How Mitchell Evans has become ‘the guy’ for Notre Dame football
Mitchell Evans was surrounded.
The 11-year-old pranced about his house in Wadsworth, Ohio, donning an Oregon jersey. Everyone else was in clear support of the home team: Ohio State.
Now 20, Evans estimated there were 30 people at his family’s College Football Playoff National Championship Game watch party on Jan. 12, 2015. He was the only one rooting for the Ducks.
Evans grew an affinity for them watching running back De’Anthony Thomas and quarterback Marcus Mariota light it up in the program’s famed colorful uniforms. Evans was a running back growing up. He played some quarterback for Wadsworth in 2020, too, finishing that season with 2,132 passing yards and 23 touchdowns.
Evans knows what good skill position play looks like from watching the Ducks do it for so long and then doing it himself. Ironically, he was reintroduced to it first-hand as a sophomore when Notre Dame traveled to Columbus to take on his home-state Buckeyes in the 2022 season-opener.
C.J. Stroud. Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Marvin Harrison Jr. Emeka Egbuka. Sheesh. Evans watched those Bucks lead Ohio State to a 21-10 victory while the tight end was sidelined with a foot injury sustained in the preceding fall camp.
Like any competitor, especially one who found a passion for the game following players as electrifying as Thomas and Mariota, Evans would have loved to contribute to the Notre Dame offense in an effort to outscore Harrison Jr. and Egbuka.
Just over a year later, he got his chance.
Evans found himself surrounded by Buckeyes once again on Sept. 23. One of them, vaunted linebacker Steele Chambers, was draped all over him as he cut toward the middle of the field at Notre Dame Stadium to give Fighting Irish quarterback Sam Hartman a throwing window.
Chambers interlocked his right arm with that of Evans. Hartman saw enough space to throw the pass anyway. Unable to get both hands to the football, Evans reached up and snared it with one. Not even for a split second after he broke free from Chambers’ entanglement did he use the other to help secure the catch.
Thirteen yard gain. First down. Another highlight reel worthy snag for a school that’s had plenty of them from the tight end position over the years.
“I’m at the top of my route, I’m getting bear hugged, and I’m like ‘Okay, probably not going to get the ball,’” Evans said. “I get out of my break and the ball was coming out, so I was like ‘Okay, I gotta do something.’”
He did something, all right. And not just that one thing. A lot of things. Evans had at least one catch in every quarter and was Hartman’s most reliable target all night. The Fighting Irish were one second away from defeating the No. 6 team in the country and beating the Buckeyes for the first time since 1936 largely because of Evans’ 7 catches for 75 yards, both of which were career highs.
Evans said the Ohio State game was personal for him. He’s from less than two hours north of Columbus, and the Buckeyes didn’t recruit him.
“I wanted to kind of show them something a little bit, and I think I did that,” he said.
He’s been showing Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman something for quite a while. The Michael Mayer era at Notre Dame effectively ended when Mayer announced he wouldn’t play in the Gator Bowl to prepare for the upcoming NFL Draft. With the greatest tight end in the history of a program that has produced some of the best of all time moving on, Notre Dame needed someone to lean on.
It leaned on Evans.
Evans caught 3 passes for 39 yards and the game-winning touchdown in the final minutes of that Gator Bowl. Freeman saw it coming.
“All of a sudden Michael Mayer isn’t playing and we are a tight end heavy offense,” Freeman said. “In the bowl prep I noticed he could be the guy. He played well in that bowl game and he’s played well all year.”
Evans doesn’t have Mayer-like numbers in 2023, but Notre Dame isn’t looking for those from him. There are enough pass-catchers now to use the tight end like most other programs do; supplementally.
Through Week 4, Evans had 12 catches for 138 yards. He had yet to score a touchdown. He missed the Central Michigan game because of a concussion, otherwise he’d have possibly been Notre Dame’s team leader in receptions. Through Week 4, he was tied with freshman wide receiver Jaden Greathouse for No. 2 on the roster in that regard. Only junior Jayden Thomas had more than that duo with 13.
While Hartman is looking to Evans, Thomas, Greathouse, senior Chris Tyree, sophomore Tobias Merriweather, freshman Rico Flores Jr. and even sophomore tight end Holden Staes on any given play, Evans is looking within himself to be that Mayer-like presence even if Notre Dame’s circumstances don’t demand it like they did when Mayer was actually around and backup-turned-starter Drew Pyne was operating a limited Irish offense.
“With my mindset, I go out there every day and work my butt off and just try to hold that standard, like what Tight End U at Notre Dame is like,” Evans said.
Will seven-catch, 75-yard games be the norm for Evans? Probably not in this offense. Not with this veteran quarterback who so effortlessly spreads the ball around. The Notre Dame coaches can take as much away from a game like the one against Navy when Evans doesn’t generate a single target, though, as they do when he’s the Irish’s leading receiver.
They know who the boy from Wadsworth really is at this stage in his career.
“We have high expectations for him,” Notre Dame offensive coordinator Gerad Parker said. “I think it would be fair to say he’s played at a really high level this year. Sometimes the ball doesn’t find you in game plans. That’s unfortunate sometimes because you try to find ways. But then it does, and when it does you can see how special he is.”
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