In the latest edition of Five Wide Fullbacks we are covering angry fans, a key defensive injury, Clark Lea’s future, Kyle Hamilton’s iconic status, and the worrisome quarterback regression under Brian Kelly’s tutelage.

1) Why is everyone so angry with a 3-1 start when Notre Dame covered each game and a loss to Georgia always was the mostly likely defeat?

The easy answer is that college football fans are not prone to reason and rational debate. Specifically for Notre Dame in 2019 a lot of this has to do with Brian Kelly being in his 10th year. There’s a very vocal minority that is tired of Kelly and I do think there’s a slow drip of others who are waiting for things to change for the better.

The problem is “better” in this instance is breaking through to the elite which would mean beating Georgia this year and in general doing better than 10+ wins. It’s a frustrating spot and I totally get wanting more when you get this close.

At the same time, if the Irish can take care of business through the rest of this regular season (something I’m still skeptical of right now, for what it’s worth) it would be a 33-5 (.868) run over the past 3 years. I guess someone could resort to shaming the schedule strength in order to throw cold water on that party but that feels like a small historical note and not something you’d lead off with as a fan.

In short, I get being a little frustrated yet there’s still plenty to enjoy in the moment.

2) How does the season-ending injury to Daelin Hayes re-cast the expectations for the 2020 defense?

This is a tough one because of Hayes’ injury history with his shoulder knowing there’s no guarantee–even with 11 months to rehab–that he’ll be healthy or ready to go for 2020. It feels like there’s close to 50/50 odds he’s medically retired by next summer than Hayes roaring back as a starter during a graduate season.

So, I do think at the moment it is bad news for 2020 as it appears Jamir Jones will be pulled off the redshirt plan for this season. Seeing as how Jones looked pretty impressive against Virginia it would’ve been nice to have him come back instead of Hayes and his injury concerns.

The only positive take away for now is that the likes of Ade Ogundeji, Justin Ademilola, and maybe Isaiah Foskey (deeper into the season) get more seasoning they otherwise wouldn’t absorb before moving into larger roles in 2020. There’s definitely a route where this injury helps boost player development and improves next year’s squad.

3) Is it a good idea, great idea, or bad idea to begin spinning the wheels on talk about a head coach-in-waiting situation at Notre Dame for defensive coordinator Clark Lea?

Beware! Beware!

The last person to hold this coveted (internet) title at Notre Dame is now the offensive coordinator at Utah State after running Western Kentucky into the ground within 2 seasons. We can also look back to late 2012 and see this idea of Bob Diaco being next in line popping up and now he is the defensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech after a failed head coaching stint.

I’m not saying Clark Lea isn’t the most promising assistant of the Kelly era or that he isn’t the one who would seem most comfortable in his skin coaching the Irish. I’m also not saying he hasn’t been the most productive young assistant of the Kelly era, either. All signs point him being special.

We just need more time. We need to see him dealing with the pressures of recruiting for a couple more cycles. We need to see him in the spotlight more from a media perspective. We need to see what the defense looks like when he fully has ‘his guys’ on the field. Frankly, he just needs more exposure and scrutiny overall, for example, how he handles a bunch of injuries or rebounds from a terrible performance.

I generally don’t like the head coach-in-waiting title because it’s fraught with so many landmines. But I have warmed up to Notre Dame promoting from within a lot more than I would’ve 10 years ago. I get the feeling if Clark Lea thinks it’s truly a possibility he will stick around and not go be the head coach at Akron just to get seasoning.

4) Throw the hyperbole out the window. Does Kyle Hamilton have a chance to be the best safety in school history?

It’s really not that silly to consider early in Hamilton’s career that he has a legit shot at being the best at his position. Remember, during the Notre Dame Hall of Fame Pyramid the safety position was by far the weakest position in the program featuring the overall seeded players:

#175 Tom Zbikowski
#154 Tom Schoen
#122 Nick Rassas
#90 Harrison Smith
#87 Jeff Burris
#85 Dave Duerson

Granted, this doesn’t include anyone from the single-platoon era so we’re only looking at “pure” safeties over the last half century or so. Still, it averages out to roughly one Hall of Fame worthy safety per decade and it looks like we’re due!

One might argue we’d need to see some special teams return work or maybe some snaps on offense (the staff was reportedly thinking about this during fall camp) to really push forward as the best ever. But what if Hamilton intercepts 20 passes in his career?

5) Are we seeing the often-cited and hotly debated Brian Kelly quarterback regression from Ian Book in his second year starting?

It’s too early to make a judgement yet keeping in mind a few things:

Progress is not linear. The college game is way too messy for this to be the case. One could argue the competition is more even but we usually don’t hold professional quarterbacks devoting their entire lives to the NFL to the same standard of linear progression. If we did, we’d seriously consider Jameis Winston being better than Tom Brady following this past weekend.

There will be many ups and downs for the Notre Dame quarterback no matter who that player will be now and in the future.

It’s also important to note that Book isn’t that experienced in the larger picture of quarterbacks in Notre Dame history. To compare him at this point in numbers of starts Brady Quinn had just been blown out against Purdue in 2004 (26 of 46 for 432 yards and 1 touchdown, truly one of the greatest meaningless stat lines in school history) in his 14th career start.

Of course, Quinn got much better and made a big jump in 2005 but then we kind of white-wash things from 2006 at the same time. We forget the struggles in the opener barely beating Georgia Tech, we try to blame someone else for a horrific performance against Michigan, we remember the comeback throw against UCLA but not the frustrating 4 for 19 third down production, and we normally don’t talk about Quinn’s worst game as an upperclassman being the final one in an Irish uniform.

In the moment, we have a strong tendency to only point out the bad and forget the good.

This is even more true for Ian Book who–due to his size, recruiting ranking, and overall skill set–doesn’t endear himself to everyone as we usually have an itch to see someone else play quarterback with a higher ceiling.

So far this year I’ve given Book grades of D, B, B, and D through 4 games and I’ll admit I’m probably a tough grader because I’m hoping he makes a big jump this year. The deep ball is better, he’s been smarter as a runner, and he’s protecting the ball really well. He’s also looked more uncomfortable in the pocket and less sure of himself throwing when we believe he should be much better in these areas.

I tend to think there’s a lot of truth to the fact that Book isn’t likely to get a whole lot better and that will be more frustrating than the possibility that he’s actually worse than 2018. He just played arguably no worse than his 2nd best game of his career considering the circumstances at Georgia two weeks ago and that has to mean something for his improvement. It’s just, are we going to see 3 or 4 performances in the A grade range this year if we accept there might be a few more C or D grades?

I’d probably buy Book being the type of player who always had a high floor, not a real high ceiling, and he’s struggling while being asked to be a bigger playmaker this year with, on the whole, a weaker supporting cast so far thanks largely to injuries.

I wonder what we will think if Book and the Irish keep winning. I have a feeling this whole quarterback regression topic is going to be awfully fascinating if it’s another 10-win season and Book’s numbers are pretty identical to 2018. That might give credence to the ‘quarterback regression’ largely being complaints about a lack of improvement or taking the next step into the top-tier quarterbacks.