The first touchdown of the 2026 NFL season was scored by a player who didn’t score a touchdown in the entire 2025 college football season for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
And yes, he did play for Notre Dame — he just didn’t find paydirt.
It’s a cool sporting quirk, to be sure.
Eli Raridon, the New England Patriots‘ rookie tight end, caught a touchdown pass from Drake Maye to open the scoring on Wednesday night.
It was his first regular season touchdown in a couple years.
Of course rookie TE Eli Raridon, who didn’t catch a TD in 12 games as a senior at Notre Dame in 2025, scores the NFL’s first TD in 2026.
— Dane Brugler (@dpbrugler) September 10, 2026
Eli Raridon College Career
Raridon spent his entire college career at Notre Dame.
As a freshman in 2022, he appeared in five games but didn’t catch a pass.
Raridon moved up to seven games played and five catches for 51 yards as a sophomore.
In 2024 as a a junior, Raridon had 11 catches for 90 yards and two scores as Notre Dame went all the way to the national championship game. He appeared in all 16 games.
Then the aforementioned 2025 season, when he had 32 catches for 482 yards but no touchdowns.
It’s pretty remarkable that a big, athletic tight end caught 32 passes at 15.1 yards per catch but never got in the end zone, but that’s exactly what happened.
Raridon was due.
Eli Raridon’s Role With Patriots
The good news for Raridon is that it looks like the Patriots will rely on him pretty solidly right away after picking him in the third round.
They have the veteran tight end Hunter Henry leading their tight end room, and that likely won’t change.
Raridon, though, was in early and often on Wednesday night in two-TE sets.
And down near the goal line, when the Pats went jumbo, Raridon executed his role perfectly.
He moved down the line at the snap, as if to block, before leaking out into the left corner of the end zone.
His initial fake worked — not a single defender was near him.
It was an easy pitch-and-catch for Maye to his rookie tight end for not just Raridon’s first NFL TD, but for the first touchdown of the entire 2026 NFL season.
Raridon would certainly like to keep this trend going more than the one he had working in his final season at Notre Dame.
A dozen games with no touchdowns? That’s definitely not as fun as one game with one touchdown.
Raridon is a player the Pats believe in, and that should set him up for more trips to the end zone as his NFL career goes along.
Notre Dame’s Newest NFL Player Scores TD Despite None in 2025