ademilola is eligible for a 6th year and would be a huge part of Notre Dame’s defensive line rotation if he were to choose to return in 2023, but a decision by Ademilola hasn’t been made yet – at least not publicly.

Freshman Josh Burham also trained at VYPER this fall, despite initially being recruited as a linebacker like Tuihalamaka. He is also in the mix at VYPER next year for Notre Dame.

Irish Sports Daily’s Matt Freeman tweeted that Notre Dame is looking to get Vaughns on campus sooner rather than later.

If Notre Dame gets Vaughns on campus along with Arkansas safety Jalen Catalon as Freeman mentions, it could make for a big recruiting weekend for Notre Dame. The Irish have been linked to Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman with reports suggesting the Irish are the odds-on leader for the elite gunslinger. There haven’t been any reports that Hartman will be on campus, but if reports of Notre Dame leading for Hartman are accurate, it would make sense for them to try to get him on campus this weekend as well.

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11 Comments

  1. Good work to JD Bertrand for making the AFCA Good Works Team, great honor.
    Caleb Williams also was named to this team in addition to winning the Heisman, what an amazing year.

    Hats off to these fine young men.

    1. Congratulations to Gala apples, a natural snack choice of JD and many other ND football players.
      With its mild, sweet and juicy flesh, the Gala is America’s favorite apple.

      Hats off to all our fine produce growers.

  2. People are having a great chuckle over the story that Jim Hooshbag sent the Michigan coaches’ wives to a bowl-sponsored evening dinner, but had their spouses skip it to continue prepping for the game.
    Which is inarguably childish, a little psychotic, and downright pathetic.

    But is it worse than Kelly spending that exact same week back in 2013 planning his own exit to the NFL?
    LIke ND, Michigan lost. But at least it WAS prepared, competitive, and provided some real good entertainment.
    Kelly just shit the bed, and hung around for another decade like a cancer.

    1. You are obsessed with Brian Kelly. You find a way to work him in to almost every article on this site.

      It’s weird, man. You’re a weird guy

  3. Incredible rumor now going around…..maybe we don’t need Sam Hartman after all !
    ————
    Sources are saying that George Santos might soon be coming to Notre Dame as a walk-on grad student. A largely overlooked QB recruit from New Mexico in 2003, he still managed to get offers from 16 of the top 25 programs in the country, but chose instead to enroll directly into Johns Hopkins medicine.

    He’s a lifelong ND fan. At the age of 9, he would ride the Greyhound bus from his aunt’s home in Waukeshau to South Bend on gameweek Fridays to help with the ND helmet painting. Later, he led a high-school fundraiser for the Notre Dame football Make-A-Wish charity for children’s cancer. More recently, he provided great comfort as a frequent hospice visitor to Ara Parseghian in his final days. Santos recently decided to get into politics at the urging of one of Ara’s friends….Lou Holtz.

    Santos has honed his football skills and stayed in great shape, working out every off-season with his older brother’s idol, Tom Brady. Brady apparently kids George about his ND loyalties….as well as all the shenanigans little George got himself into being a pathological liar.

  4. Oh, the football playoff. We all ove the playoff, don’t we folks?

    tOSU was getting ready to win this game…frankly, they DID win this game. A lot of of Georgia points got dumped, dumped on the scoreboard. Very, very late.

    Where did these fake points come from? Cyber. It’s all cyber, folks. These are Hugo Chavez scoreboards.

    Are we surprised? Georgia again, folks. Georgia. Are we suprised?
    This is a fraud on the American public….sad. Very sad.

    And buy my superhero NFTs. A great Valnetine for you wife, mistress or sidepiece.

      1. Everything in college football is for sale…..pay me to shut up.
        You braind dead, angry, hillbilly fucks.

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