Notre Dame Adds Graduate Transfer Trevor Speights To Running Back Corps
Notre Dame’s running back stable — which has been considered relatively unstable the past couple of years — has added a new workhorse.
Stanford graduate transfer Trevor Speights has announced he will enroll at Notre Dame this season with one year of eligibility remaining, although a waiver could grant him an additional year with the Irish.
Despite the presence of six scholarship players at running back, the situation has been unsettled enough to add Speights, whose college football career never quite flourished with the Cardinal because of injury and playing in the shadow of a couple of Heisman Trophy candidates. He picked Notre Dame over Rice.
Notre Dame’s connection to the 5-11, 203-pound Speights, a former three-star recruit from McAllen, Texas, is second-year Notre Dame running backs coach and first-year run-game coordinator Lance Taylor, who recruited him while working at Stanford from 2014-16.
• Speights was redshirted in 2016, his lone year with Taylor, while luminaries Christian McCaffrey and Bryce Love — both Heisman runners-up in different years — combined for 2,386 rushing yards and 6.6 yards per carry.
• In 2017, Speights was the third option behind Love (his year as the Heisman runner-up) and Cameron Scarlett, finishing with 142 yards on 36 carries (3.9 yards per attempt).
His best game was 61 yards on eight carries during a 49-7 blowout of Oregon — and his second best was five carries for 19 yards in a 38-20 defeat of Notre Dame.
• In 2018, Speights remained behind Love, slowed by injuries that season, and Scarlett. His final numbers that year were 59 carries for 211 yards (3.6 yards per carry), and six catches for 52 more.
His best contest was versus Football Championship Subdivision foe UC Davis in which his 11 carries netted 87 yards.
He became featured during Love’s absence in 20-13 win versus Arizona State (19 carries for 34 yards) and a 40-21 defeat to Utah (17 carries for 56 yards).
• During Stanford’s 4-8 meltdown in 2019, Speights did not see action, with no specific reason given, although injury was presumed. In January, he became the 15th Cardinal player to enter the transfer portal.
He finished his Cardinal career with 353 rushing yards on 92 carries (3.8 yards per attempt).
With the graduation of Tony Jones Jr., the top returning rusher for Notre Dame is senior Jafar Armstrong, who was recruited as a wide receiver but shifted to running back as a 2018 sophomore to provide more depth at the position.
Armstrong has rushed for 505 career yards — but each of the past two seasons he was greatly inhibited with injuries, first with a bursa sac knee infection after the fourth game in 2018, and then an abdominal tear in the opening series of the first game last year at Louisville.
Also vying for action will be juniors Jahmir Smith and C’Bo Flemister, sophomore Kyren Williams and incoming top-100 recruit and speedster Chris Tyree.
Former walk-on Mick Assaf was put on scholarship through at least the spring and summer and is back for a fifth season.
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