Jay Brunelle’s first three semesters at Notre Dame were spent battling injuries – taking away from his opportunity to battle for playing time.
His quest to get healthy and compete for snaps will continue at a new destination.
Brunelle intends to put his name in the transfer portal, a source confirmed BlueandGold.com. He did not appear in a game as a freshman last season and will have four years of eligibility left at his new school.
A January 2020 enrollee, Brunelle was slated to miss that year’s spring practice due to injury before COVID-19 wiped out spring drills after one session. He dealt with nagging injuries this spring, but practiced and dressed for the Blue-Gold Game despite them.
Brunelle committed to Notre Dame in June 2019 over Michigan and UCLA. He was a three-star recruit out of Paxton (Mass.) St. John’s High School and ranked as the No. 8 player in Massachusetts in 2020. The 6-1, 199-pound Brunelle caught 52 passes for 1,071 yards and 11 touchdowns as a senior. Notre Dame offered him after he impressed at a camp in 2019.
With Brunelle’s exit, Notre Dame has just one receiver – sophomore Xavier Watts – on the roster from its 2019 and 2020 recruiting classes. Jordan Johnson, the 2020 class’ highest-ranked member, transferred shortly after the spring game. Notre Dame signed receivers Kendall Abdur-Rahman and Cam Hart in 2019, but the former transferred to Western Kentucky in April and the latter is now a potential starting cornerback.
Once he makes his intentions official, Brunelle will be the 12th Notre Dame player to enter the transfer portal since the end of the 2020 season. One of them, senior safety Houston Griffith, chose to return to the program. He’s the second member of the 2020 class to transfer.
Without Brunelle, Notre Dame has 84 players who count toward the 85-man scholarship limit. Graduate seniors Kurt Hinish and Jonathan Doerer returned for their fifth seasons using the extra year of eligibility granted to all 2020 fall sport athletes. Any football player whose eligibility was set to expire after 2020 and chose to return does not count toward the limit of 85. Hinish and Doerer fall into that category.
Irish Sports Daily first reported the news of Brunelle’s plans.