Why Notre Dame football kicking woes won’t be solved with Brandon Aubrey-style soccer import
SOUTH BEND —With each passing week, as Notre Dame football kickers struggle and former Irish soccer player Brandon Aubrey adds to his NFL legend with the Dallas Cowboys, the question bubbles up on social media.
Why can’t the 2025 Irish football team simply bring over one of Notre Dame soccer’s strong-legged options and let that young man handle extra points and field goals?
While not ruling it out in the future, Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman explained Monday afternoon the deadline has long since passed for such a move.
“It’s an NCAA rule that before the season you set your (scholarship) rosters at 105,” he said. “There’s guys that you can declare grandfathered in that were previously on your roster, but once your rosters are set you can’t add anybody to your roster. That’s why we can’t do anything about that right now.”
Coach Chad Riley’s Irish soccer team is 8-5-4 entering Wednesday’s first-round ACC Tournament match against North Carolina. A loss in that home game at Alumni Stadium could end the season for Irish men’s soccer.
All three Notre Dame kickers missed over the weekend in a 25-10 win at Boston College. North Carolina grad transfer Noah Burnette and third-stringer Marcello Diomede missed extra points, while kickoff specialist Erik Schmidt, a well-regarded freshman from Milwaukee, pushed a 35-yard attempt far right to close the first half.
Aubrey, a third-team All-America soccer player at Notre Dame from 2013-16, never suited up for the football Irish while playing in 76 games and scoring 15 goals. He played pro soccer for two years, then switched to football with the USFL’s Birmingham Stallions (2022-23) and the Dallas Cowboys since 2023.
Earlier this season, Aubrey became the first NFL kicker with five made field goals of 60 yards or longer.
Notre Dame kickers have missed four of 38 extra-point attempts and are 5-of-8 on field goals with a long of 48 yards.
Asked if Burnette, who has battled a hip strain for much of the season, was still Notre Dame’s primary kicker this week against Navy, Freeman said that was yet to be determined.
In September 2023, Clemson brought former walk-on backup kicker Jonathan Weitz out of retirement as he finished up work toward a graduate degree. Weitz hadn’t kicked in five months when he replaced the struggling starter, Robert Gunn III, after four misses (three field goals and an extra point) in the first two weeks.
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
