Notre Dame team captain Drayk Bowen to stay in South Bend for senior season

In this year’s season of “Here Come the Irish” on Peacock, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman called linebacker Drayk Bowen an “old head.” He’s going to need to call him an even older head in 2026.

Bowen is coming back for one more year, he announced on Instagram, dubbing his senior season his “last dance.”

Bowen was voted one of six team captains for the Fighting Irish in 2025. In three seasons at Notre Dame, he’s only not appeared in one game. That was as a freshman. He started all 28 games for the Irish in the last two seasons. He’s been a mainstay for Notre Dame’s defense, and he’s going to run it back as such next fall with the Irish chasing an elusive national championship.

Bowen had 78 tackles in 2024, which ranked third among all Irish defensive players over the course of 16 games. He had 67 tackles in 2025, which led all Irish defensive players in 12 games. For his career, Bowen has 159 total tackles, 9.0 tackles for loss, 6 passes defended, 4.5 sacks and 4 forced fumbles.

Bowen was one of the best tacklers in college football in 2024. He logged a Pro Football Focus tackling grade of 89.3. Most of his PFF metrics took a step back in 2025, but he set such a high bar for himself that anything shy of being as lights-out as he was during the Irish’s run to the natty was bound to be viewed as slight regression — even if, all things considered, it actually wasn’t.

In coming back for his senior season, Bowen has another chance to prove to NFL scouts he is a true next-level prospect. He also has a chance to help Notre Dame capture what it has come close to the last two seasons without getting all the way there. That is, of course, winning it all.

The Irish will have to do that with a new linebackers coach; Max Bullough went back to his alma mater, Michigan State, to be the linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator. Bullough was instrumental in the development of Bowen and his linebacker mates the last couple of seasons. Former Notre Dame defensive line coach Al Washington is filling in as his replacement.

Position coaches come and go, but so do college careers themselves. Bowen has chosen to try to make the most of his by exhausting his eligibility. The only way he makes the absolute most of it, though, is if the Irish make it to the top of the college football mountain.

Bowen is the type of chess piece that can help get a program there.