It might have taken a little longer than expected, but Notre Dame wide receiver Jaden Greathouse showed the world that he has all of the makings of Notre Dame football’s WR1 in 2025 with his monster playoff performances for the Irish. After not having a single 100-yard performance through his first two seasons, Greathouse topped the century mark in back-to-back games and nearly willed the Irish back from a massive deficit in the National Championship game last week.
“Production doesn’t always reflect performance. It doesn’t,” Marcus Freeman said of Greathouse following Monday night’s loss. “Production is something that is a result of doing your job and the quarterback making the decision to throw you the ball and the offensive play that calls for it.”
“JG has been playing great all season long,” Freeman said. “it’s just now he’s had some production to go along with the way he’s been playing.”
Produce is indeed what Jaden Greathouse did in the Orange Bowl and National Championship game. Through Notre Dame’s first 14 games this season, Greathouse had just 29 catches for 359 yards and a single touchdown. In Notre Dame’s last two games alone, Greathouse hauled in 13 for 233 and three touchdowns. In a game in which the Irish faced the nation’s best wide receiving corps, Greathouse led all receivers in yards and touchdowns on the night.
The breakout from Greathouse was a long time coming. He burst onto the scene as a freshman in Notre Dame’s season opener in Dublin with a two-touchdown performance in the first game of his collegiate career. A hamstring injury, however, slowed him down as a freshman, and he finished the year with 18 catches, 265 yards, and 5 touchdowns. Solid output, but after 4 for 68 yards and 2 TDs in the opener, a monster freshman campaign could have been in the cards had he not been slowed down by the injury.
Heading into 2024, it seemed like Greathouse could be Notre Dame’s top wide receiver even after the Irish added three receivers in the transfer portal, but with a new offensive coordinator and a brand new quarterback who missed all of spring ball, the Notre Dame passing game as a whole was slow to develop.
After the National Championship game, Freeman noted the trust between Riley Leonard and Greathouse. “I think there was a confidence and a connection between Riley and him,” Freeman noted. That trust wasn’t always there, though, because it takes time to develop. Greathouse’s second touchdown grab against Ohio State is a prime example of a quarterback trusting his receiver because Greathouse was covered – so much so that OSU was flagged for pass interference – but Leonard trusted Greathouse to make a play on a 50/50 ball. It took time for that trust to develop.
Greathouse led Notre Dame with 13 contested targets this season and caught 11. That’s a ridiculous percentage (84.6%). The next closest wide receiver on the team was Beaux Collins, who had 10 contested targets, but he hauled in just 6. Tight end Mitchell Evans was second overall in contested targets with 11. He hauled in 8 of them (72.7%). Sean Brown of Charlotte is the only wide receiver in the country with a better percentage than Greathouse, with at least 10 contested targets on the season.
Of Greathouse’s 13 CT, though, five came in the last two games, and he caught four. It takes time for that level of trust between a quarterback and a receiver to develop, especially when you’re a new quarterback in a new system who throws a crushing interception and loses a game like Leonard did against NIU. After that, Leonard did not take many chances this season until the last couple of games.
It’s unfortunate for Greathouse and Leonard that it took as long as it did for that trust to develop because contested catches are part of Greathouse’s game, where he thrives. It’s not just the hard ones that Greathouse excels at, either. He led the Irish with the lowest drop percentage on the team at just 2.8%. He had just one drop all season long. Maybe if Leonard didn’t have to miss the spring or that interception against NIU never happened, that process could have been accelerated. It didn’t, though.
Unfortunately for Leonard, he only had one year of eligibility left and won’t get a second year in Mike Denbrock’s offense. Greathouse, though, has two years of eligibility left and looks primed to be Notre Dame’s top receiving target in 2025, regardless of who wins the quarterback battle that kicks off this spring.
Greathouse might not be the prototypical WR1 like the receivers we saw running open for Ohio State on Monday night. He has a different game. He’s a precision route runner who can break a corner’s ankles like he did against Penn State, and he’s a big physical receiver who will win jump balls in the endzone. In that regard, he’s got a little bit of Anquan Boldin in him, or, for a more recent example JJ Arcea Whiteside from Stanford. That last comp pains me a bit as an Eagles fan, but Whiteside was a monster for Stanford with 14 TDs and 1,069 for the Cardinal in 2018. Greathouse has all of the tools for that level of production for Notre Dame and proved he can do it against the best in the country in Notre Dame’s last two games.
