Leftovers & Links: On Notre Dame’s poor drafts, undrafted free agents and QB transfers

Welcome to the offseason. No, really. In an era with a seemingly non-stop transfer market, college football now enters as much of an offseason as it ever enjoys. Notre Dame may pull in a transfer or two in the coming weeks — safety jumps to mind after Irish head coach Marcus Freeman identified it specifically before spring practices when 2023 signee Brandyn Hillman was released from his National Letter of Intent and Notre Dame currently expects to have just five safeties on its roster in August — but otherwise, three months of quiet await.

Relative quiet, because there is no true offseason in college football. Eventually, the Pac-12 will sign a television deal, and that will spark a litany of think pieces about how it affects conferences’ alignment moving forward, not to mention Irish independence and talks about a contract extension with NBC. Bookmakers will begin populating season win totals any week now and, soon after that, genuine early lines for next fall’s biggest games. Notre Dame typically pulls in its next rash of recruits in late June and early July.

And then the preseason will have arrived. What offseason?

The last few moments of the 2022-23 football season obviously featured the NFL draft and the transfer portal. The news is known, but some items should be remembered with them.

Notre Dame’s roster the last couple seasons clearly lacked the needed talent to compete for a national championship. Suggesting that after the Irish lost to Ohio State to open the 2022 season was met with incredulity and criticism, but the NFL draft provided some empirical data. In the last two years, Notre Dame has had a total of five players drafted.

No manipulation of that fact can cut into the broader issue. Yes,