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ORLANDO, Fla. — There is multitasking. Then there is UCF quarterback/center fielder John Rhys Plumlee‘s version of multitasking, complete with a private plane, pickup trucks, golf carts, calendars, group texts, and a team of coaches, nutritionists, trainers and teammates standing ready to help.

Plumlee plays football and baseball for the Golden Knights and does so at an extremely high level. He’s the starting quarterback for a team transitioning into the Big 12 next season. He’s also the starting center fielder on the baseball team. Remarkably, he missed only one football practice and one baseball game this entire spring.

The result has been what Plumlee describes as “some of the coolest days of my life.” It would not have happened without a football coach who believed — six years ago — in what Plumlee wanted to do, then finally got a chance to follow through.

“I think, at a lot of places, what I did would not be possible, whether it’s too much on the baseball side or too much on the football side,” Plumlee said. “This has been my dream since I’ve been in second grade, and I’m getting to live my dream. It’s really, really fun.”

As UCF prepares to play in the American Athletic Conference baseball tournament starting Tuesday (ESPN+), Plumlee recently reflected on a wild four weeks split between spring football practices and the baseball regular season, a stretch that included playing a baseball game and the spring football game on the same evening. Handling both responsibilities required a herculean effort from many, but it all started with a meeting with Plumlee, UCF football coach Gus Malzahn and UCF baseball coach Greg Lovelady.

And a giant calendar.

“The stars really just aligned in terms of how do we make this happen?” Lovelady said. “When you start thinking about it, I think on the front end, you’re like, ‘There are going to be a ton of issues.’ But in reality, it worked out perfectly.”

This spring journey actually began in 2021, after Plumlee entered the transfer portal from Ole Miss. Plumlee had played baseball for two seasons there, but football had not gone as well as he had wanted. After early success at quarterback as a freshman, Plumlee was moved to receiver for 2021 because coach Lane Kiffin chose Matt Corral as his starter.

Plumlee entered the portal after that season ended, and he made it clear to any program that showed interest that he wanted to play quarterback again. But he also had another request: He wanted to continue his baseball career, too.

While he was the head coach at Auburn, Malzahn had recruited Plumlee out of high school. At the time, Malzahn had promised Plumlee he could play both sports if he signed with the Tigers. Now at UCF, Malzahn saw an opportunity to get a quarterback he always wanted, six years later.

Malzahn gave him a simple response: “Come on, I’ll let you play.”

Plumlee didn’t arrive at UCF until January 2022, too late to play baseball. So this spring was his first two-sport trial at UCF. It’s a unique position to be in with only a handful of other football/baseball players around the country, including Virginia quarterback/pitcher Jay Woolfolk.

In Plumlee’s case, UCF went to extraordinary lengths to ensure Plumlee was able to navigate his schedule to participate in nearly every spring football practice — including the spring game.

The first step was to compare practice schedules. The fact that football has morning practices and baseball practices or plays games in the afternoon and evening made figuring out logistics a little smoother.

But there were potential conflicts they pinpointed right away — a midweek baseball game at Miami on a football practice day; a road trip to East Carolina on a day UCF had a football scrimmage scheduled; and … the spring football game set for April 14, the same day the baseball team hosted Memphis. To make matters more challenging, those conflicts were scheduled over a 10-day span.

Plumlee refused to shortchange one sport in favor of another, so he asked everyone to work together so he could make every practice and every game. That included keeping track of his athletic-related activity hours so he did not go over limits set by the NCAA.

“To be honest, I was worried about him mentally and physically wearing down because he was beat up at the end of last year, but I’ve never seen anything like it. He got better every practice. He had great energy. It was something else just to watch,” Malzahn said. “It’s really amazing.”

