Quincy Porter’s first season at Notre Dame is over before it ever really got started.
Marcus Freeman said Monday that the former Ohio State wide receiver will have season-ending patella surgery later this week after another flare-up. The news shuts the door on Porter’s debut in South Bend without a single snap played, and without him ever suiting up for the Irish. He also missed all of spring practice.
For weeks, Notre Dame had been talking like Porter was getting closer, with the expectation that he might be back in the “next few weeks.” Instead, the setback ends a frustrating run of delays for a player the staff had hoped would be ready by summer. Freeman indicated this was a new issue that had popped up after Porter had been making progress toward a return.
Porter’s path to Notre Dame has been anything but smooth. The Irish knew he was dealing with an injury when he arrived, but the belief was that he would be fully healed by the time summer came around. That never happened, and each new timeline for his return kept sliding back.
The receiver room has already been operating without him, so Notre Dame can keep moving forward. Still, Porter is a major talent to lose.
He arrived as a 5-star wideout in the 2025 recruiting class, a 6-foot-4, 215-pound receiver from Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, New Jersey. He originally signed with Ohio State before transferring to Notre Dame in January 2026.
According to the 247Sports Composite Rankings, Porter was the No. 23 player in the 2025 class, the No. 5 wide receiver, and the No. 1 player in New Jersey. As a senior at Bergen Catholic in 2024, he caught 57 passes for 969 yards and 11 touchdowns, averaging 17.0 yards per reception while helping the Crusaders go 11-1 and win the New Jersey Non-Public A state championship. His high school career finished with 133 receptions for 2,624 yards and 38 touchdowns.
Porter had enough talent to get on the field in his freshman season, and he did appear in five games and catch 4 passes for 59 yards.
The bigger sting now is the eligibility situation. Because of the 5-for-5 rules changes put in place earlier this spring, Porter cannot redshirt.
That means the 2025 season is lost either way. On top of that, the NCAA is now much stricter about granting waivers, including medical waivers, in situations like this - the kind that used to be close to automatic.
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