Former Notre Dame QB Buchner back with the team, but as a wide receiver

Former Notre Dame starting quarterback Tyler Buchner, who joined the school’s lacrosse team this spring after playing football last fall at Alabama, will return to the Fighting Irish football team for the 2024 season as a substitute.

Buchner will play wide receiver for the Irish. He had one assist in 10 games as a reserve midfielder for the Notre Dame lacrosse team, which won its second straight national championship Monday against Maryland. Buchner, a junior, will also play lacrosse for Notre Dame in 2025.

“Being able to play the game I have always loved and playing for Notre Dame was my dream,” Buchner wrote in a letter to the Notre Dame community. “I risked everything and I thought I had lost everything, because I didn’t even think a return to football at Notre Dame would be a possibility.”

The 6-foot-1, 215-pounder opened the 2022 season as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback before missing 10 games due to injury. After helping Notre Dame win the Gator Bowl, he competed for the starting job in the spring of 2023 with Sam Hartman before transferring to Alabama, where he reconnected with offensive coordinator Tommy Rees.

Last fall, Buchner started in Alabama’s Week 3 game against South Florida but struggled, completing 5 of 14 passes for 34 yards. In his letter, Buchner writes that he was then benched for the first time in his career, that he “fell into a deep emotional hole” and that he “felt hopeless and hated football.” He wrote that he had scholarship opportunities to play quarterback elsewhere, but only wanted to return to Notre Dame, where he took nine classes this spring to finish his degree.

Buchner will join a group of wide receivers that includes Jordan Faison, a former backup who played for the Notre Dame lacrosse team this season, scoring 21 goals.

“It would have been easy for the football coaching staff to view me as a player who left, but instead, I am grateful that they were able to see me as a young man eager to come back and contribute in every way possible for the greater good of the team,” Buchner wrote.

Coach Marcus Freeman told ESPN in April that he saw Buchner on the lacrosse field and wished him luck as he reacclimated to the sport.

“He’s a great young man and he comes from a great family that will continue to do great things in the world of sports, but (also) in the game of life,” Freeman said then. “We are big fans of Tyler Buchner and I look forward to seeing him have a lot of success.”