On a typical football practice day, Plumlee would wake up between 5:45 and 6 a.m. and get to the facility around 6:30 to eat breakfast and get taped up. Team meetings started at 7:30 a.m., followed by offensive and positional meetings. At 9, players start heading to the field. By 11:15 a.m., practice would be done, and Plumlee would get treatment on whatever he needed — whether it was sore hamstrings, hips or shoulders.

Then he would eat lunch and head to baseball at 1 p.m. to do some early batting cage work. Team meetings at 2:15 or 2:30, then practice until 4:30 or 5. He would shower and go home to do his schoolwork and eat dinner — Plumlee had online classes to finish his interdisciplinary studies degree and graduated in early May. Lights out around 9:30 p.m.

“I think 99.9% of the country, you go from football in the morning, baseball in the afternoon, at 6 o’clock, you want to shower, get into bed and just get to the next day,” said tight end Alec Holler, one of Plumlee’s closest friends on the football team. “But instead, he’s moving on to the third part of his day, school. He had three extreme responsibilities, and he handled them really great.”

Holler called what Plumlee did this spring “unheard of and impressive” and noted that even when Plumlee was on the road with baseball, he would have his iPad with him watching football game tape and going over the new playbook. His football teammates cheered his decision to do both, and they wound up becoming newfound baseball fans in the process.

“A lot of people asked me, ‘How are you doing it?'” Plumlee said. “But I got up every day this spring excited — I get to go to football, and I get to go to baseball, and it’s going to be awesome. Now, obviously, I’m going to get tired. I was tired some days. But that’s when my teammates stepped in to get me through. The village that it took to make it happen, it shows that people care here at UCF. It was a whirlwind.”

To keep Plumlee fresh for both football and baseball, the training staff set up a group text message chain to keep each other in the loop, including associate athletics director for sports medicine Mary Vander Heiden and trainers Mackenzie Kennedy and Kaylee Shores.

“They were in constant communication to tell each other what we worked on,” Plumlee said. “Maybe one day I had tight hips, or I was sore and threw less during baseball practice. There was a constant line of communication that was happening. Without them, I don’t make it through the spring.”

On the strength side, Plumlee lifted with the football team but his regimen was tailored around what was going on with baseball. On game days, perhaps he did not lift with as much volume but there were certain sets and reps he had to do to maintain his weight and arm strength. Plumlee can recall only one time over that four-week span when his shoulder felt sore.

But tired? That was another matter. From April 4 to 14 proved to be the most challenging. On April 4, UCF had a football practice in the morning and a baseball game that night at Miami. After Plumlee finished practice, he showered and his lunch was packaged and waiting for him to eat on his road trip south.

Assistant director of football operations Kenny Yerves had his truck pulled up in front. Plumlee hopped in, and they made the four-hour drive down to Coral Gables for the game. He arrived five minutes before they started batting practice, then went 1-for-4 in a 14-3 loss.

Plumlee stayed the night and headed back to Orlando on Wednesday. On Thursday, he played in a football scrimmage in the stadium, then sprinted past everybody, showered, changed and went back into the truck with Yerves. This time, he was headed to the airport and a private plane to take him to Greenville, North Carolina, where a doubleheader against East Carolina was scheduled to begin later that afternoon.

“We drove right up to the plane,” Plumlee said. “I felt like a rock star. I was watching the pilots fly the plane, thinking, ‘Man this is really cool.'” He proceeded to take a nap, and when he woke up, they had landed. Plumlee arrived at the baseball stadium 30 minutes before the first pitch and played in both games, with three hits and two runs scored.

“I’m tired just thinking about it, and again, he played great, and I never felt, ‘What a day he’s had, he’s out of gas,'” Lovelady said. “He was ready to go when he showed up. I know it’s been a dream of his to do this, so he was excited about it all.”

The next week, UCF had its spring game planned. Lovelady agreed to move the start time for the home opener against Memphis to 5 p.m., and football agreed to start the spring game at 7:30 p.m., hoping Plumlee could play in both. When inclement weather forced the baseball game to start 30 minutes late, there were more than a few people — Plumlee included — who started sweating whether he would be able to make it to the football stadium right next door.

