Notre Dame football and head coach Marcus Freeman suffered an extremely frustrating 28-24 loss to the No. 8 BYU Cougars on Saturday night in Provo, Utah.

The Fighting Irish trailed 21-10 at halftime and were their own biggest hindrance for much of the night. They mounted a nice second-half comeback, but BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier orchestrated the decisive touchdown drive to put the game away.

Bachmeier was a major talking point all week leading up to the contest. Notre Dame was once considered a potential leader for him when he was a 2025 recruit. He didn’t end up in that Irish class, and it appears the relationship did not end on good footing.

Following the game, Bachmeier told the media that Notre Dame had disrespected him and his family pretty badly. He declined to elaborate on the situation, though he made it clear some receipts were kept. He closed with a pointed line.

“I wasn’t going to lose to those guys tonight,” Bachmeier said.

Clearly, there is some bad blood between Bachmeier and Notre Dame, from one side at least. When you think back to his recruitment coming out of Murrieta Valley High School, it’s pretty easy to understand why he still has a bad taste in his mouth.

How Bachmeier’s Notre Dame recruitment fell apart

For a while, the Notre Dame quarterback conversation in the 2025 class came down to Bachmeier and elite signal caller Deuce Knight.

Bachmeier received his Notre Dame offer in July 2023 while at his grandparents’ house in Lemoore, California. His late grandfather was a Notre Dame fan and alumnus, so that offer was truly special to Bachmeier and his entire family. As you can imagine, the family was in high spirits as he eyed an opportunity to join the class.

Things escalated quickly from there. Bachmeier took a game visit to South Bend early in the 2023 season. That weekend went so well that many believed he was ready to pop and make a commitment.

Before he did, however, Knight had a change of heart. Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock and quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli had been extremely high on Knight for quite some time, and he decided he wanted to be the quarterback in the 2025 class. Knight was the higher-ranked and more talented player of the two, so it was understandable why the Irish preferred him.

Once he was ready to decide, the staff’s thinking was settled.

There is some belief, while not fully verified, that having Bachmeier on campus for that visit was a way to push Knight to make a decision sooner rather than later. If that was the idea, it worked. For a moment, Bachmeier thought he was going to be the Notre Dame quarterback, and he had to rethink his entire recruiting process.

Everybody remembers the rest of the Knight saga. After being committed to the Irish for over a year, he decommitted and signed with Auburn. He is now the backup quarterback at Ole Miss after spending just one season with the Tigers.

Bachmeier’s road to Provo

Bachmeier eventually committed and signed with Stanford, partly because his older brother, Tiger Bachmeier, was part of that program. Tiger is now a wide receiver at BYU.

Shortly after Bachmeier enrolled, Stanford fired head coach Troy Taylor in March 2025. Just a couple of weeks later, the Bachmeier brothers decided to transfer to Provo. The rest is history. Bachmeier is now a two-year starter for the Cougars after Jake Retzlaff was dismissed before the 2025 college football season.

It’s almost a storybook situation, with Bachmeier getting the last laugh against Notre Dame, at least for now. Those hard feelings are still there, and that recruitment still doesn’t sit well with him.

To be completely transparent, though, that is how most schools operate. Programs use leverage to get players to make decisions quicker. For many schools, that leverage comes down to money. For Notre Dame, it was about speeding up Knight’s timeline.

If the Irish had known Knight would eventually depart from the class, they probably would have taken Bachmeier’s commitment at that point. After everything played out, circling back with him was an impossible task.

Blake Hebert ended up being the quarterback for Notre Dame in the 2025 recruiting class. You can bet that the Irish wish that Bachmeier was backing up CJ Carr right now.

It’s a harsh reminder of how cutthroat the recruiting landscape can be. Still, I’m sure Bachmeier and his family are happy with how things have turned out in Provo, especially after Saturday night’s result.