Notre Dame football suffers another roster loss with Transfer Portal season right on the horizon
Notre Dame suffers a secondary loss ahead of the transfer portal opening on January 2, but it won’t be the last.
It was a disappointing ending to the 2025 college football season for Notre Dame. After opting out of bowl season, head coach Marcus Freeman and the Fighting Irish are now setting their eyes forward to the future, which is still very bright. In the wonderful world of the transfer portal and NIL, even healthy programs are going to lose talent every offseason, some that will be missed more than others.
We have already seen several players announce their intentions of entering the portal over the last several days, which officially opens up on January 2. True freshman safety JaDon Blair is the latest player to make that decision, and he will carry four years of eligibility with him. Once considered a prized commitment in the 2025 class, things unfortunately didn’t work out for Blair in South Bend.
At around 6-5 and 210 pounds, there is no questioning the talent of Blair. He has big-time upside, possessing impressive range and physicality at the position. Luckily for the Irish, Mike Mickens has created quite an impressive group of talent on the back end in the secondary. With starters Adon Shuler and Tae Johnson returning in 2026, and an elite group of younger talent for the future, the Blair loss hurts, but Notre Dame will be more than okay.
This will not be the last secondary member to enter the portal this offseason, which is actually a testament to the depth for Notre Dame in the defensive back room. This is the fortunate, but unfortunate reality of big-time recruiting.
JaDon Blair’s background
Blair ended his Notre Dame career playing in just one football game, recording an assisted tackle during the victory over Syracuse. The North Carolina native was considered to be a consensus four-star player coming out of Winston Salem (N.C.) Mount Tabor in the 2025 recruiting class. On the 247 Sports Composite ranking, Blair ended up ranked as the No. 155 overall player, the No. 13 safety, and the No. 6 player from the state of North Carolina in the class.
The talented safety once selected the Fighting Irish over a long list of impressive suitors. Some of the other top schools that offered Blair included Michigan, LSU, Penn State, Tennessee, Miami, Florida State, South Carolina, Louisville, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Mississippi State, Wake Forest, West Virginia, and Duke, among others. While there is no game film to offer to portal suitors for Blair, the odds are that he will have some solid options on the table.
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