Luckily for him, UCF jumped out to a 10-3 lead in the seventh inning. At this point, everyone inside the baseball stadium could hear the music blaring from the football stadium.

Just beyond the outfield, the tailgating was in full swing, “You could feel the vibe from the football stadium from our stadium, so I’m sure that gets some juices flowing for him,” Lovelady said. “I told him it was all up to him. I’m not going to tell him what to do. I said, ‘You tell me, you want to go football, we’ll do that,’ and he was like, ‘I’m not missing the game.'”

Plumlee asked Lovelady whether he could go over to football after his at-bat in the seventh. Lovelady agreed. When it was his turn, Plumlee hit a single to first. He ended his day going 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs.

“I’m coaching first base, and he gets to first and I looked at him, and he looked at me, and I was like, ‘Now?’ He was like, ‘Yup!’ I was like, ‘All right, pinch runner.’ There he went, running off the field. It was pretty surreal just watching him run and go. You’re kind of watching the whole thing transpire in front of your eyes,” Lovelady said.

The UCF social media team was there to document it all, as Plumlee hopped on a golf cart with Yerves at the wheel and headed over to the football stadium and into the locker room to get into his football uniform.

Plumlee narrated his journey for the cameras, “Now we’re going to have to see how quick this quick change is going to be.” Yerves was there to help Plumlee put on his shoulder pads, and then Plumlee ran into the stadium, where the game had already started.

When he walked onto the field, the crowd welcomed him with a rousing ovation.

“I’m warming up, and everybody’s like, ‘Let’s go!’ You’ve got little kids screaming, ‘Let’s go, John Rhys!’ It was really cool. Because I remember being that age, looking up to athletes and thinking, ‘I want to be that guy one day, and so to have the roles reversed and a little guy looking at me is really cool. Really cool.”

Plumlee followed up his big performance in the baseball game with a big performance in the spring football game — completing 10 of 17 passes for 236 yards with two touchdowns. New offensive coordinator Darin Hinshaw and Malzahn made a concerted effort this spring to work on Plumlee’s downfield passing — and it showed in his performance. Malzahn also points out that last spring was the first time Plumlee had played quarterback since 2020.

“Now that he’s got a year under his belt, Darin has done a super job with his mechanics, he’s more accurate, his pocket awareness and calmness has really improved,” Malzahn said. “Throwing the ball vertically down the field was really our main emphasis in the spring, and he’s improved in that, too. It’s been good to watch.”

But maybe more impressive is what Plumlee has done on the baseball diamond this season.

“He didn’t see a live pitch for 18 months, and for him to come out here and do what he’s done, it’s pretty remarkable,” Lovelady said. “You’ve just got to be really talented and gifted. I thought his second-half numbers would be way better than his first-half numbers as he got into the rhythm of doing this every day.

“But man, he shot out right out of the chute ready to go. He was hitting .318 two months into the season. I was just flabbergasted. It’s really a testament to him, his ability, his work ethic and just his demeanor.

This is the first football-baseball athlete Lovelady has coached, and he would be willing to do it all over again — but he also noted how hard Plumlee has worked to make it all happen. “It’s not that easy, and he has made it look really, really easy,” Lovelady said.

This will be Plumlee’s last year of college football, and at some point he will have to make a decision about what path to take moving forward. At 6 feet, 200 pounds, he is undersized for the NFL, but Malzahn said, “I believe he’s capable of being an NFL quarterback.” Because of the COVID-19 year and his decision to enter the transfer portal, Plumlee could stay at UCF for at least one more season and continue playing baseball, where he is a late-round Major League Baseball draft possibility.

“I haven’t really thought that far ahead in the big scheme of things,” Plumlee said. “But football, this is my last year. We’ll have to see, but I’m looking to perform really good this year and do some big things and put myself in an opportunity to get drafted.”

