Skip to main content
notre-dame logo

Micah Gilbert injury report: Latest on the Notre Dame sophomore wide receiver

IMG_9992by:Tyler Horka•04/02/25•

tbhorka

gilbert
Notre Dame wide receiver Micah Gilbert. (Photo by Chad Weaver)

The 2024 spring season was a fruitful one for Notre Dame wide receiver Micah Gilbert. Time and again, he showed up as one of the Fighting Irish’s best pass catchers in periods of practice open to the media — and in social media clips posted by the team itself, too.

Gilbert’s rise was put on pause when Beaux Collins arrived from Clemson last summer and the more experienced players on the depth chart started rising to the top with the season approaching. Sure enough, Gilbert was not the same fixture in the Notre Dame offense in the fall that he was in the spring.

In 16 games during Gilbert’s true freshman season, he only played 43 offensive snaps. He ran 13 routes, was targeted twice and had zero catches. Infamously, he dropped a would-be touchdown in garbage time against Stanford on a perfectly thrown ball from Notre Dame quarterback Steve Angeli.

All of that behind him, spring 2025 could have been used as another spring board for Gilbert — this time, into actually meaningful contributions during the season. Call it a sophomore step forward.

Or not.

Gilbert broke his hand on the first day of spring practice a few weeks ago. He had surgery, and he has a six- to eight-week timeline for recovery. He’s been able to suit up and run around with his Notre Dame teammates for the last couple of weeks, but he has not been able to catch any passes or play in actual team periods.

“Everything no ball — still able to run routes, get the mental reps that I need, watch film, stay around the team,” Gilbert said. “Just no ball involved. Nothing that can cause harm to my hand.”

Six to eight weeks will have Gilbert healthy and healed for summer workouts in South Bend. He can begin to build back his rapport with Notre Dame’s quarterbacks then. It’s just a bit of a shame he won’t be good to go for the Blue-Gold Game on April 12. In last year’s, Gilbert caught touchdown passes of 26 and 29 yards, the former from quarterback Kenny Minchey and the latter off the arm of CJ Carr.

Aside from Virginia transfer Malachi Fields not enrolling at Notre Dame until the summer, like Collins before him, the Irish wide receiver situation is as good as it’s been at this time of year in a while. Juniors Jaden Greathouse and Jordan Faison have taken the lead in getting the group where it needs to be. Wisconsin transfer Will Pauling is another experienced voice on that front, even if he’s new to the program.

Notre Dame wide receivers coach Mike Brown likes the direction of his unit in his second season in charge of it.

“All of a sudden now we’re in year two of the system, guys understand it,” he said. “They know what they’re doing and now it’s just more about continuing to understand the whys and the freedoms that they have and them getting more and more confident just hearing it over and over and over again. So you just continue to build off the foundation that’s been set.”

You may also like