Freeman Singles Out Micah Gilbert in Notre Dame’s Crowded Receiver Room

Marcus Freeman said Tuesday that Micah Gilbert has had as good an offseason as anyone in Notre Dame’s unsettled and suddenly crowded receiver room. Ohio State transfer Quincy Porter, meanwhile, will still be limited when fall camp opens. Freeman’s availability came two days before Thursday’s first practice with the boundary receiver position one of the few up for grabs on offense just a month out from the opener against Wisconsin.

Asked what he needs from the receivers generally and at boundary specifically with Porter not yet cleared for full work, Freeman went to Gilbert by name.

“And at that boundary receiver, Micah Gilbert has had as good of an offseason as anyone. All right?”

Porter, one of the two Ohio State transfers in the room, put up four catches for 59 yards in Columbus last season and arrives with reps likely waiting for him whenever he is turned loose.

“And Quincy still working his way into being full-time. He still will be limited,” Freeman said.

Gilbert’s second look at the boundary job

Gilbert’s resume at Notre Dame is thin, but not necessarily because of talent. He caught nine passes for 93 yards last season with one touchdown. That touchdown came in the opener at Miami on a two-catch, 17-yard night. He added two catches for 37 yards against Purdue. Then he did not show up in the box score again until the November stretch, with single-digit yardage games against Pittsburgh and Syracuse before finishing with two catches for 22 yards at Stanford. Injuries slowed him throughout the year.

“Micah Gilbert has done a tremendous job. He got hurt last year, unfortunately,” Freeman said, adding that “he’s a guy we have a lot of confidence in.”

This spring was the second straight one in which Gilbert worked himself back into first-team boundary reps. He took a heavy load of that work with bodies out around him, and the tape was uneven. The boundary is still the one spot Freeman has not handed to anybody, and Gilbert has been the player collecting those reps while Porter waits.

Freeman was careful about the timelines of anyone carrying a designation into camp, and he did not put a date on Porter.

“If it says limited and not out, then we’re confident that at some point, hopefully before the first game, they’ll be full go,” Freeman said.

Faison is settled and the rest of the room is not

Beyond Jordan Faison, the depth chart is a sorting exercise. Faison caught 49 passes for 640 yards and four touchdowns last season, and his career line of 98 receptions and 1,318 yards is the only body of work in the room that does not need a qualifier attached to it.

“We all know what Jordan Faison can do. He’s as consistent of a football player as anybody,” Freeman said.

Notre Dame would love to get Greathouse’s production back on the field. He caught 42 balls for 592 yards and four touchdowns in 2024, but managed only four catches for 73 yards last season, with his last recorded work coming in Week 5 at Arkansas. After a monster performance in the Orange Bowl and the National Championship game in 2024, Greathouse looked primed for a breakout. The injury bug bit him once again, however, and his 2025 season never got off the ground.

“Jaden Greathouse is a guy that’s been very productive for us when he’s been in there. We got to be intentional, and he’s got to be intentional, about staying healthy,” Freeman said.

Mylan Graham, the other Ohio State arrival, had six catches for 93 yards there last season. Freeman lumped him with the inexperienced group. “How do we continue to find their role, right? And how many different ways can we get them on the field at different positions?” Graham likely fits in at the field position behind Faison but will be tough to keep off the field.

Behind that, the names Freeman volunteered were Elijah Burress, who caught three passes for 21 yards in the Stanford finale, and Cam Williams, who has one career reception. Freshman Devin Fitzgerald, a four-star out of Phoenix who came in as the No. 43 receiver nationally, had a strong spring and belongs in the conversation as well.

“Then we’ll put other guys, Elijah Burress, Cam Williams, we’ll rotate guys in there to figure out again who’s the top six, seven, and how do we use them at different positions to get them all on the field,” Freeman said.

What Notre Dame still has to solve before Wisconsin

Freeman put the next two weeks in plain terms: “Who’s going to be the top six, seven wideouts that we count on?” Gilbert is competing to stay in that group through camp. The boundary reps he stacked up this spring get harder to keep once Porter is cleared and back in the rotation, because those snaps were always sitting there waiting on Porter’s health. If Greathouse can stay healthy, that could be the only real question the Irish need to solve between now and then. Injuries have slowed Greathouse in each of his first three years at Notre Dame, however, so the competition in the slot will be interesting to watch as well.