Although Plumlee is now well past spring football season, a part of him thinks back to what he did over that four-week stretch with wonder.

“If we didn’t video half of it, you wouldn’t believe it,” Plumlee said.

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Seize the Grey wins Preakness, denies Mystik Dan

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Seize the Grey wins Preakness, denies Mystik Dan

Seize the Grey went wire to wire to win the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, giving 88-year-old Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas a seventh victory in the race and ending Mystik Dan’s Triple Crown bid.

The gray colt, ridden by Jamie Torres, took advantage of the muddy track just like Lukas hoped he would, pulling off the upset at Pimlico Race Course in a second consecutive impressive start two weeks after romping in a race on the Kentucky Derby undercard at Churchill Downs. Seize the Grey went off at 9-1, one of the longest shots on the board.

Mystik Dan finished second in the field of eight horses running in the $2 million, 1 3/16-mile race. After falling short of going back to back following his win by a nose in the Kentucky Derby, it would be a surprise if he runs in the Belmont Stakes on June 8 at Saratoga Race Course.

Mystic Dan’s second-place finish extends a six-year drought in which the Kentucky Derby winner has failed to repeat at the Preakness Stakes. It is the longest such drought since 1989 to 1997, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

Seize the Grey was a surprise Preakness winner facing tougher competition than in the Pat Day Mile on May 4. Though given the Lukas connection, it should never be a surprise when one of his horses is covered in a blanket of black-eyed Susan flowers.

No one in the race’s 149-year history has saddled more horses in the Preakness than Lukas with 48 since debuting in 1980. He had two this time, with Just Steel finishing fifth.

Lukas has now won the Preakness seven times, one short of the record held by two-time Triple Crown-winning trainer and close friend Bob Baffert, whose Imagination finished seventh. Baffert also was supposed to have two horses in the field and arguably the best, but morning line favorite Muth was scratched earlier in the week because of a fever.

Muth’s absence made Mystik Dan the 2-1 favorite, but he and jockey Brian Hernandez Jr. could not replicate their perfect Derby trip — when they won the race’s first three-way photo finish since 1947. Instead, Torres rode Seize the Grey to a win in his first Preakness.

This was the last Preakness held at Pimlico Race Course as it stands before demolition begins on the historic but deteriorating track, which will still hold the 150th running of it next year during construction.

That process is already well underway at Belmont Park, which is why the final leg of the Triple Crown is happening at Saratoga for the first time and is being shortened to 1¼ miles because of the shape of the course. Kentucky Derby second-place finisher Sierra Leone, a half step from winning, is expected to headline that field.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Keys to the offseason: What’s next for the Bruins, Avs, other eliminated teams?

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Keys to the offseason: What's next for the Bruins, Avs, other eliminated teams?

The 2023-24 NHL regular season was an entertaining one, with races for playoff position, point and goal leaders, and major trophies all coming down to the bitter end.

But not every fan base got to enjoy all of it so much.

With eliminations piling up, it’s time to look ahead to the offseason. Clubs that didn’t quite hit the mark this season will use the draft, free agency and trades in an effort to be more competitive in 2024-25.

Read on for a look at what went wrong for each eliminated team, along with a breakdown of its biggest keys this offseason and realistic expectations for next season. Note that more teams will be added to this story as they are eliminated.

Note: Profiles for the Atlantic and Metro teams were written by Kristen Shilton, while Ryan S. Clark analyzed the Central and Pacific teams. Stats are collected from sites such as Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference and Evolving Hockey. Projected cap space per Cap Friendly. Dates listed with each team are when the entry was published.

