Notre Dame’s line rooms are packed with athletes who can bend, explode and move like players a lot lighter than they are, and Bruce Feldman’s 2026 Freaks List put that on full display.
The Athletic’s annual ranking, which tracks the top 101 physical marvels in college football, included four Irish linemen this year. Three are on defense, one anchors the offensive front, and each earned his spot with testing numbers that jump off the page.
Francis Brewu led the way for Notre Dame at No. 24.
The Pitt transfer defensive tackle is listed at 6-foot-1 and 285 pounds, though Feldman noted he weighs nearly 10 pounds more than what the roster says. Brewu was already on the list last year at Pitt, and his numbers were absurd even then: a 685-pound squat, 475-pound bench and 33-inch vertical at 280 pounds.
He also produced on Saturdays, finishing his sophomore season with 36 tackles and seven TFLs for the Panthers.
Now in South Bend, Brewu is up to 294 pounds and has pushed his bench to 500 pounds, which he says is the testing number he’s most proud of. His strength has also turned heads inside the program, including longtime strength coach Loren Landow.
"He's strong on the upper body," Landow said in the spring. "No two ways about it.
He's strong total body, too. You know, I try not to get too excited about those things, because it's one aspect of performance, but when you see that in front of you, and it gets the room excited, I mean, those are the things that, obviously, everybody wants to talk about.
Bryce Young came in next for Notre Dame at No. 50.
The junior defensive end trimmed 10 pounds in the offseason, but the weight loss didn’t blunt his power or explosiveness. Feldman wrote that the son of former ND and San Francisco 49ers great Bryant Young and former Irish track star Kristin Young jumped from 9-5 to 10-2 in the broad jump and improved his vertical to 35 inches.
He also squatted 455, benched 335 and cleaned 335.
On the field, Young posted 20 tackles, two sacks and four QB hurries in 2025. As a freshman in 2024, he blocked three kicks and made 23 tackles. Feldman’s comparison points made the jump in explosiveness even clearer: Young’s 10-2 broad jump would have ranked eighth among defensive ends at the 2026 NFL Combine, and his 35-inch vertical would have tied for ninth with Texas Tech’s David Bailey, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Anthonie Knapp landed at No. 63, and the preseason All-American looks ready for another step forward now that he’s moved inside to left guard. Feldman noted that the 6-4, 304-pound lineman started 27 games in his first two seasons after arriving as a three-star recruit and served as Notre Dame’s left tackle in 2025. This offseason, he posted a 33-inch vertical and a 9-2 broad jump, while also cleaning 345 pounds, squatting 585 and benching 405.
That 33-inch vertical would have placed him sixth among offensive linemen at the 2026 NFL Combine and second among guards.
Elijah Hughes rounded out Notre Dame’s group at No. 72.
The former USC transfer and former high-level shot putter in high school checked in at 6-3 and 295 pounds after a 2025 season that included 21 tackles and three TFLs. His explosiveness showed up in testing as well: a 9-9 1/2 broad jump, a 33-inch vertical, a 610-pound squat and a 345-pound clean.
Feldman’s numbers suggest Hughes will get attention whenever he tests at the NFL combine, especially with a broad jump that would have ranked first among defensive tackles this past spring and a vertical that would have tied for fifth.
Notre Dame also got an honorable mention for Jaylen Sneed. Feldman highlighted the fifth-year linebacker’s 38 1/2-inch vertical and 10-3 broad jump, calling him another Irish defender who merited consideration.
The Irish weren’t the only program represented on the list from their 2026 schedule. Ten players from Notre Dame opponents made the cut, including Miami offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell, who checked in at No. 4 as a freshman.
Cantwell, listed at 6-8 and 330 pounds, bench pressed 505 pounds as a 16-year-old and became the first offensive lineman to win Gatorade National Player of the Year honors as a five-star recruit. Feldman said he’s expected to start at left tackle for the Hurricanes this fall and pointed to a Peak Power output of 9,461 watts, along with a max velocity of 17.3 mph. For comparison, Francis Mauigoa posted 9,273 watts and 17.6 mph in his final season at Miami before becoming the No. 10 pick in the 2026 NFL draft.
The other 10 players on Notre Dame opponents’ rosters came from six different schools, including three from Wisconsin and two from Syracuse.
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