Notre Dame, Marcus Freeman suffer surprising loss in NCAA transfer portal

The end of the 2025 college football season was brutal for Marcus Freeman and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Despite finishing the year with a 10-game winning streak, the Fighting Irish losing their first two games of the season came back to bite them. Those two losses came against the Miami Hurricanes and Texas A&M Aggies.

At the end of the day, that head-to-head loss against Miami is what got the Hurricanes into the College Football Playoff over Notre Dame.

Following the committee’s decision to leave the Fighting Irish out of the playoff, Freeman and company decided not to accept a bowl game invite. Unfortunately, Notre Dame has been suffering some losses to the NCAA transfer portal.

On Wednesday, some surprising news emerge about the Fighting Irish in the portal. Notre Dame lost an extremely talented wide receiver.

According to a report from On3 Sports college football insider Pete Nakos, freshman four-star wide receiver Antavious Richardson decided to enter the portal.

247 Sports had Richardson rated as a four-star prospect in the 2025 recruiting class. He was ranked as the No. 14 athlete in the class and the No. 217 overall player in the nation.

During his freshman season with the Fighting Irish, Richardson did not receive a role on the field. That led to him entering the portal to pursue an opportunity to play elsewhere.

It’s unfortunate to see Richardson leave the program. There is no guarantee that he would have developed into a key piece for Notre Dame, but the talent was there for him to be special. Losing him so early didn’t give the two sides an opportunity to develop and see if the fit could work.