2026 TE Gavin Mueller "Super Excited" About Notre Dame Offer

By Christian McCollum

February 25, 2025

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Gavin Mueller‍ wanted an offer from Notre Dame. He made that known to offensive coordinator/tight ends coach Mike Denbrock and the Irish.

Last Thursday, the 2026 Illinois tight end got it.

“I've stayed in decent contact with Coach Denbrock,” says Mueller. “He told me he was ready to pull the trigger and ready to invest in me. It was great.

“I was obviously super excited. Every time I get an offer, I call my parents, but my dad was actually super excited about this one too, so it was cool. Everyone loves Notre Dame over in the Chicagoland area, so every time I walked into a class, they're like, 'Go to Notre Dame, go to Notre Dame.' So it's great.

“It definitely felt relieving. In my gut, I don't know why, I always just felt like it was coming. I even told my parents, 'It'll come when it comes.' I think I fit really well there. I think I really have a good relationship with the guys and even the commit in the 25 class and the quarterback commit in my class, a couple of the o-linemen in my class. I have really good relationships with everyone there, so I definitely had a feeling it was coming. I was very excited and relieved when it actually did.”

Mueller’s father was especially proud of how his son, who has several major offers, approached the situation with Notre Dame.

“This really is a lot of life skills, reaching out to important people and just being honest with them and upfront about how you're getting recruited and how you want to pursue your relationship with them,” Mueller acknowledges. “He was proud of me.

“It was a really good life skill he was telling me, which honestly makes me happier than any offer a school can make me; your dad telling you he's proud of you for how you're handling your relationships, so that's really big for me.”

The 6-foot-6, 250-pounder camped at Irish Invasion last summer, even before playing his first down of high school football. Now that he has the offer, he’s planning to return to check out some spring practice and potentially again for an official.

“I don't think I've ever been there while students are actually on campus, so that'd be cool, just to see the day-to-day life,” he says. “I know it's definitely a smaller school. I was actually kind of planning on going to a bigger school, but I'm definitely open.

“Numbers make it sound diluted, but 10,000 people or however many people is actually a lot of people, so I think if I can actually see it in person, it'll kind of open my eyes a little bit more to it.”

He’s also looking at trips to Wisconsin, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Purdue, Kentucky, Arkansas and maybe Duke and North Carolina this spring.

“I'm going to try to make my spring practices and then set my OVs based off of those,” he says.

A decision is likely to come within a few months.

“100 percent. I want to be committed by June, and if everything goes good, I want to probably commit to the school I'm going to on my OV.”