2026 TE Gavin Mueller Excited For Notre Dame Return

Gavin Mueller‍ turned heads at Irish Invasion last month and the 2026 Illinois tight end has kept in contact with the Notre Dame staff since.

“I've been talking to them a good amount, probably like once a week,” the St. Francis High School prospect says. “I've been staying in touch.”

The 6-foot-6, 240-pounder will return to South Bend this week for Thursday’s Grill And Chill.

“I know it's going to be super fun,” he says. “I know they've got a lot of good things planned. I've already done an overview tour, so I've seen a lot of the stuff. 

“But I'm Catholic so it's really cool to see all the Catholicism there.”

Mueller is returning to the gridiron this fall for the first time since middle school, but many colleges have already seen enough from the rising junior in camp and workout settings to extend scholarship offers.

He currently has offers from schools like Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Cincinnati, Purdue, Minnesota and Florida among others. 

Mueller doesn’t have an offer from the Irish just yet, but is grateful for the interest.

“It's crazy,” he says. “It gives me a lot of confidence in myself. It's great. They're super good people too. They're not just football people, they're also just great people in general. So it feels amazing.”

An offer from the Irish would certainly mean a lot to Mueller.

“I grew up in a town where you kind of love Notre Dame just because how cool it seems,” he says. “Not a lot of people can make it to Notre Dame, but it just has a great atmosphere around it. So it'd mean a lot to me for sure.”

He’ll head to Wisconsin for a visit on Saturday and then will be at Florida next week. 

He has one fall visit locked in already, but is hoping to set more.

“I already have a Texas A&M visit planned when they're playing Notre Dame, so that'll be cool to get to. Then, I'm going to try to get to Penn State, Wisconsin, Florida and then after that I'm not 100 percent sure yet, probably Mizzou as well too.”

Mueller also intends to get to a game in South Bend as well.