Notre Dame long snapper Alex Peitsch enters transfer portal
The path to Alex Peitsch becoming Notre Dame’s primary long snapper lengthened yet again. Three-year snapper Michael Vinson revealed Dec. 2 he will return for a sixth season in 2023, and by extension, pushed Peitsch’s timeline to succeed him back to 2024.
It appears Peitsch won’t wait around, though.
Peitsch, a rising senior, entered his name in the transfer portal Tuesday, BlueandGold.com can confirm. He will have three years of eligibility at his next stop. He redshirted in 2021 and has the COVID-19 bonus season available to him because he was on the 2020 roster. He did not play in a game this season. He made his only appearance at Notre Dame as a freshman in 2020 during a win over South Florida.
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Notre Dame signed Peitsch as a scholarship long snapper with intentions of fast-tracking him into the lineup. He arrived in 2020 as the likely replacement for four-year starter John Shannon, a scholarship player who exhausted his eligibility after the 2019 season.
Vinson, though, had other ideas. Then a walk-on, he beat out Peitsch for the job in 2020 and has not missed a game since. What looked like a possible two-year wait for Peitsch at the time Vinson claimed the job turned into three when Notre Dame gave Vinson a scholarship in Dec. 2021 and invited him back for a fifth season. Vinson will use the COVID-19 waiver to return for his sixth year.
Peitsch ending 2020 fall camp as the runner-up to Vinson felt like a surprise at the time. He plays a position that is rarely allotted scholarships to give high school recruits. Long snappers who are recruited as scholarship players are usually Year 1 contributors. Peitsch had the profile of one. He was the No. 1-ranked long snapper by Kohl’s Kicking and the No. 1 snapper in the 2020 On3 Consensus. He was named an Under Armour and U.S. Army All-American while at Washington (D.C.) St. John’s College.
The 6-2, 220-pound Peitsch is a native of Ellicott City, Md. He originally chose Notre Dame in May 2019 and committed about a week after earning the offer from the Irish. He enrolled in classes in June 2020.
Peitsch’s departure leaves Vinson as the only scholarship long snapper on the roster. Notre Dame has one walk-on snapper, freshman Rino Monteforte. Special teams coordinator Brian Mason swayed Monteforte away from a scholarship opportunity at Buffalo in January 2022.
