Spring practice is right around the corner as the Fighting Irish look to build upon a 10-win season heading into Brian Kelly’s 9th season in South Bend. In case you missed it read my 2018 depth chart preview for tons of talk about the upcoming roster prior to talking about a few individuals here today. Also, don’t forget Notre Dame will be breaking in new offensive line coach Jeff Quinn in addition to running year 2 of the Chip Long offense.
Here are 5 players I’m personally interested to watch during spring practice.
Liam Eichenberg, OL
Eichenberg is suddenly a rising redshirt sophomore although this will be only his 2nd spring practice in the program. How big of a recruit was he? The only current players on the roster rated higher coming out of high school are Brandon Wimbush, Alize Mack, Tommy Kraemer, Brock Wright, and Houston Griffith. If a top blue-chip prospect isn’t making waves after this spring we’ve got problems.
The good news is that Eichenberg should have the confidence of knowing he was deep into a starting position battle last spring so he should be in familiar territory. On the downside, Eichenberg struggled last fall camp and saw true freshman Robert Hainsey essentially jump him in the pecking order after a couple week’s practice.
Standing just over 6’6″ and a lean 300 pounds per the fall roster Eichenberg doesn’t seem like a prototypical guard but unless something drastic changes under the direction of Jeff Quinn it’s expected only the left guard spot will be open this spring. I’d expect Eichenberg to open spring practice in this position.
If he doesn’t it’s not necessarily a death knell for Eichenberg although it could recast his expectations over the long run. Instead of becoming a 3-year starter he could have a career similar to Hunter Bivin–another highly touted lineman who ended up being a journeyman preferred back-up.
Javon McKinley, WR
McKinley is a lot like Eichenberg in that he was a highly touted prep star who is now entering his third year in the program. The Californian receiver is the 6th highest rated player at his position to come to Notre Dame under Brian Kelly behind Davonte Neal, Kevin Austin, TJ Jones, Justin Brent, and Davaris Daniels.
If you’re a pessimist that list doesn’t give you much confidence. Arguably, only Jones lived up to his potential even if Daniels caught 80 passes in 2 years before leaving early amid his academic suspension (Jones caught 181 passes over 4 years, FWIW). Will we see McKinley added to the list of high-profile busts at receiver for the Irish?
McKinley didn’t break into the receiver rotation as a freshman, instead participating only on special teams before breaking his leg. That injury was a full 16 months ago and while it slowed him down considerably last off-season he should be ready to go by now. Are we looking at a sleeping giant (he was prolific in high school with 3,000 yards at 20.9 yards per catch as an upperclassman) or another Californian disappointment?
Jahmir Smith, RB
It would seem a lot of playing time is available for the early enrolled freshman Smith who comes to us from 3A football in North Carolina. He’s in the unique position of being a first-year player who will absolutely needed from the very first spring practice.
In that light, Smith’s spring really isn’t that interesting in the way it is for so many others who will be fighting tooth and nail for reps. He’s going to get the reps. Can Smith be a legitimate rotational back? Will that be evident early on in the spring or will we be hearing about how he’s struggling with the vaunted pass-blocking or how Jones and Williams need to duke it out more?
Avery Davis, QB
No one is talking about Avery Davis. Luke Massa got more publicity for playing quarterback. Okay, maybe that’s not true but it illustrates a point that Davis is flying way, way below the radar heading into spring.
I’ve mentioned before how big of a spring this is for Davis. He has a limited number of practices and reps before Jurkovec steps on campus to make his life more difficult. Additionally, Davis probably would’ve been better off had Wimbush gone into this off-season as the clear No. 1 as that could have allowed Davis to chase down Book quicker for 2nd-team reps.
Additionally, we still need to get our first good look at Davis and how he fits in this offense at the college level. To be honest, many are writing him off which is both crazy and kind of understandable. He’s really small and is way behind his teammates in experience and playbook knowledge. Yet, we know how often the Notre Dame quarterback position makes us look silly when we think the depth chart is all rigid and set.
Cole Kmet, TE
Nothing about the pecking order at tight end would surprise me. Mack-Weishar-Kmet is the depth chart based off last year’s snap counts and is likely how the players are trotted out for spring. Still, Kmet made a huge impression last August and could make a big jump during his first spring practice.
He’s also going to benefit from being more explosive in the passing game than Weishar and more of a traditional tight end than Mack. If he can live up to his potential in both aspects shouldn’t he be in the mix as the number one tight end?
I’d also add Brock Wright in here too who, as mentioned above, is the 4th most talented recruit on the roster and is coming into his second spring after enrolling early last year. He teams up with Kmet to form a duo that could move from playing minimally as freshmen to key pieces to the 2018 offense. That move would have to start this spring.
The Irish Illustrated guys basically wrote off any chance of Avery Davis ever playing on their podcast last week in a way that was surprisingly and unusually emphatic. I found that interesting. I wonder if that’s effectively passing along staff feedback that the staff gave in hopes that he leaves and frees up a roster spot.
sure seems like they want him to leave – https://twitter.com/PeteSampson_/status/970738042360205312
Probably don’t mind one way or the other. 3rd string QB kinda is what is is. At least he’s getting some cross-training could conceivably get him some playing time this season is my take.
