Mitchell Evans will buck the trend of his former Notre Dame teammates at this year’s NFL Scouting Combine.
Evans, a 6-foot-5, 258-pound tight end, plans to participate in both the testing portion and position drills conducted at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Friday. He would be the first and last of Notre Dame’s eight combine participants to complete physical testing this year.
The rest of Evans’ teammates have opted out either due to injury or a lack of preparation time since the Jan. 20 loss to Ohio State in the CFP National Championship Game. Former Buckeyes are mostly doing the same.
Evans prepared for this week by working with Jeremy Holt of Athelite Performance in Nashville, Tenn.
“I feel good,” Evans said. “I came out of the season pretty unscathed playing 16 games coming off a knee injury. I feel pretty good.”
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Evans’ workload to start Notre Dame’s 2024 season was lighter than usual, because he was working his way back from a torn ACL in his left knee suffered in late October 2023. Evans still played in all 16 games for Notre Dame, but he didn’t appear in the starting lineup until the fifth game of the season, a 31-24 win over Louisville, on Sept. 28.
In his final semester at Notre Dame, Evans was able to focus more on being an athlete than a student.
“It helped me only having one credit in school to graduate, so I had a lot of extra free time on my hands,” Evans said. “With that free time, I took advantage of getting in the weight room, getting in the recovery, getting in the training room and prepare my body and be like a pro. Putting the right things in my body and meeting with the right people and doing all the things necessary to show up on Saturdays.”
Evans finished the season as Notre Dame’s leader in pass receptions with 43. Those catches resulted in 421 yards and three touchdowns. His career totals ended at 77 catches for 903 yards and five touchdowns.
Highlighting those numbers won’t be a priority for Evans this week. He wants to give NFL teams a better understanding of how he found success in college and what will allow him to do so at the next level.
“My goal coming out of this is establish a great relationship with all the coaches and all the support staff for the teams,” Evans said. “Personally, a goal of mine is just to look athletic and smooth and not look rough out there. Just be confident and show the teams that I can excel.”
Evans took advantage of a brief head start on the process in late January when he spent one day practicing for the East-West Shrine Bowl and spent the rest of his time in Arlington, Texas, getting to know the NFL personnel. He was able to meet coaches and scouts and learn some details of an NFL offense and special teams system.
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The Wadsworth, Ohio, product wants to further his NFL opportunity in any way he can. That’s why getting out on the field Friday is so important to him.
“It’s a lifelong dream to be here,” Evans said. “I still feel like I can remember when I was a little kid wishing to be here. It’s all kind of happened in a blink of an eye. Now that I’m here, I’m just trying to be where my feet are at and stay present and not let the moment get bigger than it actually is. Just trying to stay focused and present in the moment.”
That includes not worrying about extending Notre Dame’s astonishing streak of starting tight ends selected in the NFL Draft. The tight end with the most starts at his position on Notre Dame’s roster in every season since 2004 has eventually been an NFL Draft pick. The streak began with Anthony Fasano, who was picked in the second round of the 2006 draft by the Miami Dolphins and was most recently extended by Michael Mayer, who was a second-round pick of the Las Vegas Raiders in the 2023 draft.
Evans isn’t likely to be selected as high as Fasano or Mayer, but he’s confident his name will be called.
“I don’t really kind of sense the pressure of that,” Evans said. “I just turn it into excitement to continue that legacy, to continue the heritage. Given that Notre Dame title of Tight End U, keeping it a legacy and stuff. I definitely don’t want to be the guy to break that streak. That would be kind of eesh. But I feel confident enough to the point where that won’t happen.”
Evans will continue to try to make a statement about his game this week after closing out the season strong. He caught 19 passes for 208 yards and one touchdown in Notre Dame’s final five games, including four playoff games.
“I felt like I could compete with the best,” Evans said of his playoff performance. “As the playoffs went on, each week we played better and better defenses, better teams, better systems. I was putting my best film, best play on tape.
“Sadly, it didn’t go the way we wanted to at the end, but I learned a lot about myself in the sense of that I can compete with the best, that I’m tough, I’m smart enough to see what I’m seeing out there against certain defenses and I can compete with the best.”
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