Jump to a team:
ANA | ARI | BOS | BUF
CGY | CAR | CHI | COL
CBJ | DET | LA | MIN
MTL | NSH | NJ | NYI
OTT | PHI | PIT | SJ
SEA | STL | TB | TOR
VGK | WSH | WPG

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Between lacrosse and football, Jordan Faison does it all for Notre Dame

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Between lacrosse and football, Jordan Faison does it all for Notre Dame

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — On the night of Oct. 7, Wesleyan wide receiver Colby Geddis traveled back from a game in Maine with his phone on life support, attempting to track the Notre DameLouisville contest.

Jordan Faison, Geddis’ close friend and longtime teammate in both football and lacrosse, was set to make his football debut for Notre Dame. Faison had come to college as a top-50 lacrosse recruit and walked on to the football team as a wide receiver.

Geddis’ phone had only enough juice to allow him to refresh the statistics.

“When I saw him touch the field, I’m like, ‘Holy s—, this kid is playing D-I football,'” Geddis said. “It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”

Faison has continued to impress his friends, family and Fighting Irish fans, spending the winter and spring successfully juggling two sports that, at Notre Dame, carry the highest of expectations. The true freshman scored Notre Dame’s first goal of the lacrosse season Feb. 14, 38 seconds into the opener against Cleveland State, and is a starting midfielder for an Irish team that continues its quest to repeat as national champions when it faces Georgetown in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals (noon ET, ESPNU). Faison ranks fourth on the team in both goals (19) and points (27).

When Notre Dame began spring football practice March 22, Faison was around as much as he could be, avoiding contact to preserve his body for lacrosse, while still learning new offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock’s scheme.

Faison came to Notre Dame primarily for lacrosse, joining a program that had captured its first national championship in spring 2023. But then football had to come first. He made 19 receptions in seven games as a slot receiver, tied for second on the team in touchdown catches (4) and earned Sun Bowl MVP honors with five catches for 115 yards and a touchdown.

“You’re held to a standard in both sports and you’ve got to meet that standard to make sure the team is developing well,” Faison said. “Being able to do that has just been freaking awesome.”

Faison wasn’t even supposed to see the football field for Notre Dame this soon. He’s also somewhat of an unlikely lacrosse prodigy, hailing from a region not known for producing many college stars. But after a blistering start at Notre Dame, he has become the link between two sports that are often not viewed through the same lens but contain plenty of parallels.


NOTRE DAME WIDE receivers coach Mike Brown spends chunks of his year on the road recruiting, which often means watching prospects compete in other sports. Basketball is common. So are track and baseball. Those recruiting in the Midwest often see future football players on the mat in wrestling singlets.

But Brown hadn’t experienced much lacrosse crossover.

“Obviously with Jordan out there, I’m watching a lot more and just learning,” Brown said. “It’s a lot of similar movements, change of direction, how they rotate. It’s a football slash basketball-ish mix.”

Faison is a distinct talent, but there are other players with football-lacrosse backgrounds competing at the Division I level. There’s even another at Notre Dame. Tyler Buchner, who opened the 2022 football season as Fighting Irish starting quarterback and vied for the QB1 job last spring before transferring to Alabama, returned to Notre Dame over the winter to compete for the lacrosse team, a sport he had not played since early in high school. Buchner is a reserve midfielder for the Irish.

Will Shipley, the Clemson running back selected in the fourth round of last month’s NFL draft, was a standout lacrosse player in high school who could have played both sports at Notre Dame had he signed with the Irish. Maryland defensive back Dante Trader Jr., who started the past two seasons, earned honorable mention All-America honors for the Terrapins lacrosse team in 2023 before focusing solely on football.

So what skills in lacrosse translate to football?

“What wouldn’t?” Notre Dame lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan, who has led the program since 1988, shot back. “Changing directions, reading a guy’s hips to know when to come out of your break, deception that you use to make guys think you’re doing one thing or another, those are all traits that you’re using on both fields. Forget about the acceleration and stopping and those sorts of things. All the athletic traits translate very easily.”

Geddis, who played both football and lacrosse with Faison throughout their childhood, cited significant tactical differences, but also similarities with core movements. The two sports track especially for wide receivers, who have to beat defenders in press coverage with their feet and hands, just like lacrosse players seeking room to attempt shots.

