It’s officially official now and Trevor Speights is a member of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Long since thought of as a lock to head to South Bend, the former Stanford Cardinal RB made it official this past week by joining the Irish with one year of eligibility left.
There are six scholarship running backs already on roster for Notre Dame but Speights should get every chance to show he can win the lion’s share of the snaps in the backfield when the football team returns to action. The Notre Dame backfield situation is murky, to say the least.
Still, Speights enters the fold as a former three-star running back and at 5’11, 203 pounds, ran for 368 yards on 97 carries with a lone touchdown in his Stanford career.
He reunites with former Stanford assistant Lance Taylor, who recruited him to Palo Alto back in 2015-16. Speights played behind the talented duo that was Christian McCaffrey and Bryce Love and never really was able to showcase what he could do on the field due to the Heisman runners-up being ahead of him on the depth chart.
Speights didn’t see the field in 2019 and entered the transfer portal in January. He joins Jafar Armstrong, Jahmir Smith, C’Bo Flemister, Kyren Williams, Chris Tyree and Mick Assaf as players who will vie for playing time in the backfield for Notre Dame.
He was the 15th player to announce his transfer away from the Stanford program this offseason.
Comments
Good luck to Speights
Hope he gets his chance in South Bend.
I am wondering: Does anyone know how many grad transfers it is normal to have? 15 seems like a lot to me, though I really have nothing to compare it to. Are guys jumping ship, or is this a prudent educational/career move?
By g8tgod on 05.31.20 12:42pm
Both...Really....Case By Case
15 is a big number. I read somewhere a while ago that it was the highest in the Pac 12. Add to that 5th year Seniors who have decided neither to come back to Stanford or go anywhere else to play football. Arguably gaining admittance into a Stanford graduate degree program is difficult – and football players do not necessarily have a huge advantage (compared to undergraduate admissions). It hurts, however, to lose starters or near starters when depth has always been an issue for Stanford. I am sure there is a story for each transfer, some are substitutes looking for playing time while others are looking for a specific opportunity – athletically or academically. It is sad, however, to see them move on before their (football) time.
Lesson #1 for David Shaw = FORGET REDSHIRTING QUALITY PLAYERS. The best ones will leave early for the draft while the rest will leave as grad transfers. Get your best players on the field as soon as possible and, if the offensive or defensive strategy is too complex to make that easy – find a way to make it work. Shaw, out of necessity, played a lot of Freshmen last year. It will interesting to see what that experience will translate to in terms of earlier productivity from these players.
By hoyaparanoia on 05.31.20 5:20pm
NCAA has only recently created the formal Transfer Portal...
…in Fall 2018, I believe. So, not much history has accrued, not enough years involved. Now, with the current, massive disruption, no real pattern can be derived yet, for any conference of school.
Grad school isn’t a given. A player’s major and career interests are pertinent. Grad school strengths vary and admission isn’t general. Grad school programs have their own admissions protocols; it’s not like an undergrad pot luck. A player’s advanced interest limit target grad schools, and target grad schools may not have room in a target field. Speights’ major was "Science, Tech. and Society", a kind of "liberal sciences" major, which offers a lot of advanced options; otherwise, Notre Dame’s grad schools are much smaller than Stanford’s assortments.
Best wishes to Trevor!
By Candid One on 06.01.20 9:36pm