Notre Dame’s latest portal addition in the secondary arrives with a clear job description: DJ McKinney is here to help lock down the outside and give the Irish another veteran piece opposite Leonard Moore.
The Colorado transfer brings a long résumé with him to South Bend. McKinney spent the last two seasons as a starter for the Buffaloes and also logged playing time at Oklahoma State before that, giving Notre Dame a corner with three years of starting experience and plenty of snaps against quality competition.
McKinney’s numbers show why Notre Dame targeted him. In 2025 at Colorado, he finished with 34 tackles, 1.0 TFL, four breakups and one interception.
A year earlier, he posted 61 tackles, 3.0 TFL, one forced fumble, seven breakups and three interceptions. His first two college seasons came at Oklahoma State, where he had 38 tackles and five breakups in 2023, then two tackles in 2022.
Last season was not without bumps. McKinney started nine games and played 597 snaps after starting all 13 games for Colorado in 2024.
He was targeted 32 times, allowed 18 catches and gave up two touchdowns. The schedule also didn’t exactly soften things up, with Colorado seeing Georgia Tech, Houston on the road, BYU, TCU, Iowa State, Utah and Arizona, all of which brought offenses that could stress a secondary.
Notre Dame believes the setup in its own back end can bring out the best in him. McKinney had a year alongside Travis Hunter at Colorado in 2024, and now he has a chance to play opposite Notre Dame Unanimous All-American Leonard Moore, who is the nation’s top returning defender according to ESPN. For a fifth-year senior who dealt with injuries for much of 2025, the appeal is obvious: one more season, one more chance to finish strong.
Fall camp will be the first real look at how quickly McKinney settles in. He arrived over the summer, and his commitment in January was something of a surprise.
But once Notre Dame staff dug into the tape, it was easy to see why former defensive backs coach Mike Mickens was so high on him. McKinney was told early that nothing would be given to him, and that the battle for a role in this cornerback room would have to be earned.
Right now, the expectation is that he competes for the starting field corner spot. Christian Gray, a two-year starter, has moved inside to nickel, which opens the door for McKinney.
He’ll be pushed by sophomore Dallas Golden and Michigan transfer Jayden Sanders, but the early read is that McKinney enters camp as the favorite. If he wins that job, Notre Dame would have long, athletic corners on the outside with Moore in the boundary.
The best-case version of McKinney looks a lot like his 2024 season. That year, he piled up 61 tackles, eight passes defensed, one forced fumble and three interceptions, while allowing 37 catches on 71 targets and just 166 yards after the catch. A repeat of that kind of production would make Notre Dame’s outside corner duo one of the best in college football and would only strengthen McKinney’s standing in the NFL conversation, where he has already drawn some first-round projections.
For Notre Dame, though, the immediate question is simpler than draft boards or projections. How big a piece can McKinney become in this defense? Camp is about to start, and that answer should come quickly.
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For Notre Dame, the watch list nod also fits a program history that has seen elite defenders carry the standard before, with Xavier Watts winning the award in 2023 and Manti Teo taking it in 2012. The bigger question now is whether this current trio can turn preseason respect into the kind of sustained production that keeps the Irish defense in the national conversation all season long. [Read more 🡒]