Notre Dame football places walk-on WR Matt Salerno on scholarship
One way to address thin numbers in the Notre Dame wide receivers room? Give longtime walk-on wideout Matt Salerno a scholarship.
Junior walk-on safety Chris Velotta tweeted, “MATT SALERNO EARNED A SCHOLARSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME. Just wanted to let everyone know,” Thursday evening. Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees retweeted Velotta shortly thereafter. A source confirmed with BlueandGold.com that Salerno will be on scholarship for the 2022 season. Rees reportedly announced as much to the Notre Dame wide receivers Thursday.
Salerno gives Notre Dame eight scholarship wide receivers at the moment. He adds to a list of seniors Braden Lenzy, Avery Davis and Joe Wilkins Jr., sophomores Deion Colzie, Lorenzo Styles and Jayden Thomas and true freshman Tobias Merriweather. Like Lenzy and Wilkins, Salerno will be a fifth-year senior in 2022.
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Salerno has seen plenty of work on special teams in his first four years in South Bend. He has recorded 15 punt returns and two kick returns. He only has one catch to his name in his college career, though. It went for a loss of four yards in Notre Dame’s 55-0 victory over Georgia Tech this past November.
Salerno has been a fixture for the Fighting Irish in practices in recent seasons. Receiving a scholarship might have just been a matter of time for the hard-working walk-on. The aerospace engineering and real estate major from Valencia, Calif., was Notre Dame’s primary punt returner in 2020 and held the same title in the Fiesta Bowl Jan. 1 with Kyren Williams opting out.
“It’s definitely been a dream come true for me,” Salerno told BlueandGold.com in September of his punt returning duties. “It’s definitely not something I ever expected to happen.”
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Salerno’s high school team went 1-10 in his senior year. He joked he didn’t return many punts that year because, well, his team wasn’t forcing many. He said the punt returning job at Notre Dame “fell into [his] lap” two seasons ago. He didn’t take it for granted.
“Once I had the chance, I kind of ran with it,” Salerno said.
For perhaps the first time in his career, Salerno will be counted on to be much more than a special teams staple. As it stands, Notre Dame does not have a full three-deep depth chart of wide receivers. Salerno will likely slide in behind Davis and Styles in the slot. The former is recovering from an ACL injury, which might open up an avenue for playing time for Salerno.
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The announcement of Salerno’s scholarship came just less than 24 hours after news broke that Notre Dame is expected to hire Baylor wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey. It will be interesting to see what changes he implements within the position group after Del Alexander led the unit the last five seasons. Irish fans should know what they have in Salerno regardless.
“As a wide receiver, I’m very comfortable in the slot,” Salerno said. “I’ve learned to carve a little niche there. Kind of like guys before me, like [Chris] Finke or Hunter Renfrow at Notre Dame, I feel like I could be a trusty third down guy. Maybe not taking the top off on posts like Braden Lenzy or Kevin Austin, but I feel like I can be a dependable player who can help us.”