Regardless, not sure how he could have thought he would be looking at playing time at QB at ND any earlier than 2019 from the beginning of his recruitment. And even then nothing would be promised trying to project that far out. Just my 2 cents. I’m sure maybe he thought he could be like a Kizer and come from far off the radar and win the starting job somehow but that seems pretty rare and you need some injuries/transfers/suspensions in front of you to make that happen. Which for all the recent drama at least thankfully we haven’t seen that at the QB position.
It may be the overly obvious one, and hard to gauge outside the spring game, but what does spring Wimbush look like? How is he progressing with mechanics, reads, etc? Are things showing progressing and signs they could be “fixed” to some degree by fall, or are the flaws a permanent issue that are too much to overcome to ever become a consistently successful passer?
NDMSPaint’s work has really dropped off in quality
Bruh.
Come at me
Cole Kmet is interesting because he’s a reliever on the baseball team, so his focus probably isn’t all there for spring football (as it should be). Seems like this spring is bigger for Brock Wright.
Oh yeah forgot to mention that. Could be an interesting storyline for Kmet.
The other day I noticed on the 247 page for the 2010 recruits they’ve changed it to Tom Rees. Really funny to me.
Rivals has not changed.
So it’s set that guard is the only position available? I thought sliding Kramer inside and placing Eichenberg at tackle was still a possibility. I must have missed that.
According to Long (a couple months ago) they’ve invested a lot of time with Kraemer at tackle and he’ll start spring at right tackle and Hainsey to left tackle. But yes, Kraemer moving inside will be an option most likely.
That makes sense.
Now I’m getting worried about McNamara. He’s Mr popular now and everyone wants him. He said something along the lines of ND is my school for now.
Hopefully we don’t have another Blake Barnett situation. I think his stock is going to rise dramatically over the next 4-6 months.
He just decommitted. Funny you mention Barnett, hasn’t worked out for him as of yet.
Hey, who’s the QB coach? Probably should take a look at how that guy’s doing.
You’re consistent at least.
🙂
Did he give a reason for the decommit? I don’t see any big changes from ND’s side. Jurkovick was already committed, and the offensive staff only changed the o-line coach.
The only big change I can see is all of those other big schools offering.
He said there were multiple reasons, private to his family and Notre Dame. Irish Illustrated was saying it was likely because of the depth chart at ND combined with the high profile schools that offered, but I can’t imagine that’s correct. USC just pulled in one of the top QB recruits who will likely start as a true freshman (although Cade grew up a USC fan, supposedly), UGA just made the national championship with a true freshman and also pulled in the top QB recruit in the nation, Alabama just won the national championship with a true sophomore and true freshman at QB, etc. Their QB depth charts are definitely more intimidating than ours. We should be in good shape with other recruits, though.
Very good list, and gets us beyond the good/bad Brandon story (though that will be indeed fascinating as Michael Bryan points out.
I posted the below on the unis thread, but reading Eric’s take on Liam and Jahmir brings me back again to our last four games — did the line lose focus? Josh really hurt? BW hurt also or lose confidence? And the D… arguably went downhill a bit.
“Hey, staff, to move back to more footbally stuff — have we done anything yet on why our November swoon? Esp after BK had said that we were building for peaking at the end (and he used to be that way)… wha’ happened? I am truly interested in what you the staff put together on your best thoughts on this, and I think it would be a great topic for this off-season/weight training period?”
Per Sampson, Armstrong is moving to running back and Avery Davis will be “getting work” at other skill positions during the spring, although it may not be a full-time decision.
Could that be a precursor to Davis transferring? i kinda thought he might end up as one of the 4 who needs to go.
I’m gone after spring if I’m him, especially if he wants to play QB. If they think he’s not worth reps at QB being default 3rd string for spring after just one year on scout team that’s rough. Even worse, we know he probably has a very poor chance of ever playing as a slot receiver. The illusion of playing at first, yes. But, the history of that position isn’t kind.
It should be interesting, as a QB he was a good athlete. His 4.25 shuttle time at his Texas Regional Opening event is quite good. Although his 4.63 time in the 40 is pretty average for someone then 188 pounds.
Very quickly a “team player, stick around to get your degree” type of situation for him.
Not that i want him to leave if he wants a Notre Dame degree, but looking over the depth chart he just seemed like someone who would be likely to go. There don’t seem to be many candidates.
Yup, some time ago in the comment section we were talking about this and I thought Davis was one of the more likely transfer candidates. A few really pushed back on that but as I said he checked a lot of the boxes as someone who would be tempted to leave.
If this is true, I feel bad for him. It has to suck to be asked to move before your first spring practice. Truthfully, it doesn’t make a ton of sense if Wimbush or Book sprain an ankle next week. “Hey, Avery wanna play some QB again???”
It also leads me to believe a couple other things:
1) For spring we’re going to see Wimbush running with the first-team all practice then Book with the second-team. Next practice, they flip flop. Both getting a ton of reps but never awkwardly sharing firs-team reps during a practice so they can get more reps for Davis.
2) Jurkovec is a real threat to play and he’s a lot less likely to redshirt now. This has the feel of clearing the deck for him to compete which I thought would be tough. If he’s the best of the bunch so be it but I’d hate to see a situation where he gets 80 snaps in a frustrating 4 or 5-loss season and we’re wishing he took a redshirt (particularly if there’s a coaching change).