Notre Dame’s Mitchell Evans is one of the best pass catchers in the country entering the 2024 season. The Mackey Award, which annually recognizes college football’s best tight ends, agreed by placing the Fighting Irish senior on the preseason watch list.
Evans played like a Mackey Award contender last year, his first year as a starter. He caught 29 passes for 422 yards and a touchdown, the most on his team, and was at the peak of his offensive production. Unfortunately, that breakthrough season ended prematurely on Oct. 28 when he suffered a serious knee injury in a win over Pitt. The 6-foot-5, 250-pound native of Wadsworth, Ohio, has been rehabbing his knee ever since.
The good news for the Irish offense is that Evans is healthy again this summer and ready to pick up where he left off last fall. He has the sure hands, experience and physique to add another chapter to Notre Dame’s growing legacy as a tight end. Now he just needs to stay healthy after missing parts of the last two seasons and build a good rapport with Riley Leonard, the new ND QB.
The Mackey Award was created in 2000 and is named after legendary tight end John Mackey, a Hall of Fame inductee for the Syracuse and Baltimore Colts. Georgia’s Brock Bowers, a first-round pick of the Las Vegas Raiders in April, has received the award the past two seasons. Evans could become the second Notre Dame player to receive the Mackey Award. Tyler Eifert, another first-round pick who played eight years in the NFL, won the award in 2012.
