Will injury setback lead to big 2024 comeback for Notre Dame football TE Mitchell Evans?

SOUTH BEND — With his gold helmet and blue No. 88 practice jersey in his left hand and a purple Smoothie in his right, Notre Dame football tight end Mitchell Evans looked like just another player leaving the Irish Athletic Center after a day’s work. 

You had to look closely to realize that wasn’t the case for Evans, who needs a few more months before returning to anything resembling normal. 

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Evidence of that was there along his left knee, just to the side of a square-like medical patch that serves as the only obvious sign that something might not be right for the 6-foot-5, 260-pounder from Wadsworth, Ohio. Just to the right of that patch runs a surgical scar along the inside of Evans’ left knee. You see that and you remember, ah, yes, the moment. The hit. The injury. 

Evans had another big game working last October at home against Pittsburgh. Seemingly on track to go from nowhere to offensive most valuable player last season, Evans had five catches for 66 yards. That final catch with the Irish up 37-0 in the third quarter saw everything go from something to, well, nothing. 

Evans went in motion, caught a pass along the right sideline and turned up the field. Just before he pulled his planted left leg from the Notre Dame Stadium turf, Evans was tackled by Pitt defensive back Donovan McMillon. He felt something he’d never felt. He didn’t know what he’d done, but he knew he had done something. 

Watching the replay, it didn’t look good. It wasn’t. 

Evans remained down for a few moments to get his bearings, then hobbled off the field and into the dreaded medical tent for a quick evaluation. 

“I knew something was wrong,” Evans said between Smoothie sips. “In the moment, I wasn’t feeling excruciating pain (but) I knew something was off.” 

As did the team medical staff, who needed seconds to assess the situation. Evans’s medial collateral ligament, which no more than five minutes earlier was completely intact, was gone. His anterior cruciate ligament? Too early to tell, but an MRI the next day revealed it too had been shredded. 

“I was like, ‘Arrrrraggggghh,’” Evans said. “I wasn’t too upset in a sense.” 

Usually when a player suffers a severe knee injury, he’s devastated. He sees his athletic life flash before his eyes and wonders if those days are done. Evans seemed in a more serene state. They say that when anything of consequence happens in life, timing is everything. The timing, in a weird way, couldn’t have been better for Evans during a break-through, here-I-am college football season at Notre Dame. 

He had played in eight games. He had a career year with a team-high 29 catches for 422 yards and a touchdown. He showed that the tight end spot would be fine with All-Everything dude Michael Mayer in the NFL. Evans had already cemented a role, proven something to himself and to his teammates and to the coaching staff. 

Sure, the timing of the injury sucked, but Evans was OK. 

“If it was in August, I would be way more upset because I couldn’t showcase what I could do, what my capabilities are,” he said. “Since it happened after pretty much a full season (not really), I was like, ‘OK, now I just have to prove it again for this year and get back to work.’” 

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A bust-out 2023 brings big plans for 2024

Nobody saw Evans coming this time last spring. Nobody saw him coming when preseason camp started. All the talk about potential offensive centerpieces in 2023 centered around the quarterback (San Hartman) and the running back (Audric Estime) and the left tackle (Joe Alt) and a group of wide receivers who might show but never did. 

Nobody talked about the three-star tight end from Northeast Ohio who looked to take over for the four-star tight end from Southwest Ohio. 

Evans was a surprise to everyone except himself. 

“I think I’ve always had that confidence that I can do those types of things,” he said. “I wasn’t shocked, but like, it’s the standard of this place. We’ve had so many great tight ends (that) you’ve got to be able to do that when your name is called.” 

The first couple games in 2023, Evans was more as a blocking tight end to help get Estime four yards on third-and-three, to protect Hartman and his search for someone downfield. A pass catcher? Incomplete. A heart-to-heart with former Irish offensive coordinator — and tight ends coach — Gerad Parker changed everything. They talked about roles and potential and everything else. 

Fittingly, it all turned for Evans with seven catches for 75 yards (both then career highs) against Ohio State, the in-state state school that Evans has grown to hate. Loathe. Despise. Any other word you want to use — four-letter or otherwise — would fit to describe how Evans feels about the Buckeyes, a program in his backyard (really, 112 miles away) that never bothered to pick up the phone to call/recruit him. 

“I was juiced up, ready to go showcase what I can do and just did that consistently,” he said of the Ohio State game. “That got me going for the rest of the season.” 

What followed was a kind of out-of-body experience for Evans. Especially that Saturday night in late September at Duke when he had six catches for 134 yards. He made one where he reached back with his left hand, tipped a Hartman pass to himself and rumbled 36 yards. Afterward, Evans wondered to an assembled group of media what he’d done. He wasn’t even sure what he’d done or how he’d done it. 

Days later back in South Bend, in the tight ends meeting room, even the normally word-heavy Parker was at a loss for words. 

“He was going over it and was like, ‘There are no coaching points for that,’” Evans said. “That’s what you’ve got to do at this level.” 

That’s what Evans wants to do in 2024, though the timetable for when he might do it is uncertain. On this early April day on the IAC indoor practice field, Evans was still only five months removed from major knee surgery. 

Short of the occasional aches from the weakened knee, there’s been no lingering/red flag pain. He spends most spring practices in The Pit, the area for injured players to get healthy. He rides the stationary bike or crushes the StairMaster (which he hates because he sweats so much). 

Evans has spent much of his rehab/recovery time studying up on the new offense of coordinator Mike Denbrock. It’s been trying. He would rather be learning on the field than learning by studying/watching, but he likes what he sees. So does Denbrock. 

“He’s a guy that really understands the game,” Denbrock said of Evans. “We can do a lot of things with a guy who understands the game the way he does. There’s going to be some things we can do with him versatility-wise that I’m excited about. 

“We’ve got to get him back healthy first.” 

Evans has a goal of running — at whatever speed — before he leaves for home May 18. He hopes to be more active in terms of mobility, change of direction, top speed, route running, etc., when he returns for summer conditioning. 

He doesn’t have a timetable for his cut-it-all-loose on the practice field return, but Evans does know this – he's going to play football again for Notre Dame. He’s going to be better than he was before the injury when he was rather good. He’s going to be a better leader. He's going to show NFL-worthy skills. 

Everyone’s journey, even in college football, is different. This is his. 

“I know what I can do,” Evans said. “I’m going to go out and do it again next year. It’s going to take a while to get there. It’s just made me become a better person to work through adversity. 

“Everybody’s got to go through some (stuff) to become a better person. This is my stuff.” 

Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.