“It definitely does translate a lot in terms of understanding where to attack leverage on a guy and how to break him down,” Geddis said. “Going against D-I safeties and corners, his IQ and skill set is probably so much better now for lacrosse. And that aspect goes both ways.”

And those talents immediately jumped out to Faison’s football teammates.

“He’s agile, fast, athletic, quick, so no wonder it’s going to translate to lacrosse,” wide receiver Jayden Thomas said. “Seeing him in football, it’s obvious, and then going out to a [lacrosse] game and watching him, it’s like, ‘OK, it makes sense.'”

When Faison’s two-sport ambition came into focus, Notre Dame mapped out a detailed schedule for him. Faison spent the summer and fall with the football team, immersed in the demanding schedule of practices and meetings, and ultimately travel and games. He missed six weeks of lacrosse practice in the fall, as well as weight training and individual work.

After the Sun Bowl on Dec. 28, Faison briefly went home, but he was at the first preseason lacrosse practice Jan. 11 and became a full participant days later. The lacrosse plan called for him to focus on defense, mindful of his time away, but he quickly showed he could handle all the midfielders’ tasks. The 5-foot-10, 182-pound Faison did in-season lifting with lacrosse this spring, while doing little physically with football, where he spent most of his time in meetings as Notre Dame installed its offense.

Corrigan credited football coach Marcus Freeman and strength and conditioning coach Loren Landow for aligning their expectations to ensure Faison is at his best in lacrosse during the spring and at his best in football when the fall comes.

“I’ve told Marcus and them, ‘If you gave us all your skill guys and made them play lacrosse in the spring and they had the ability to play it at a high level, it would be the best training physically for those guys to possibly have,'” Corrigan said.


FAISON’S INTRODUCTION TO lacrosse came easily and innocently.

He was 6 at the time and just finished a youth football game with Geddis in South Florida. Geddis immediately began lacrosse practice on a nearby field. Faison then grabbed a stick and started launching balls as far as he could.

“That got me into the sport, and then I took it and ran with it,” Faison said.

His football teammates all began playing lacrosse for a team coached by Geddis’ father. Faison showed the natural ability to make one-on-one plays and absorbed the finer points of the sport, especially within the team construct. Lacrosse in Florida has become more popular, but the area still trails the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic in generating elite-level competition and Division I recruiting avenues.

“We were smoking every team down here,” said Quincy Faison, Jordan’s father, who helped coach the youth lacrosse team. “Then, when we would take our team up to the North, we would get smoked. So to get better, you need to understand how they operate, how they practice, what they work on.”

To gain greater exposure, Faison began playing club lacrosse during the summers with a team in Long Island, New York. During that first summer, before he entered high school, he lived in an RV with his parents and younger brother, Dylan.

The Faisons posted up in an RV park near Nickerson Beach, about 15 miles from JFK International Airport. Quincy, a technology executive, and his mother Kristen, who works in software development, had the RV equipped with portable high-speed internet so they could keep working.

“My wife and I loved it; I’m not sure how Jordan and Dylan felt,” Quincy said. “We were within 100 yards of the beach, there was a bike ramp set up. I took Zoom calls from the RV. It was basically like camping for the whole summer.”

But Jordan said he had “mixed emotions” about the RV.

“The area was nice, next to a beach, that was kind of fun, but being in tight quarters with my family, sometimes you’ve got to get away from them,” he recalled.

Although Jordan missed hanging out with his friends back home during the summers, he benefited from the club lacrosse experience, rising to No. 48 in Inside Lacrosse’s recruiting rankings. Faison didn’t receive as much attention for football until later in his career as a quarterback and defensive back at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale.

His recruiting went into three tracks: lacrosse only, lacrosse/football and football only. He wanted to play both sports and discussed the possibility with schools such as Duke and Ohio State, as well as Notre Dame.

