Notre Dame football misses once again on rare double legacy while continuing struggling 2026 wide receiver recruiting trend
Notre Dame 2026 wide receiver recruiting once again suffered another defeat on Tuesday when Rancho Santa Margarita (Calif.) Catholic wide receiver Trent Mosley opted for USC over the Fighting Irish and Stanford. A double legacy for the program, Mosley is a player that the staff liked a lot and felt like they were in a […]
Notre Dame 2026 wide receiver recruiting once again suffered another defeat on Tuesday when Rancho Santa Margarita (Calif.) Catholic wide receiver Trent Mosley opted for USC over the Fighting Irish and Stanford. A double legacy for the program, Mosley is a player that the staff liked a lot and felt like they were in a good spot. Not as good as Chad Bowden and the Irish apparently.
There’s no spin with wide receiver recruiting right now. It’s bordering on a putrid level. We can make all the excuses in the world for Mike Brown, but at the end of the day, something needs to change from a process perspective. This is one position that is holding this program back.
The entirety of the 2025 wide receiver cycle was disastrous. We are seeing the same signs so far in 2026, missing on players they like, and misreading their standings with their top targets. It is ignoring obvious warning signs and saying that brighter days are coming with nothing changing.
You lost a legacy for the program whose father Emmett Mosley IV played for Hall of Fame head coach Lou Holtz from 1993-96. Mosley’s mother is Cindy Mosley, who was known as Cyndi Daws when she played for the soccer program in the 1990s.
Her standout career concluded with winning the Hermann Trophy during the 1996 campaign, presented to the top female soccer player in the country. When Daws graduated, she was the program’s all time leader in goals scored with 61.
Notre Dame also pursued Emmett Mosley V, Trent’s older brother, during the 2024 recruiting class, but he opted for Stanford. He just wasn’t very interested in the Fighting Irish pitch or program. Trent was way more interested but in the end, being a Trojan meant more to him.
Mosley is rated as the No. 106 overall player and the No. 11 wide receiver in the 2026 recruiting class according to 247Sports. Mosley is rated as a four-star recruit by every major recruiting service. He is currently pegged as the No. 21 overall player in the state of California on the 247Sports Composite ranking.
Outside of Notre Dame and USC, Mosley boasts a long impressive offer list. Some of the top programs that have offered him include Georgia, Alabama, Michigan, Texas, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Michigan State, Utah, Washington, Stanford, Arizona, and UCLA among many others.
The 5-10, 175-pound pass catcher put together another outstanding season as a junior. During that season, he hauled in 61 receptions for 908 yards and eight touchdowns. That comes off of a sophomore year where he made 81 catches for 1,282 yards and 11 scores.
