Brian Duffy hurried into the Loftus Center on a Wednesday morning last March, his pace belying the fact he was actually 15 minutes early. Duffy, a Notre Dame sophomore, is always meticulous about his schedule, but this day, when the Fighting Irish were holding their walk-on tryouts, 15 minutes early seemed late. As a 33-year-old active Navy SEAL, carrying a full course load and hell-bent on making the Irish football team, Duffy really has no other choice but to stick to a rigid regimen. His schedule already included being a husband and father, with a two-year-old daughter at home and another on the way.



Duffy was a cornerback, wingback, punt returner and kicker at Lassen High in Susanville, California, back in 2003. The undersized high school senior, tucked away in the remote northwest corner of the state, in the only incorporated town in all of Lassen County, didn’t exactly carry the markers of a Notre Dame walk-on. At 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds with a GPA south of 3.0, he...