Last week we provided a scholarship update for the 2019 class and the openings remaining for recruiting. Today, we’ll take a fuller look at the current roster with the current season underway with a glimpse toward the future.
Coleman MIA
Let’s start at safety where Nick Coleman has fallen off the face of the earth. Did he kill a guy? Whatever the case may be the staff appears to be moving on and favoring the development of Houston Griffith despite the true freshman’s continued struggles playing nickel.
The safety position in general has not exhibited much rotation, certainly less than expected during August. That’s not the worst thing in the world since Gilman—although maybe not quite matching the hype from the coaches—has settled in nicely as a starter and Elliott has been better than virtually everyone ever thought he could be. Unless someone makes a big, big leap during the off-season these 2 should be locked in as starters for 2019, as well.
The future of Derrik Allen will be fascinating. Will he remain at safety? Will he be challenging for nickel next year? Or does he bulk up his 6’2” 213 pound frame and compete at linebacker in 2019? I’m not sure there are any easy answers there for him.
Love Thee Notre Dame
It’s an understatement to say the return of Julian Love will have massive ramifications at corner for the Irish in 2019. If he comes back things could potentially be awesome with a pair of returning seniors who have (hopefully!) broken the trend of Irish corners not regressing as upperclassmen. Without Love coming back, things are kind of scary.
The depth at corner is a huge issue even if we grant the fact that the defense never relies much on a 4th corner. Bracy has held his own so far as a freshman but has a long way to go to become a full-time starter. Vaughn—who had such a promising brief stint as a freshman—seems broken and who knows what his future will look like as a senior.
Troy Pride certainly could be a Top 10 player on the roster if he’s not already so that’s a big win for corner development. Beyond this we have unknowns in a pair of freshman (Brown & Boykin) plus the lingering health issues of Shaun Crawford. That’s it, unless another true freshman gets thrown into the fire in 2019.
Stabilizing Linebacker
The linebacker position will be the biggest question mark on the roster next year and it likely won’t be close. Let’s start with Bilal who has played well at Rover but has also spent some time working on the inside behind the starters. So, will he move to Mike or Buck and if so is that something that will happen in the spring or only after other options are exhausted first?
It’s going to be an off-season where we’ll have to trust the staff and their choices because there will be so many players involved with so little playing time and experience exacerbated by the fact that Coney and Tranquill have virtually never come off the field this fall.
You can pick anyone out of the young group of Genmark-Heath, or Simon, or Bauer, or Owusu-Koramoah (coming off injury) and make the case there will be plenty of mold to work with sprinkled in with Bilal and Jones as veterans.
Tilting the Balance
Notre Dame’s defensive line is suddenly one of the best in the country and depending on how some roster things shake out it could remain in that mix next year or go through a little bit of a rebuild. The best news right now is that everyone (if they were healthy at least) has been getting some playing time this year with the exception of Wardlow. There’s nothing better for development than being able to put a dozen different linemen on the field and that’s a great sign for the future.
Losing Tillery in the middle is going to be rough. Everyone in the backup roles has been varying degrees of solid but nowhere near All-American level. The injury to Tagovailoa-Amosa could be sneaky important as he could return later this year (yay, development!) and still preserve a year of eligibility. If he were to take the next step during the off-season having MTA as a redshirt sophomore with 3 more years remaining would feel enormous for the front line defense.
Offensive Line Competition
Looking back, it did not seem like a good idea to shuffle players across the line during the spring and into fall camp after Harry Heistand left for the Bears. This yo-yo effect couldn’t have helped someone like Tommy Kraemer who went from right tackle to left guard to right guard and is now (at least for the foreseeable future) passed up by Ruhland. One of the more highly-touted recruits being passed by one of the lower recruits isn’t something we’ve seen too often on the offensive line.
Josh Lugg is someone who has worked at every position outside of center. Mustipher is the only one missing after this year following Bars’ season-ending injury and all signs have pointed to Ruhland taking over for the long-time center. Are we going to see a Lugg-Kraemer battle at right guard this off-season?
We Have Bodies
Take a look at the wide receiver depth chart and notice how many are not a factor this year, it’s astounding! Six guys aren’t even stepping on the field!
This unit still feels really strong moving forward with everyone coming back (eligibility-wise anyway) and you have to think one of the non-Austin freshman will make a nice jump next year to add even more quality depth.
I remain intrigued with Michael Young who just can’t get going despite the staff really favoring him and keeping him at kick returner for additional game reps. Will he be a starter down the line or forever the 4th or 5th option?
