2026 DB Trenton Gummer Hoping To Make Notre Dame An Option

Trenton Gummer‍ likes the trajectory of his recruitment.

“The way the progression has taken off; it started off with higher academic schools and the Patriot League and then they kind of moved to Ivy League and then Group of Five,” the 2026 Florida defensive back told Irish Sports Daily.

“Now, I've gotten to the Power-Four level. It's been an experience for me just to see the progression that I've had as a player and just those opportunities. I've built relationships over all those levels.”

The Bishop Moore standout currently has offers from schools like Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn, Army, Navy, Lehigh, UMass, Georgetown and Western Michigan among others. As he said, he’s beginning to receive interest from Power-Four programs like Florida State, Miami, Duke and Notre Dame.

The 5-foot-10, 171-pounder made a trip to South Bend for an unofficial visit last month.

“It was a great time, to be honest,” said Gummer. “Me and my mom, my dad got to fly up there. We flew in the night before, went to see campus a bit and then the next day we met up for our visit, got to see practice, see the campus. Everything was really great. I've been there before, but I was a lot younger, so it's definitely good to get up there to see it as part of my recruiting process.”

The culture at Notre Dame stood out.

“I would say the leadership of the team was something that was very apparent, especially with Coach (Marcus) Freeman,” he said. “The way he runs the team, you could tell that the staff, the players, every single person there cares about each other. I feel like that's something that stands out to me because similar to my high school. I would say the way that they run it is similar to the way we run it and it's just very apparent. 

“I'd say the energy was really good, that was top-tier. The campus was beautiful. Again, obviously that's not very football-related, but you're going there as a student too, so the campus was something that stood out to me.”

Gummer’s first trip to South Bend was for a frigid game against Florida State back in 2018. Notre Dame is a school that’s had his attention for a while and even more so recently. 

“Obviously everyone knows that they are a top-tier program,” he said. “That's one thing that stands out to me football-wise. 

“But I would say just as a school, the fact that it's a Catholic school stands out to me. My school is Catholic, so the faith aspect of it has been something that I've kind of been exploring. I actually recently just got baptized and confirmed, so that was something that was just kind of aligned.”

Irish defensive backs coach Mike Mickens and defensive back assistant coach Jevaughn Codlin explained that him visiting South Bend was the first step. 

“They wanted to obviously see what kind of person I was,” Gummer said. “They see the stuff on film, but there's more to it than just film. They said they wanted to see me first, see if I was the guy that they wanted to come check out in the spring and they said that I checked that box. 

“I sent them my spring schedule and they said they're going to be down here to come see me and they said they're going to take it from there.”

Gummer is beginning to schedule official visits with schools like Harvard, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Charlotte and Liberty. He understands the benefit of making an early decision, but isn’t in a rush either.

“I wouldn't say there's a final timeline. Obviously with the way that college football is now, it would be ideal to have a spot locked in around June. Going into the season would be probably the latest I would try to make a decision, but I would say right now there's no solidified date or time that I want to make my decision by.”

Want the latest scoop on the Fighting Irish? Sign up for our newsletter and become an ISD Premium Subscriber: Sign Up for ISD

Under Armour Green Notre Dame Fighting Irish Performance Playoff Polo