Notre Dame’s work in the transfer portal was already productive. With the addition of Tionne Gray from Oregon on Thursday, it became definitive.
The Irish entered this portal cycle with a clear, unavoidable reality at defensive tackle. Between roster attrition and the ongoing uncertainty surrounding Jason Onye’s appeal for an additional year of eligibility, Notre Dame needed at least two interior defensive linemen it could trust to play meaningful snaps. Not prospects. Not projects. Real answers.
By adding Gray to go along with Francis Brewu, Notre Dame checked that box emphatically. And if Onye ultimately returns, the conversation shifts quickly from need to surplus. At that point, Notre Dame is not just solid at defensive tackle. It is flat-out loaded.
Why Tionne Gray Matters
Gray brings a profile Notre Dame simply has not had much of in recent seasons. At 6-foot-6 and over 330 pounds, he is a true space-eating interior presence, the kind of defensive tackle built to anchor against double teams and collapse run lanes by sheer mass and leverage.
That role matters more than it sometimes gets credit for. Notre Dame’s defense has often relied on movement, penetration, and versatility along the line. Gray adds something different. He brings the ability to occupy blockers consistently, allowing linebackers to flow freely and giving the rest of the front more flexibility.
In a rotation, Gray projects cleanly as a nose tackle type who can stabilize early downs and shorten drives. He does not need to rack up statistics to have an impact. His value comes from what he prevents rather than what he produces on the stat sheet.
For a defense that has occasionally struggled to hold firm when interior starters were unavailable, that skill set is not a luxury. It is a necessity.
Two Defensive Tackles Were the Minimum
Notre Dame did not need one defensive tackle this cycle. It needed two.
With Onye’s status unresolved and depth already thin, the Irish could not afford to enter the season hoping health and eligibility questions broke their way. They had to act decisively, and they did.
Brewu was the headline addition. Gray was the finishing touch.
Together, they give Notre Dame multiple playable bodies inside, something that simply was not the case at the start of portal season. In recent years, the Irish have been vulnerable when an interior starter went down, often forced to overextend players or adjust schemes out of necessity rather than choice.
That problem has now been addressed directly.
If Onye returns, Notre Dame suddenly has at least five (and maybe more) interior defenders capable of contributing real snaps without a dramatic drop-off. That is how elite defenses are built. Not just with starters, but with depth that holds up when tested.
The Bigger Picture Along the Defensive Line
The impact of adding Gray extends beyond the defensive tackle room itself. Combined with Brewu and Keon Keeley, Notre Dame has reshaped the entire defensive line outlook.
Keeley’s presence on the edge, Brewu’s ability to play physically inside, and Gray’s size in the middle give Notre Dame flexibility it has lacked at times. Rotations become cleaner. Snap counts become more manageable. Injuries become less destabilizing.
Depth has quietly been one of the defining factors separating good defensive lines from great ones. Notre Dame has had strong starters before, but when attrition hit, the drop-off was often noticeable. This group is built differently.
There is now insulation at every spot.
Completing a Portal Class That Hit Every Need
What makes Gray’s addition particularly notable is what it represents in the broader context of Notre Dame’s portal strategy. This was not a scattershot approach. It was deliberate, targeted, and remarkably effective.
Notre Dame needed defensive tackles. It added two.
Notre Dame needed help at wide receiver. It landed Mylan Graham and Quincy Porter.
Notre Dame needed stability at kicker. It addressed it decisively.
There were no wasted scholarships. No panic additions. No chasing names for optics. And even if the pace stressed out fans, and even head coach Marcus Freeman at times, it is impossible to argue with the final results.
When evaluating portal classes, the true measure is not star power alone. It is whether a program identified its weaknesses honestly and addressed them with players who can actually help. By that standard, this stands as one of the best portal classes Notre Dame has ever assembled.
With Gray now in the fold, Notre Dame did not just improve its defensive line. It finished the job.
