Notre Dame Safety Group Could Continue Dominant Play In 2025

It would be difficult for any secondary, let a lone a safety room, to lose a player like Xavier Watts and be considered a top 10 unit in the preseason. Watts ended his Notre Dame career as being one of the most decorated defensive backs in school history. He finished his career with 189 tackles, 16 passes defended, 13 interceptions and a touchdown return in each of the last two seasons. Watts was the winner of the Bronko Nagurski Award in 2023 and was a consensus All-American in back to back seasons. 

Outside of returning starter Adon Shuler, this is a very young and unproven unit. Shuler will be anchoring this room after starting and playing in all 16 games last season. He finished the year with 59 total tackles, five passes defended, three interceptions including a pick six, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery. His experience playing alongside Watts for an entire season will pay major dividends in 2025. 

After Shuler, the room has some major question marks, but what puts many minds at ease, including mine, is the ceiling of all the players left on the roster. Junior Luke Talich will be looking to crack the starting rotation this fall. The 6-4 209 pound safety is a rangy playmaker who was mainly a special teams phenom the last two season. He ended last year with a pick six in mop up minutes against Florida State and had a resounding bone-crushing hit against a Penn State punt returner in the Orange Bowl. 

Redshirt freshman Tae Johnson is also in the mix for the starting role. The 6-2 193 pound Fort Wayne, Indiana native is one of the most athletic players on the team. The coaching staff has stated he can play almost every spot in the secondary and if they needed him to play receiver, he could. Johnson saw very limited action last season, but after a promising spring, he very well could work his way into the rotation. 

True freshman JaDon Blair was one of their highest ranked recruits in the 2025 class. At 6-5 206 pounds, he became the tallest player in the room the moment he walked onto campus, which says something considering Talich is 6-4. Blair had an extremely strong spring and benefitted from being an early enrollee. It's not very often a true freshman cracks a safety rotation that's this deep, but his athleticism and overall ceiling will make it extremely difficult for Mike Mickens and Chris Ash to keep him off the field for any length of time. 

The wild card in this unit is Virginia Tech transfer Jalen Stroman. He was brought in from the portal this past winter and is expected to bring experience and depth to the room. He was projecting as a day two NFL draft pick prior to the start of the 2024 season, but a season ending injury suffered in their week one opener tampered down some of those conversations. Stroman was initially a shoe-in to become the starter alongside Shuler based on his playmaking ability and experience, but after a very impressive spring from the young players combined with Stroman's on the field absence, this battle for the starting spot is wide open heading into fall camp. 

This room has a ways to go before they can be considered up with Ohio State who returns Caleb Downs, Georgia who returns KJ Bolden, Alabama who returns both Keon Sabb and Bray Hubbard or even Minnesota who returns Koi Perch. However, the ceiling of this unit is as high as any of the teams aforementioned. With a rotation of Talich, Johnson, Blair and Stroman and Shuler holding down the other starting position, this room could be one of the top 10 best in the country when the season is over, and that would bode extremely well for Notre Dame's chances of making another run at the national title.