Safety Houston Griffith will return for a ‘super senior’ season at Notre Dame
Houston Griffith nearly left Notre Dame after three seasons.
He’s going to end up staying for five.
Griffith, a 12-game starter at safety this year, announced Monday he is coming back for a fifth season with the Irish as a “super senior.” He made 38 tackles and recovered one fumble this year.
Though he has played four full seasons and did not redshirt, he has an option for a fifth because the NCAA awarded all players on 2020 college football rosters an extra season of eligibility. Griffith decided in December he would return, a source told BlueandGold.com.
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Redshirt tracker: How many games each Notre Dame freshman played
Staying five full years might not be the career arc most envisioned when Griffith – the highest-ranked recruit in Notre Dame’s 2018 class – saw the field immediately and played the most freshman-year snaps of anyone in that group. He was in for 197 defensive plays across 11 games, largely in a nickel back role. He made 14 tackles with two pass breakups.
In 2019, though, Griffith moved to cornerback and fell out of the rotation. He made just five tackles in 13 games (104 defensive snaps), with much of that action coming on special teams or in mop-up duty. He eventually slid back to safety, but Kyle Hamilton’s freshman rise cut into his opportunities there.
Griffith started two games in 2020 and made 14 tackles (1.0 for loss). He began fall camp competing for the open spot next to Hamilton, but Notre Dame tabbed converted cornerback Shaun Crawford instead. Griffith was mainly a sub-package and special-teams mainstay gain.
Three days after the Irish’s College Football Playoff loss to Alabama, he entered his name in the transfer portal. Marcus Freeman, then the newly hired defensive coordinator, set out to convince him to stay. His efforts worked – Griffith withdrew from the portal about three weeks later.
“I just think once I made that decision to start that communication with Marcus to come out of the transfer portal and just build that relationship with him, it just helped me to just become more comfortable with making the decision to return for Notre Dame,” Griffith said before the Fiesta Bowl.
Griffith was the No. 70 recruit in the 2018 class, per the On3 Consensus. A Chicago native, he played his first three years at Mount Carmel High School in the city before transferring to IMG Academy for his senior season. He was previously committed to Florida State before choosing Notre Dame in December 2017.
