SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Shortly after new Notre Dame Football general manager Mike Martin’s hiring left the gray area between breaking news and official announcement early Thursday evening, his growing to-do list added a substantial task.

Hire a new director of recruiting.

ND’s current holder of that title, Caleb Davis, has accepted the general manager position with the San Diego State football program under head coach Sean Lewis, Davis confirmed to Inside ND Sports.

While social media figures to amplify the loss to the point of being cataclysmic, the reality is Davis is the third key figure in ND’s evolving “front office” to leave since the end of the season, joining former GM Chad Bowden and director of player personnel Zaire Turner, both of whom landed at USC.

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And yet this is somewhat business as usual as people with scouting, roster-building and college recruiting backgrounds are in high demand for the growing support positions brought on by the growth of NIL, the transfer portal and soon direct payments to players from the universities.

Specifically what the Irish lose in Davis are the relationships he’s built with recruits, his organizational skills and his institutional knowledge of Notre Dame. The 2021 University of Cincinnati grad came to Notre Dame as a recruiting associate in 2021, when Marcus Freeman was hired by then-coach Brian Kelly to be the Irish defensive coordinator.

Davis remained and his responsibilities grew after Freeman replaced Kelly as head coach in December of 2021. That is, until he left Notre Dame the first time in December of 2023 to be Gerad Parker’s director of player personnel at Troy.

Parker was Freeman’s tight ends coach in 2021 and 2022, then elevated to offensive coordinator in 2023. He was hired to be Troy’s head coach in December of 2023.

However, Davis was lured back to Notre Dame in July of 2024.

Ideally, the timetable to get Davis’ replacement on board would be by the time spring football starts, with the unofficial/unconfirmed first practice presumed to be March 18.

In the meantime, director of on-campus recruiting Becca Sites is able to handle scheduling unofficial recruiting visits this spring and official visits for the summer while Miller and Freeman search for Davis’ replacement.

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