Notre Dame is close to filling its general manager role left vacant last month when Chad Bowden exited the Fighting Irish football program for the same role at USC.
Multiple sources tell FootballScoop that the Irish and Marcus Freeman have offered their general manager role to the Detroit Lions's Mike Martin.
In fact, Notre Dame hosted Martin and his wife, Cari, from Tuesday through early Thursday this week on the South Bend, Indiana, campus.
A former Vanderbilt football player, Martin has some two decades' experience in the NFL. He's been Detroit's director of scouting advancement for the past four seasons.
Prior to that, Martin worked for the NFL's Carolina Panthers as an area scout from 2018-20 and he logged 11 seasons with the Houston Texans, eventually climbing to the role of assistant director of college scouting.
The Irish hosted Martin on campus, also housing him at the Morris Inn as they had done recently with Texas Tech's James Blanchard, who turned down the Irish's multi-year offer for their G.M. role.
During his visit this week to Notre Dame, Martin met individually with Irish athletics director Pete Bevacqua, the school's top NIL official in Scott Connors, was scheduled for a three-hour meeting with Freeman and then joined Bevacqua, Freeman and select others inside Notre Dame Stadium's Schivarelli Lounge for dinner Wednesday night.
Sources told FootballScoop that Martin was offered a multi-year deal worth more than $500,000 annually, plus bonus incentives.
In addition to those individual meetings that were scheduled for Martin's time on the Notre Dame campus, he also was set to meet with the remaining members of Notre Dame's recruiting department: Carter Auman, Caleb Davis, Deland McCullough II and Becca Sites. Also, Martin was expected to meet with analytics guru Anthony Treash and Matt Jansen -- Notre Dame's director of scouting with whom Martin previously worked for the Houston Texans.
Watson, among the most prominent recruiting and personnel figures in the Southeastern Conference footprint, also was scheduled to visit midweek with his wife but did not make the trip.
However, several sources told FootballScoop that Watson has been offered the top recruiting position in the Notre Dame football program, a director of player personnel/director of recruiting-type of role.
A final decision is expected in the coming days; sources with direct knowledge this week told FootballScoop that Auburn recently elevated the pay of Watson, who is the school's director of recruiting research and strategy, and was prepared to again fight to keep Watson.
ESPN's Adam Schefter also reported that Notre Dame was working to finalize a deal with Martin.