SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Jaden Greathouse finished Notre Dame’s 2024 season looking like a No. 1 wide receiver.
He even finished his sophomore year leading all of Notre Dame’s receivers in receptions for the season. But 42 catches for 592 yards and four touchdowns aren’t numbers typically associated with a go-to receiver in modern college football.
Greathouse only managed to reach those numbers by amassing 13 receptions for 233 yards and three touchdowns in the final two games of the season — a 27-24 win over Penn State in the College Football Playoff semifinals and a 34-23 loss to Ohio State in the CFP National Championship Game. Greathouse totaled just 12 catches in the previous seven games for the Irish, which illustrates how inconsistent his production was last season.
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Greathouse, who switched his jersey number from 19 to 1 prior to last season, needs to develop a better rapport with whoever becomes Notre Dame’s starting quarterback next season. Greathouse started last season decently with eight catches for 67 yards in the first two games, but he wasn’t a major focal point for quarterback Riley Leonard.
The 6-foot-1, 210-pound Greathouse caught more than one pass in only eight of 16 games, but he isn’t alone in the blame for his mostly quiet season.
“What Riley and what we learned toward the end of that season is that if Jaden Greathouse is covered one-on-one, he’s not covered,” said Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman. “Throw him the ball. He’s able to make some catches that some people would assume that he’s covered. We have to trust him.
“He’s not always going to outrun everybody. He’s not going to be wide open. If he’s one-on-one, give him a chance. Because more than not, he’s gonna make the play.”
According to Pro Football Focus, Greathouse caught four of the five contested targets thrown his way in the final two games of the season. He finished with Notre Dame’s best contested catch rate at 84.6% (11-of-13) among players with more than one contested target. Only one FBS wide receiver had a better contest catch rate — Charlotte’s Sean Brown’s 91.7% — with at least 10 contested targets last season.
The Irish are confident that Greathouse, who caught 18 passes for 265 yards and five touchdowns as a freshman and arrived at Notre Dame ranked by Rivals as the No. 17 wide receiver and No. 107 overall in the 2023 class, can pick up where he left off last season.
“We’ll continue to see elevation out of Jaden, because he’s a grinder,” Freeman said. “He’s a guy that’s obsessed with improvement. He’s going into his third year. Gosh the time flies. He’s just continuously getting better. He’s a playmaker for us.”
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Notre Dame turned to the transfer portal for wide receiver help once again this offseason. Last offseason’s haul — Beaux Collins (41 catches, 490 yards and 3 touchdowns), Kris Mitchell (22-224-2) and Jayden Harrison (19-211-1) — produced 82 catches for 925 yards and six touchdowns. This year’s two-man portal haul of Wisconsin’s Will Pauling and Virginia’s Malachi Fields could be more prolific. Pauling caught a career-best 74 passes for 837 yards and six touchdowns in 2023 before regressing to 42 receptions for 407 yards and three touchdowns last season. Fields was consistently productive each of the past two seasons with 58 catches for 811 yards and five touchdowns in 2023 and 55 catches for 808 yards and five touchdowns in 2024.
Pauling joined Notre Dame’s program in January, but his start with the Irish was slowed by a surgery to repair the fifth metatarsal in the right foot. Still Pauling recovered to practice at varying levels throughout the spring and was healthy enough to play in the Blue-Gold Game on April 12.
“The thing I respect about Will is the way he practiced,” Freeman said. “When he was in there at practice, he practiced at a different pace and at a different effort level than what I have seen in the past.
“What’s that gonna do? Elevate the guys around him. I love dudes that practice hard, and he’s one of those guys. He’s a playmaker. He can make plays. He’s experienced. What I like more than anything is his effort. The way he plays with effort. He’s tough. You don’t always say that about wideouts — tough. He is tough.”
Fields, who will finally join the program in June after graduating from Virginia in May, was not only productive but steady for Virginia last season. He dropped just two passes, per PFF, on 94 targets. Fields caught four passes for 81 yards in Virginia’s 35-14 loss at Notre Dame on Nov. 16, but that wasn’t what caught Freeman’s eye when he recently rewatched the game.
First, Freeman noticed Fields had a pretty good arm on an attempted pass to tight end Dakota Twitty that was broken up by Irish defensive back Rod Heard II roughly 25 yards downfield. Second, Freeman noticed Fields was repeatedly used as a blocker at the point of attack on screen plays.
“That tells me what type of football player you are: tough, gritty, high effort and you take pride in blocking,” Freeman said. “Everybody knows he’s a gamechanger as a wideout. You put him to the boundary, and say, OK, let’s go.
“You want to play me man-to-man? Or are you gonna play zone on me? If you’re gonna play man-to-man, we believe we can win. That’s what I see when I watch Malachi Fields on film. But more than that now, I have an even greater respect because of how they used him.”
If Greathouse, Pauling and Fields all reach expectations in the 2025 season, new starting quarterback Kenny Minchey or CJ Carr will have quite the debut season.
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