Notre Dame special teams coordinator Marty Biagi is following a familiar script this winter.
Plucking an experienced kicker out of the transfer portal, just as predecessor Brian Mason did before Biagi.
The latest is North Carolina grad transfer Noah Burnette, who announced on Saturday his decision to continue his college career with the Irish. He had a 79% success rate on field goals during his three seasons as the Tar Heels’ No. 1 kicking option.
The 5-10, 175-pound Raleigh, N.C., product, who signed with UNC in the 2020 cycle out of high school, starts spring-semester classes at Notre Dame on Monday, along with the rest of ND’s transfer class, 13 early enrolling freshmen and the players on the 2024 team who will be returning for 2025.
The transfer class started to grow again earlier Saturday with the commitment of Louisville grad transfer defensive tackle Jared Dawson.
The 2024 ND team will also be prepping this upcoming week for the College Football Playoff National Championship Game in Atlanta on Jan. 20. The 7-seeded Irish (14-1) meet 8 seed Ohio State (13-2) at Mercedes-Benz Stadium a week from Monday, with a 7:30 p.m. EST kickoff on ESPN.
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Notre Dame also signed a high school kicker/punter last month in Erik Schmidt, a 6-1, 200-pounder from Milwaukee, who is set to enroll at ND in June.
Burnette entered the transfer portal on Dec. 12, and follows to ND: Blake Grupe (Arkansas State), Spencer Shrader (South Florida) and Mitch Jeter (South Carolina) from the last three offseason transfer cycles.
Grupe is in his second season in the NFL as the New Orleans Saints’ kicker. Shrader is under contract with the Kansas City Chiefs, but is currently on the team’s injured reserve list after suffering a hamstring injury last month.
Jeter has recovered from a chronic hip injury suffered in midseason to go 7-for-8 on field goals during ND’s current CFP run. That includes a 41-yarder in the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s CFP semifinal win over Penn State that broke a 24-24 tie.
Burnette dealt with a leg injury early in the season, which may have led to a regression in his accuracy in 2024. He was 15-of-21 on field goals for the Tar Heels this past season, with the same make/miss ratio in 2022. But in 2023, he went 19-of-20. His career long is 52 yards.
Even though Burnette entered the portal on Dec. 12, he stuck around and kicked an extra point for UNC on Dec. 28 in its 27-14 Fenway Bowl loss to UConn.
Notre Dame got commitments from four transfers in December — tight end Ty Washington (Arkansas), Alabama defensive back Devonta Smith and wide receivers Will Pauling (Wisconsin) and Malachi Fields (Virginia).
The Irish are expected to add more in the next day or so.
The transfer portal opened on Dec. 9 and closed on Dec. 28, but that deadline is just to enter the portal, not for finding a landing spot. Ohio State and Notre Dame players will have an additional five-day window after the national championship game to enter the transfer portal.
There’s also a 10-day spring period, from April 16-25.
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