{"id":370568,"date":"2025-12-26T04:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T04:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370568\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T04:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T04:41:10","slug":"australian-punter-jasper-scaife-commits-to-notre-dame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/370568\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian punter Jasper Scaife commits to Notre Dame"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a need for a new punter, Notre Dame went right back to Australia. <\/p>\n

Jasper Scaife<\/a>, a former Aussie Rules football player like his predecessor, James Rendell<\/a>, committed to the Notre Dame on Thursday. The Irish were in the punting market because Rendell\u2019s request for a third year of eligibility was denied after a productive 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Scaife is 21 years old and will have four years of eligibility remaining, a source told Blue & Gold<\/a>. He has never played American football competitively \u2014 like Rendell before he came to South Bend \u2014 but Notre Dame believes he\u2019s an elite talent.<\/p>\n

Scaife played for Hawthorn Football Club of the Australian Football League, or AFL. He was a forward who impressed Hawthorn with his \u201cbooming kick\u201d with West Perth of the West Australian Football League in 2024.<\/p>\n

A recruit in the class of 2026 who signed with the Irish during the early signing period, Scaife stands 6-foot-5, 187 pounds (according to his bio on West Perth\u2019s website). He will enroll in January and compete with rising sophomore Erik Schmidt<\/a>, who kicked for the Irish in the second half of the 2025 season, for the starting punter job in 2026.<\/p>\n

Scaife trained to punt in American football with Mackenzie Morgan, who also trained Rendell and other punters including Iowa legend Tory Taylor<\/a>, now with the Chicago Bears. Morgan trained Rendell with Prokick Australia but has since formed his own company, Inside 20 Punting. Morgan himself punted with NC State, Weber State and Temple.<\/p>\n

Filling Rendell\u2019s shoes will be difficult, but Notre Dame believes Scaithe will be up to the challenge. In his second and final season, Rendell averaged 44.6 yards per punt (up from 41.8 in 2024) and earned semifinalist honors for the Ray Guy Award, which honors the nation\u2019s best punter.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Rendell\u2019s net punting average of 43.3 ranked seventh among qualified punters. Thirteen of his 25 boots landed at or inside the 20 and only 2 of them were returned. Rendell\u2019s return percentage of 8.0 led all qualified punters, severely limiting opportunities for Notre Dame\u2019s opponents.<\/p>\n

The Irish wanted Rendell back for a third season \u2014 which he and they were hopeful he could get way back when he committed \u2014 but they were satisfied enough with his tenure to go right back to the Australian punter well.<\/p>\n

With Scaife in the fold, Notre Dame now has 29 commitments in the No. 2-ranked class of 2026. The Irish could add to their specialist room with a kicker from the transfer portal to compete with Schmidt, but Scaife is expected to stabilize the punter position in South Bend for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a need for a new punter, Notre Dame went right back to Australia. Jasper Scaife, a former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,181670,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-370568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jasper-scaife-26-prokick-australia","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football","12":"tag-ncaafootball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}