Former Notre Dame tight end Cane Berrong to transfer to Coastal Carolina
Rising junior tight end Cane Berrong never panned out at Notre Dame. He’s looking to get his career on the fast track at Coastal Carolina.
Berrong will team up with quarterback Grayson McCall, who completed 69.7 percent of his passes for 2,700 yards with 24 touchdowns and 2 interceptions in 2022. McCall entered his name in the transfer portal prior to Coastal Carolina’s bowl game then retracted it soon thereafter.
Berrong entered the transfer portal on Dec. 12. He has three seasons of eligibility left. He only played in one game for Notre Dame in 2022. He was limited in coming back from an ACL injury suffered in October 2021 and could never get ahead of other tight ends on a crowded depth chart.
Junior tight end Michael Mayer had a firm grip on tight end No. 1 responsibilities. He worked in tandem with fellow junior Kevin Bauman for the first three games of the season before he went down with an ACL injury of his own. Then it was freshman Eli Raridon swallowing second-string reps, but he tore his ACL in October. By then, sophomore Mitchell Evans was healthy enough coming back from a foot fracture sustained in July to take over TE2 duties. Evans caught the game-winning touchdown for Notre Dame in a 45-38 win over South Carolina in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl on Dec. 30.
With all of those bodies, in addition to rising sophomore Holden Staes and rising junior Davis Sherwood — a former walk-on who earned a scholarship in the offseason — Berrong just never found solid footing in attempting to earn reps on Saturdays.
Notre Dame lost Mayer to the 2023 NFL Draft, but all of the other aforementioned tight ends — minus Berrong, of course — are slated to return for next season. The Irish are also set to bring in class of 2023 recruit Cooper Flanagan, the No. 14 tight end in the country according to the On3 Consensus recruiting rankings. Berrong was the No. 12 tight end in the class of 2021.
Berrong was the fourth Notre Dame player to enter the portal since the end of the 2022 regular season. He joined quarterback Drew Pyne, defensive end Osita Ekwonu and cornerback Jayden Bellamy. Players had until Jan. 18 to enter their names in the portal.
