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Newsstand: Notre Dame tight end Mitchell Evans named Mackey Award semifinalist

IMG_7504by:Jack Soble•about 13 hours•

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Notre Dame tight end Mitchell Evans. (Matt Rudolph, special to Blue & Gold)

Notre Dame senior tight end Mitchell Evans is a semifinalist for the John Mackey Award, the Irish announced Tuesday. He’s one of eight candidates to be named college football’s most outstanding tight end.

The other semifinalists are Bowling Green’s Harold Fannin Jr., Penn State’s Tyler Warren, Michigan’s Colston Loveland, LSU’s Mason Taylor, Ball State’s Tanner Koziol, Texas’ Gunner Helm and Vanderbilt’s Eli Stowars. The winner will be announced Dec. 12 on ESPN’s College Football Awards show.

Evans burst onto the scene as a junior in 2023, when he caught 29 passes for 422 yards and a touchdown in 8 games. His season ended early, though, when he tore his ACL and MCL on Oct. 28 against Pittsburgh.

The Wadsworth, Ohio native played extremely limited snaps in Notre Dame’s season-opening win over Texas A&M and has slowly regained confidence in his knee ever since. His 2024 numbers are modest — Evans has caught 16 passes for 133 yards — but the Irish hope the flashes he showed in Week 8 against Georgia Tech (4 receptions for 26 yards) and Week 9 against Navy (2 for 25) are a sign of things to come.

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Evans and the Irish begin their final third of the 2024 season at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, when they face Florida State in South Bend.

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The Irish are No. 10 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings.

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Men’s basketball begins Wednesday.

Quote of the day

“Well, the logic was they opened the season with a great win against Texas A&M, also against No. 22 Louisville. Their performance against a Navy team that was ranked as a time, that was ranked at the time — didn’t have a loss — going into Navy and winning in a dominant fashion, we felt overcame what was a troubling loss to Northern Illinois.

“They won six-straight games since that loss, and Riley Leonard is really coming on, into that offense. Not only passing, but actually running. A very good runner. Their defense is in the top 10. I mean, they’re a very solid team. And I say troubling, because we all thought it was not the Notre Dame that we’ve seen and we’ve looked at, what happened against Northern Illinois.”

— Michigan athletic director and College Football Playoff Selection Committee Chairman Warde Manuel on ranking Notre Dame 10th

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