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Notre Dame defensive end Jordan Botelho out for multiple months with pectoral injury

IMG_9992by:Tyler Horka•06/13/25•

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Notre Dame defensive end Jordan Botelho. (Photo by Mike Miller)

Notre Dame defensive end Jordan Botelho had to stand and watch his teammates play in 13 games last season on their way to the national championship. He’ll have to stand and watch many more at the start of the 2025 season.

He’s out for four months with a pectoral injury.

Matt Freeman of Irish Sports Daily first reported Botelho’s injury, which he’s already had surgery on and will subsequently endure a fourth-month recovery period. Blue & Gold confirmed Freeman’s report. Botelho went down with a season-ending knee injury in Week 3 of 2024.

Four months from now, it’ll be mid-October and Notre Dame will be preparing to host archrival USC in South Bend on Oct. 18. That’s the Fighting Irish’s seventh game of the season, leaving five more in the regular season for Botelho to possibly play in. Or, perhaps, he comes back from his rehabilitation early and suits up before then. There’s so much that remains to be played out between now and then.

In the meantime, there isn’t much sense in rushing him back. He’s entering his sixth collegiate season, so this is it. Might as well make sure he’s fully healthy for the stretch run of what could be another CFP type of year for the Irish. The team has plenty of defensive end options to choose from, too, especially considering Notre Dame has dropped the “Vyper” designation for its boundary defensive end position and has instead elected to adopt a left/right approach.

In the new system, spearheaded by new Notre Dame defensive coordinator Chris Ash, any of the Irish’s defensive ends can be on the field at any time. Boubacar Traore, for instance, could have played with Botelho even though they were both Vypers a year ago. With the latter out for a while, you’ll likely see a lot of Traore and sophomore Bryce Young. Seniors Joshua Burnham and Junior Tuihalamaka did more than enough during the playoff run to earn some playing time this season as well.

Those four — Traore, Young, Burnham and Tuihalamaka — will make for a good two-deep. Any combination of the four of them can run onto the field as the two ends. If needed, sophomore Loghan Thomas got a shoutout from head coach Marcus Freeman recently signaling he’s had a nice offseason and is getting closer to consistently contributing in a defensive capacity. There are also true freshmen Christopher Burgess and Dominik Hulak as well as redshirt freshman Cole Mullins there for depth purposes.

It’s a shame this is the way it’s unfolding for Botelho, who head athletic trainer Rob Hunt said rehabbed phenomenally from the knee injury that ended his 2024 season, but this is a Notre Dame team primed to take a leap in its defensive end play regardless of his availability.

“I just look at the group the defensive end group in general — I think there’s several playmakers there,” Ash said. “Those guys, they’ve got length, they’re explosive, they’re physical. They can rush the passer, they can play the run, they can drop in coverage if they need to. There’s a lot of things that those guys can do.”

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