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Notre Dame linebacker Anthony Sacca enters Transfer Portal

On3 imageby: Dan Morrison01/07/26dan_morrison96

Notre Dame Fighting Irish linebacker Anthony Sacca has entered the Transfer Portal, On3 has learned. He has four seasons of eligibility.

Sacca played his high school football at St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia. However, he is a New Jersey native. Coming out of high school, Sacca had been a four-star recruit in the Class of 2025. Sacca was the 344th-ranked player overall and the 34th-ranked linebacker in that recruiting cycle. At the time, he chose to go to Notre Dame over offers from Penn State, Ohio State, and Georgia, among others.

Sacca comes from a family of athletes. His mother was a soccer player at West Virginia. Then, his father, Tony Sacca, was a quarterback at Penn State, who played for Penn State. He would later go on to be a second round pick in the 1992 NFL Draft by the Phoenix Cardinals. Later, he played in NFL Europe with the Barcelona Dragons.

In his one season at Notre Dame, Sacca did not see any action. Instead, he used his redshirt for the year. That’s left him with four years of eligibility at his next school.

The 2025 season was an interesting one for Notre Dame. Coming into the year, hoping to make it back to the College Football Playoff. The Irish then started 0-2 against two future Playoff teams, before rattling off 10 straight wins. It had seemed like enough to make the field, but the Irish were leapfrogged in the final moment. Notre Dame would later decide not to play in a bowl game, meaning they finished 10-2 on the season.

Head coach Marcus Freeman has now seen his fair share of Transfer Portal entrants. With 16 outgoing transfers, Notre Dame currently has the 48th-ranked transfer class in the 2026 cycle, according to the On3 College Football Team Transfer Portal Rankings. Within that group are two linebackers. Anthony Sacca is joined by Bodie Kahoun in the portal. The expectation is that Notre Dame will begin replacing those players through the portal soon.

The Transfer Portal officially opened on January 2nd and it will remain open through January 16th. This is the first year that the portal has been moved to this stage in the season. It comes on the heels of concerns about the calendar being overcrowded in December, so this was done to help alleviate those concerns. This will also be the only window when players may enter the Transfer Portal, with no Spring window.