Notre Dame Transfer Malachi Fields List Among The Nation's Top Returning Receivers

The wide receiver position has been a struggle for Notre Dame in recent seasons, but during the offseason the Irish staff made an attempt to rectify that. Notre Dame went to the transfer portal to land a wide receiver for the third straight offseason, and the addition of Malachi Fields is the biggest one yet. 

Notre Dame's coaching staff is not the only group high on Fields. Pro Football Focus ranked its Top 10 returning pass catchers for the 2025 season, and there was one honorable mention player on the list, and that was Fields. 

"Fields was very productive across his past two seasons at Virginia, leading all returning Power Four receivers in receiving yards (1,619). He’s a big-bodied receiver at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds who is tied for 15th among FBS receivers since 2023 with 23 contested catches. He put up with a bad quarterback situation with the Cavaliers, as Virginia finished just 117th in PFF passing grade this past season (59.7). Fields should be one of the favorite targets for Notre Dame’s next quarterback in 2025." - Max Chadwick, PFF

PFF rightly pointed out that Fields had all of that success with questionable quarterback play. Virginia moved him all around the field and he has the ability to make plays in a variety of ways for Notre Dame. His size gives the Notre Dame offense something it did not have in the rotation last season. In fact, Notre Dame hasn't had a player with his size/speed/power combination since Chase Claypool was playing the boundary back in 2019.

Notre Dame will hope that Fields can give the pass game a go-to player on the outside, one that is capable of stretching the field and winning contested catches. That was a strength for Fields the last two seasons.

He was also often at his best against the best teams on the schedule. Last season, Virginia faced three playoff teams (Notre Dame, Clemson, SMU) and also squared off against Louisville. Fields caught 20 passes for 317 yards and three touchdowns in those games, including four catches for 81 yards against the Irish. If he put up those numbers for the entire season he would have finished the regular season with 60 catches for 951 yards and nine touchdowns.

Fields caught 11 passes for 208 yards in three games against ranked opponents in 2023. If you project that out over an entire season he would have caught 44 passes for 832 yards. 

Notre Dame will face two of the Top 10 receivers during the 2025 season. Texas A&M transfer receiver Kevin Concepcion is ranked No. 8 on the list and USC wideout Makai Lemon is ranked No. 9 on the list. 

Concepcion is considered a bigger pickup than Fields, both by PFF and in ESPN"s portal rankings. Concepcion is ranked No. 8 on the PFF list. Both played in the ACC the last two seasons, with Concepcion playing in 25 games and Fields playing in 24 games. Concepcion had more catches (124 to 113) and touchdowns (16 to 10), but Fields had more yards (1,619 to 1,299) and yards per catch (14.3 to 10.5). USC wide receiver Makai Lemon also made the list at No. 9.