The Fighting Irish endured a memorable run to the CFP National Championship game last season, boasting some of the best play in the country, leading to a top 10 ranking for receiving corps

Notre Dame has been ranked in a top 10 list for best receiving corps in the country following yet another impressive campaign under Marcus Freeman.

With the start of the 2025 college football season drawing ever closer, excitement is building and none more so than in South Bend, where head coach Freeman is continuing to assemble a side worthy of going far in the College Football Playoff once more. Last season, a fairytale run ended with a place in the National Championship game, but it wasn’t quite meant to be.

A number of stars have since left Notre Dame, such as star quarterback Riley Leonard, safety Xavier Watts, and tight end Mitchell Evans, but a strong core group remains, leaving the program in a good position to launch another assault at becoming national champions.

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That includes wide receivers Jaden Greathouse and Jordan Faison, while former Virginia Cavaliers star Malachi Fields and Will Pauling of Wisconsin joined through the transfer portal earlier this year.

As a result, Notre Dame is now considered to have one of the best receiving corps in college football. A list compiled by PFF, which took wide receivers and tight ends into consideration, has placed Freeman’s side at No. 10 on the list.

“While he didn’t receive as much hype as other receivers in the transfer portal, Malachi Fields was still one of the best options available. The former Virginia Cavalier leads all returning Power Four pass catchers in receiving yards since 2023 (1,619),” the report reads.

Greathouse, who is returning for his junior year after leading the Fighting Irish with 592 receiving yards last season, also gets an honorable mention. According to PFF WAA, he was one of the 25 most valuable wideouts in the nation.

Joining Greathouse in returning for another year as Notre Dame’s No. 3 receiver is Faison, while the addition of Pauling is another major boost. His 18 contested catches over the past two seasons were the third most among Big Ten wideouts.

Topping the list is reigning national champions Ohio State, who defeated Notre Dame in Atlanta back in January. Among the Buckeyes’ receiving corps is Jeremiah Smith, largely considered to be the best player in college football.

In second place on the list is Auburn, which boasts Eric Singleton Jr. and Cam Coleman as its wide receivers. Clemson, Ole Miss, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Texas, and Texas A&M make up the rest of the list.

It comes as Freeman has called on the NCAA to have just one transfer portal window instead of two in an attempt to lessen the burden on coaches and players. Speaking to local media on Thursday, he made it perfectly clear what he’d prefer to see in the transfer portal and why.

“If you made me vote, I would vote for the spring, but I wouldn’t be upset if it were the winter or the spring, right?” he said, as per 247Sports. “I’m a big proponent of one transfer portal window, but if you made me choose one over the other, I would choose the spring.”

Elsewhere, the Fighting Irish are sweating on the commitment of 2026 linebacker Thomas Davis Jr. after he scheduled an official visit to Georgia this weekend. According to On3, the linebacker has been flirting with the Bulldogs recently and was offered by them earlier this month.

Cooper Flagg might be taking a pay cut to go to the NBA.

Flagg, who is expected to go to the Mavericks with the No. 1 pick in the draft, earned $28 million through two NIL deals during his one year at Duke, reporter Howard Bryant told Bob Costas on “The 92nd Street Y.”

Entering Duke as the No. 1-ranked freshman in the country, Flagg had a $13 million deal with New Balance and a $15 million deal with Fanatics.

It is unclear if those figures represent the totality of multi-year deals or a one-year payment.

Either way, the money didn’t distract Flagg from the prize as he won National Player of the Year and led Duke to the Final Four.

The top pick in the 2025 NBA Draft is expected to sign a four-year, $62.7 million contract, according to Spotrac.com.

That averages out to a shade under $16 million per year – or about the same as what another former Duke star, Grayson Allen, earned to average 10.6 points per game in 64 games and seven starts for the lowly Wizards this season.

Celtics star Jayson Tatum has the highest average salary in the NBA at $62.7 million.

Of course, Flagg can still supplement his on-court income with endorsement deals. He will be represented by mega-agency CAA.

The Mavericks surprisingly won the NBA Draft lottery despite having a less than two percent chance to get the No. 1 pick.

