Aiden Gobaira, Kevin Bauman to miss 2023 Notre Dame season with ACL injuries

Notre Dame will be without two players for the upcoming season, as EDGE Aiden Gobaira and TE Kevin Bauman went down with torn ACL’s during fall camp, according to Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman.

The ACL injury is the second of Bauman’s career, whose 2022 season ended after playing in three games. He caught three passes for 44 yards during that span and had the potential to enjoy a larger role this coming season. Being a senior, Bauman will have an extra season of eligibility is he so chooses to come back and play tight end for Notre Dame.

Gobaira hasn’t seen any action for the Fighting Irish since joining the team as a true freshman last season. A four-star recruit per the On3 Industry Rankings, which is a proprietary algorithm that compiles ratings and rankings from all four primary recruiting media services, and was a top-20 defensive end coming out of high school.

As a senior at Chantilly (VA) High School, Gobaira finished his 2021 season with 16 sacks in eight games. Those efforts landed him on the watchlist for the 2021 Maxwell Football Club’s National High School Defensive Player of the Year Award, and was ultimately named a semifinalist. He went on to compete in the All-American Bowl, was selected as the First Team All-Regional Defensive End and was named the Regional Defensive Player of the Year in his area.

Notre Dame to push revived Miami rivalry series back to 2025

The Miami–Notre Dame football series will not be reignited in 2024, according to Miami reporter Barry Jackson. 

The 2025 matchup will be played as scheduled inside Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, but instead of playing in South Bend in 2024 — the game will be pushed back to 2026 because of a scheduling error on the Hurricanes’ part.

“This solves a [Miami] scheduling conundrum that had emerged in 2024. Miami had 5 non-conference games booked in 2024 and could play only 4, of course: at [Florida] Gators, Florida A&M, Ball State and at USF. Now they don’t need to play both UF and Notre Dame on the road in 2024. Only UF in 2024,” Jackson wrote after the initial report.

Waiting one more year won’t hurt things. Still, some fans are itching to see the once annual matchup swing back into fruiting. The two programs met three times during the 1960s, but from 1971 through 1990 — neither team went a year without meeting in the regular season. Though, they did not play each other in 1986.