The only deal breaker, according to Quincy, is that Jordan couldn’t play quarterback along with a second sport. Jordan also considered schools like Syracuse and Michigan for lacrosse. In the fall of 2021, he committed to Notre Dame for lacrosse, but his football recruitment would eventually pick up.

Iowa, which doesn’t have a lacrosse program, offered Faison for football. About a year after he committed to Notre Dame, he visited Iowa City.

“Recruiting is majorly different between football and lacrosse, the budgets are different, how they treat the athletes,” Quincy said. “So going on lacrosse visits and then going to Iowa, the red carpet’s rolled out, you’ve got your own hotel room, they’re feeding you, so he got googly-eyed. He was actually thinking about just going to Iowa. I said, ‘There’s a lot more into this.’ He gave it some consideration, that’s for sure.”

But Jordan ultimately stuck with Notre Dame even though his football path wasn’t set in stone. The decision has paid off and rubbed off on Dylan, who in March became the first football recruit to commit for Notre Dame’s 2026 class. Dylan plays the same position (wide receiver) and starred in the same sports as his big brother.

Although lacrosse recruiting doesn’t begin until September of a prospect’s junior year in high school, Dylan is expected to be high on Notre Dame’s wish list. He and Jordan could play both sports together during the 2026-27 academic year, which is why Quincy and Kristen are looking to buy a small home near campus. Jordan said Dylan is better than he was at the same age, and boasts more length, at 5-foot-11, to complement his quickness.

“We had it in high school for a year, and being able to have it again here at this special place, it’s just unreal,” Jordan said. “We’ll definitely butt heads a bit, as all brothers do, but it will be really fun.”


NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL welcomed Jordan as a walk-on, but the plan wasn’t to play him, at least not right away, because his scholarship would convert to football and count against the team’s limit. Quincy had heard some buzz that Jordan would ultimately land a football scholarship, but perhaps not until 2025.

“We came into the season with no expectations,” Quincy said.

“I thought I’d probably be on the bench,” Jordan added.

But wide receiver injuries began to mount. Faison’s behind-the-scenes performance also made it increasingly more difficult to keep him out on Saturdays.

“We had an extra scholarship, but that was the last-case scenario,” Freeman said. “Then, we had some wideouts go down, and he was making too many plays in practice. We had to play him.”

Faison made his first career start the following week against USC, as Notre Dame crushed its rival 48-20. He recorded multiple receptions in six of the seven games he played and had 12 in the final three contests, hauling in a touchdown in each.

Some of his biggest plays came in the Sun Bowl against Oregon State, including a 33-yard sideline route early in the second half, where Faison beat airtight coverage to come down with quarterback Steve Angeli‘s pass.

“Coming in here with the goal of playing is the main thing, and then once you play, it’s like, ‘Now I’ve got to keep it rolling,'” Faison said. “Once you get it rolling, the confidence comes and then, with the confidence, that’s where you really see gains develop.”

A procrastinator during high school, Faison still must break old habits to navigate a unique and busy schedule. But he has dutifully followed the plans both teams laid out for him, and communicated with the staffs about potential conflicts. He still finds some downtime to nap or play video games.

Corrigan has seen many students become overwhelmed with the academic and athletic demands of one sport, much less two. But Faison has never lost the “quiet confidence” that he could perform in both sports. Freeman said he wants to support Faison’s future goals, whether or not they include football.

“I don’t know why he couldn’t keep doing this,” Corrigan said. “We have to protect him and his body, make sure he is getting enough rest over the course of the year.”

Faison’s immediate goal, one reinforced by Notre Dame’s lacrosse veterans, is to chase another championship. After another short break, he’ll switch back into football mode.

“He’s laid a solid foundation in his first year here, and we’ve got high expectations going into Year 2,” Freeman said. “He’s handling two different sports and all those demands.”

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