It sparked a new wave of NBA conspiracy theories that the league was rewarding the Mavericks with Flagg for making their head-scratching trade of Luka Doncic to the Lakers for a return that amounted to peanuts when compared to other blockbuster deals.

Presumptive No. 2 pick Dylan Harper played at Rutgers after signing an undisclosed NIL deal with Fanatics.

Harper’s teammate at Rutgers, presumptive No. 3 pick Ace Bailey, had an NIL deal with Nike.

ESPN’s On3 ranked Flagg as the second-most-desirable NIL athlete in college sports last season, behind Texas backup quarterback Arch Manning.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers don’t play hockey every day. It only seems like that’s the case.

When the Panthers take the ice for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final in Edmonton on Wednesday night, it will be the team’s 309th game over the past three seasons and one that ties the NHL record for most games in a three-year span. And that, obviously, means they’ll break the record in Game 2 on Friday.

There is no downside to making the Stanley Cup Final in three consecutive seasons, though there has been one unintended consequence — the Panthers are playing a ton of hockey. It’s simultaneously tiring and exhilarating.

“We will have more energy for this series than any of the three prior,” coach Paul Maurice said. “And I’m sure it’s true of Edmonton as well. But the regular season was more of a grind for us this year than either of the two previous. And then in each round, it seemed a bigger build to excitement just because the light is at the end of the tunnel. There are no more than seven games left to this season, no matter what. So, you will see a new energy source from both teams in this series.”

Dallas (1997-98 through 1999-2000) and Detroit (2006-07 through 2008-09) hold the record for most games in a three-year span with 309; the Panthers’ Game 5 win in Carolina to clinch the Eastern Conference title was their 308th in three seasons, putting them on the brink of passing those clubs.

And two Panthers players — Sam Reinhart and Gustav Forsling — have played almost every one of those games. Both have made 303 appearances for Florida in these three years; they have a chance to pass Pittsburgh’s Phil Kessel for the most by any NHL player ever in a three-year span.

Kessel played in all 307 of Pittsburgh’s games from 2015-16 through 2017-18.

“That is crazy,” Forsling said. “I didn’t know that stat. That is crazy, for sure. It’s a lot of preparation and a lot of recovery and you have to do the right things. Otherwise, you’re going to be struggling out there — because that’s a lot of hockey. And mentally, you’ve got to take days off and not think about hockey as much. I have a son now; that takes my mind off things.”

Edmonton is going to fly up the most-games list as this series goes on as well.

Game 1 against Florida will be the Oilers’ 300th in the last three years; if the series goes seven games, Edmonton’s 306 games would be the seventh most in a three-year span behind the Panthers, those Dallas and Detroit teams with 309, along with Pittsburgh (2015-16 through 2017-18), Colorado (1999-2000 through 2001-02) and Detroit (1995-96 through 1997-98) with 307 each.

“This last stretch of the last couple of years has been some of the most fun I’ve had playing hockey,” Oilers star Connor McDavid said after the Western Conference final. “I look forward to what’s going to be an exciting month.”

The Oilers and Panthers have superstars atop the lineups, but both teams know they got here with depth. Both have had 19 different goal scorers in the playoffs.

“That’s what’s been winning us hockey games,” Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl said. “And you need that this time of year. We knew we were going to need everybody. … Our depth has been incredible.”

The Panthers set the tone for deep runs with grueling training camps, though that’s just one small part of the story. Strength and conditioning is an everyday thing during the season as well, along with constant advising from nutritionists, a sports science department and others tasked with drawing out the best path to peak performance. The Panthers will be up to about 67,000 air miles logged this season — far more than most NHL teams — after the first two games of the Cup final; they tend to stay in cities after games instead of flying home late at night in order to keep some semblance of a normal sleep schedule.

“It is before practice, after practice, every day, so that’s kind of the mindset and culture that we build here,” Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad said. “A lot of guys on this team don’t even drink anymore. It isn’t the old NHL where you have beers after games every game. We can’t afford that because we cannot afford to get behind the eight ball at all during the season. That’s where our team is at now.”

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl