Kahanu Kia On His Way Back To Notre Dame Defense

Notre Dame will see a familiar face back in the fold next month. It won’t be one of the two former Irish quarterbacks who left via the transfer portal who will be newly enrolled at Notre Dame for the spring semester. Kahanu Kia will be back on the Irish roster after spending the last two years on a Mormon mission.

"I’m excited,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said of getting Kia back. "I loved by one year with Kahanu. He played linebacker for part of the year and then moved to Vyper part of the year. But to get him back in this program, the energy, the production, the physicality that he plays with, I’m excited to see.”

Kia came to Notre Dame in 2021 as a three-star linebacker recruit out of Honolulu, Hawaii. The 2021 season was Freeman’s lone year as defensive coordinator for the Fighting Irish before he later became head coach when Brian Kelly left for LSU. Kia made his college debut against Toledo and later made four tackles in his only other career game to date against Navy.

How two years away from football have affected the former top-60 linebacker prospect. He was listed at 6-1 3/8 and 217 pounds on the official 2021 team roster.

"He hasn’t played football in a year and a half, two years, so we understand that but that was the agreement we had when he told us he was going to go on this mission,” Freeman explained. "I bet you we get a more mature individual. I’m excited to see what he does when he gets back.”

The winter strength and conditioning program (under a still to be determined performance coach) will be the first priority for Kahuna once he gets back to the program in January. He will have a full spring as well as the summer to build his body back into FBS form before his second training camp starts in roughly eight months.