Thomas Harper has been a bit of a late bloomer.
Unwilling to try football until his sophomore year in high school, unable to crack the Oklahoma State starting lineup until his senior year in college, the 5-foot-11, 180-pound safety/nickel hybrid believes his best football might still be ahead of him.
Notre Dame came to the same conclusion after watching tape of Harper, vetting Harper and having the transfer portal prospect in for a visit on Wednesday. And on Friday, the Knoxville, Tenn., product committed to join the Irish for his fifth and final college season.
Harper becomes the fifth transfer to commit to join a Notre Dame team that went 9-4 this past season in head coach Marcus Freeman’s first year. He joins Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman, who committed Thursday after a two-day midweek visit, Virginia Tech wide receiver Kaleb Smith, Penn punter Ben Krimm and South Florida kicker Spender Shrader.
Spring-semester classes begin Jan. 17 with winter conditioning shortly thereafter.
The Irish need quality and quantity at the safety position and may not be finished shopping. Arkansas safety Jalen Catalon is reportedly in play as well.
Notre Dame signed three 2023 recruits — Ben Minich, Adon Shuler and Brandyn Hillman — who can help its safety depth chart next season, but the Irish might be light on experience. Minich and Shuler will be mid-year enrollees and will participate in spring practice.
Senior Brandon Joseph, a 10-game starter in 2022, declared Sunday for the NFL Draft. Graduate senior Houston Griffith exhausted his college football eligibility this past season by playing in a Notre Dame record 62 career games.
Graduate senior DJ Brown, a 10-game starter in 2022, participated in Notre Dame’s Senior Day ceremony before the Boston College game, but he has not publicly announced if he will be returning for a sixth season.
If Brown leaves, the Irish would have been left with just two safeties who have played meaningful snaps: juniors Xavier Watts and Ramon Henderson.
After a high school career as a prolific wide receiver at Karns High in Knoxville, Harper played in 42 games in four seasons with the Cowboys. He finally worked his way into the starting lineup as a senior in 2022, but he was limited by undisclosed injuries.
Harper started in all seven of the games in which he played for Oklahoma State, and missed five games before entering the portal ahead of the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.
Harper, a former two-star recruit, totaled 30 tackles, three pass breakups, one interception and 1.5 tackles for a loss in 2022. His career included 93 tackles, eight pass breakups, five tackles for loss, two interceptions, one forced fumble and one recovered fumble.
Oklahoma State’s base defense included three safeties, so Harper often had slot cornerback responsibilities as well. According to Pro Football Focus, Harper allowed 19 receptions on 32 passes (59.4%) thrown to players he covered. Those pass catchers combined for 185 yards and one touchdown. Harper’s 65.0 defensive grade from PFF was slightly better in 2022 than Watts (64.9) and Griffith (63.1) and a decent amount better than Brown (57.9) and Henderson (52.4).
Harper didn’t play against Notre Dame in the 2022 Fiesta Bowl. His older brother, Devin Harper, had 10 tackles and one tackle for loss in the 37-35 victory over the Irish. Devin was selected in the sixth round of the NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys.
Transfer portal resources
The Notre Dame Football Transfer Tracker details who's in and who's out from Notre Dame's roster since the start of the 2022 season.
Rivals has rankings for most of Notre Dame's incoming and outgoing transfers.
The Insider Lounge is tracking which portal prospects Notre Dame has offered.
The Rivals Transfer Tracker is the home for all the transfer portal movement nationally.
The 2023 Notre Dame Scholarship Chart breaks down the roster by position group and year of eligibility, and is being updated with each ingoing or outgoing transaction.
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