Putnam Appreciates ND Atmosphere

When he made the trip down to South Bend for Irish Invasion during the summer, Will Putnam knew he wanted to get back on Saturday, the 2019 Illinois offensive lineman returned.

The 6-foot-4, 250-pounder again enjoyed his time at Notre Dame.

“It was really nice,” said Putnam. “It was my first time getting up there for a game and I’m happy I was able to make it up. It was really nice.

“I was able to go through the football facility and take a tour, which was really nice. Then I went to the game and was able to watch the game and that was really cool as well.”

The Glenwood High School standout especially enjoyed his first opportunity to catch a game inside Notre Dame Stadium.

“The atmosphere was really, really neat in a way,” Putnam said. “Notre Dame has a really nice tradition that a lot of other colleges don’t have. It was really cool to be there in person because you kind of hear about it, but it was cool to be there in person and experience it yourself.”

Despite the 34-31 loss to Virginia Tech, Putnam saw some good things from the Irish.

“I was watching the offensive line,” he said. “I liked what I saw for the most part. Stuff happens in a loss, but for the most part, what I saw, I liked.”

He didn’t have an opportunity to speak to many of the Notre Dame coaches.

“I was not able to talk to (offensive line coach Harry) Hiestand, but I was able to talk to his offensive line assistant, who I worked with a lot when I was at the Irish Invasion, so it was nice to talk to him some during pregame,” Putnam said, referring to graduate assistant Donovan Raiola.

“We were remembering each other from Irish Invasion. I used to live in Hawaii and he’s from Hawaii, so it’s kind of cool to talk about that some and people we know back on the island.”

Putnam has three offers now after adding one from Georgia during an unofficial visit to Athens last weekend to the ones he already had from Pittsburgh and Illinois.

“It feels really good,” the 6-foot-4, 250-pounder said. “It’s been a lot of hard work put in these last three years and it’s really nice getting some recognition from these big-time universities.”

He’ll take his last visit of the fall to Northwestern next weekend and plans to remain in touch with the Irish moving forward.

“We’re going to keep in contact and I’ll hear back from them through my coach.”