Notre Dame football’s newest additions were the first to take part in winter workouts following the 2024 season. The Irish put those midyear additions — both transfers and high school recruits alike — in a sizzle reel earlier this week to highlight the first preparations for the 2025 season.

Even with 13 recruits starting their college careers as early enrollees, a higher percentage of Notre Dame’s incoming transfers will likely have a great impact next season. Six of Notre Dame’s transfer additions have already joined the program. Two more — Virginia’s Malachi Fields and Arkansas’ Ty Washington — aren’t expected to arrive until June.

The Irish could still add more transfers when more players enter the portal during the spring window (April 16-25), but let’s rank the already known transfer additions based on talent and potential.

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Malachi Fields represents exactly what Notre Dame needs at the wide receiver position: a big body who can run and make plays at various levels of the secondary. Fields earned receiving grades above 90 from Pro Football Focus in 2024 on short routes (0-9 yards), medium routes (10-19 yards) and deep routes (20-plus yards). He only dropped two of his 94 targets as Virginia’s leading receiver.

The 6-foot-4, 220-pound Fields caught 55 passes for 808 yards and five touchdowns last season for the Cavaliers. That proved his consistency after totaling 58 receptions for 811 yards and five touchdowns in 2023.

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With the success Notre Dame found with transfer portal nickelbacks the past two seasons with Thomas Harper (Oklahoma State) and Jordan Clark (Arizona State), the Irish have earned a lot of trust in their ability to repeat that production with the addition of Alabama’s Devonta Smith. The 5-11, 191-pound Smith might be the best of the trio if improves in the same way Harper and Clark did at Notre Dame.

That’s because Smith has been equally as good against the run as he’s been in coverage. Pro Football Focus gave Smith grades of 71.2 in coverage and 70.8 in run defense last season. In terms of on-field production, that resulted in 30 tackles, five pass breakups and one forced fumble.

If Notre Dame can get the version of Jared Dawson that played for Louisville against the Irish in September, he should be a big addition to defensive line coach Al Washington’s unit. Notre Dame had arguably no bigger transfer portal need than defensive tackle, and Dawson, who tallied four tackles against the Irish, ended up being ND’s best answer. Could the Irish have done better? Probably. But there’s a lot to like about Dawson’s game, too.

Dawson, who missed two games with an injury, finished last season with 19 tackles, including 6.5 tackles for loss and four sacks, and one forced fumble. The 6-1, 302-pound Dawson can be hard to move off the line of scrimmage and plays with active hands in the interior of the defensive line.

Wisconsin’s Will Pauling would have been higher on this list if he joined Notre Dame a year ago. That’s because Pauling was coming off his best season as a wide receiver in 2023 in which he totaled 74 catches for 837 yards and six touchdowns. But the 5-10, 194-pound Pauling wasn’t as dynamic of a go-to receiver in 2024. He struggled with drops and staying healthy before finishing with 42 catches for 407 yards and three touchdowns in 10 games.

Perhaps reuniting with wide receivers coach Mike Brown, who coached Pauling at Wisconsin in 2023, will help Pauling regain his peak form at Notre Dame. Pauling can do a lot of damage as a slot receiver if he can regain trust in himself after dropping 10 passes last season.

Notre Dame needs another starting safety following the NFL departure of two-time All-America selection Xavier Watts. Virginia Tech’s Jalen Stroman will have as good of a chance as anyone to win that job. But as was shown last year, a young player can beat out an incoming transfer like Adon Shuler did to Northwestern’s Rod Heard II. Unlike Heard last year, Stroman is already on campus and will be available to compete in the spring.

The 6-1, 198-pound Stroman is looking for a bounce back season after an injury in last year’s season opener kept him sidelined for the rest of 2024. Stroman played in 22 games the previous two seasons and totaled 98 tackles, four pass breakups, two forced fumbles and two tackles for a loss. Stroman has yet to show the ball-hawking tendencies that Watts displayed with 13 interceptions the past two seasons.

Notre Dame took a risk on adding Ty Washington out of Arkansas. The redshirt sophomore tight end didn’t finish his final season at Arkansas in 2024 after being dismissed for a violation of team rules. What actually transpired that led to Washington’s dismissal is up for debate, but that shouldn’t overshadow the fact that he didn’t reach his full potential with the Razorbacks.

The 6-4, 247-pound Washington caught 14 passes for 212 yards and four touchdowns in 21 games at Arkansas. But a lot of that production came in a 27-20 loss to Ole Miss in 2023 when Washington caught seven passes for 90 yards and two touchdowns. Arkansas never really tapped into the threat Washington became in that game. Maybe the Irish can find it as he works up the depth chart.

Elijah Hughes has more playing experience than Washington when it comes to snaps, but the defensive tackle has yet to have a breakout performance after two seasons at USC. The lone solo sack of his career came against Nebraska when he ran past an offensive tackle who wasn’t ready for the snap.

The best game of Hughes’ career came at the end of his freshman season in a 42-28 win over Louisville in the Holiday Bowl. The 6-3, 294-pound Hughes tallied three tackles and split a tackle for loss. But Hughes didn’t parlay that into a major role last season. He played more than 20 defensive snaps just once, a 42-20 win over Rutgers. A bigger role at Notre Dame this coming season might not be a certainty, but there’s playing time to be had in the defensive line’s interior.

Noah Burnette certainly seems capable as an experienced kicker from North Carolina. But he was far more successful in his junior season in 2023 than he was as a sophomore and senior. Burnette was 15-of-21 on field goals with one field goal blocked in both the 2022 and 2024 seasons. Burnette sandwiched those season around a 19-of-20 effort on field goals in 2023.

Maybe an early season injury is to blame for Burnette being less reliable last season, but it’s hard to rule out that it was a regression to his 2022 version as well. It will be up to special teams coordinator Marty Biagi to make sure the 5-10, 174-pound Burnette rediscovers the best version of himself at Notre Dame this season.

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