Notre Dame football’s depth at defensive end will be test again in the 2025 season.
The Irish will be without their most experience edge defender to start the season after Jordan Botelho suffered a pectoral injury that required surgery last week, a source confirmed with Inside ND Sports. Matt Freeman of Irish Sports Daily broke the news of Botelho’s injury on Friday.
Botelho’s injury occurred in offseason training away from Notre Dame’s campus, Freeman reported. His expected recovery timeline is roughly four months. Notre Dame offensive lineman Charles Jagusah needed close to five months to return from a pectoral injury last season.
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Botelho was spotted on Notre Dame’s campus Friday wearing a sling supporting his left arm. He chose to return to Notre Dame for a sixth season after a ruptured patellar tendon cut his 2024 season short just three games into it.
The 6-foot-3, 261-pound Botelho accumulated 77 tackles, 11.5 sacks and 15 tackles for loss in the first 50 games of his career in five seasons. Botelho, who was in line to return for the start of next season with good progress on his knee rehab, will now be sidelined for more than a year since his last game appearance in a 66-7 win over Purdue on Sept. 14.
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman revealed last month that the Irish defense will rely less on two different kinds of defensive ends in coordinator Chris Ash’s scheme. Notre Dame wants its defensive ends to be versatile to play to the field or to the boundary and have the ability to drop in coverage, which was typically reserved for the vyper end position that Botelho played rather than the field end.
The Irish developed significant depth at defensive end last season due to the absence of Botelho and then-sophomore Boubacar Traore, who also suffered a season-ending knee injury (torn ACL/LCL) in September. Notre Dame’s 2025 roster will include a trio of defensive ends who played more than 350 defensive snaps last season: seniors Junior Tuihalamaka and Joshua Burnham and sophomore Bryce Young. Tuihalamaka made 49 tackles, three sacks and 5.5 tackles for loss in his first three seasons with the Irish. Burnham also recorded 49 tackles, three sacks and 11 tackles for loss in 28 games across three seasons. Young tallied 23 tackles, 1.5 sacks and three tackles for loss last season.
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Notre Dame has three other returners at defensive end: Traore and sophomores Loghan Thomas and Cole Mullins. Traore totaled 12 tackles, four sacks and six tackles for a loss in 10 games the past two seasons. Thomas played in all 15 games as a freshman and amassed seven tackles and 1.5 sacks. Mullins didn’t play last season and was sidelined for part of the year following a meniscus repair in his left knee.
The Irish added three defensive end recruits in the freshman class who joined the program earlier this month: Christopher Burgess Jr., Joseph Reiff and Dominik Hulak. All three were rated as four-star recruits, but Burgess, who was ranked No. 36 overall in the 2025 class, was the only Rivals250 prospect of the trio.
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