Return of the Mack
The tight end position has come alive with an improved passing game over the last month. With Weishar moving on the current freshmen should like their chances to get in the mix next year which could be boosted if Mack heads for the NFL.
Either way, looking over the roster it would seem like Kmet is going to be staying on the field a ton in the future as he tries to become the next great in the line of Tight End U. This is even more pronounced if Wright remains in his H-back role which has continued throughout 2018.
A New Chapter
If this Ian Book thing is real the Irish won’t need a quarterback until 2021. That might as well read 2078 because it’s unfathomable that this program could go the next 32 games or more with the same player under center. That’s allowed in college football?
You can understand if this is a bit frustrating for Jurkovec as he’s potentially waiting quite a while for the job. Assuming he preserves this year he’ll still have 2 years to start it’s just really difficult for 19 year-olds to have that much patience. All signs point to Jurkovec being the anti-Gunner Kiel so flight-risk is minimal.
Unless he’s interested in a graduate degree it really doesn’t make sense for Wimbush to stick around for 2019 but anything is possible. Just promise us all that you don’t go to Rutgers, my man.
Back in the Saddle
It’s been an up and down year for the running backs. Dexter finally ascending to the top of the depth chart is a feel-good story. We’ll see how effective Armstrong can be this weekend coming off his knee infection but his development has been crucial for the future of this position.
Tony Jones remains a question to me as he has continually battled injuries while seemingly appearing as if he’s a starter-level tailback one week and then regressing the next game. All the same, I don’t see anyone talented enough at the moment to move Jones out of the Top 3 backs over the next couple years.
The experiment with Avery Davis has simultaneously worked better than I imagined for 2018 and still feels like a long-term project.
Well, They’re Special
In case you missed it, the Irish got a verbal commit from a preferred walk-on kicker who will be on campus ready to go for 2019. That’s not a great sign for Jonathan Doerer who has eligibility through 2020. Even though Doerer has yet to kick a field goal his kickoffs have been an adventure, to say the least.
It’s amazing that Justin Yoon has struggled to stay 100% healthy and is on pace to shatter nearly every school record. He will be missed deeply.
Will Finke finish as the top punt returner in school history in terms of yardage? With the recent production at the position it sure feels like it. The days of Rocket seem long ago now.
Are we so sure Jurkovec is bench-bound for sure? I realize it’s silly at this point since Book is #1 in completion percentage in the country and top-10 in efficiency but he’s shown a bit that while he is very good and can run all the plays, he’s not really an elite athlete, or wonderful at reading defenses/manipulating coverages, huge arm talent, etc.
It’s a world where Bama, Clemson, even UGA flirts all the time with the next QB ever-searching better performance and execution of an offense. In theory, Jurkovec could offer more with his athleticism and could be better on deep throws too. Of course, he lacks experience and is a wild card.
But…I don’t know. I guess how Book fares for the rest of the year means a lot. No good reason not to believe he won’t be QB1 for opening day 2019, however I don’t think Jurkovec will never get an opportunity at some point in 2019. The next QB Kelly doesn’t pull for performance reasons will be the first, right? For some reason I feel like while Book has been good, he’s going to leave a bit to be desired (barring an impressive continual improvement) that still sees him more of a placeholder than a multi-year starter. That could just be me still needing to be totally won over, though.
Over/under 3.5 starts for Jurkovec in 2019 place your bets now.
Over
I’m inclined to agree. If Book drops off a bit or the magic wears off I get the feeling his fortunes could drop as fast as they rose. It’s not like Book is bringing anything irreplaceable or skills-y above average. When Jurkovec conceivably could bring a stronger arm and be a much more complete RUN-pass option QB.
I think it could be sorta similar to Trevor Lawrence (Jurkovec) vs. Kelly Bryant (Book) scenario. Book has been a little more accurate than Bryant and it’s unknown if Jurkovec is as good as Lawrence, but I think such a scenario could be in the cards based on talent.
Book is first in the country by a full 2% in completion percentage. For P5 QBs, its 3%. I think he’d have to really piss off Kelly to lose the job. Seems very unlikely.
Or if we were to make the playoff and just get nothing going offensively. Maybe stall out against an extremely strong defense. Maybe lose by something like 4 TDs and not score in the first half. But I’m sure that’s not something that could ever happen to an ND Football team.
Yeah, I mean right now Book is untouchable….But is he going to sustain 75% passing forever? If so, great, God bless him, no question he’ll be the guy in 2019. But a lot can happen between now and Sept 2019.
Book has operated the offense effectively and efficiently. However I don’t believe it’s really been in full gear and optimum performance for extended periods of time – especially the last 2 games against VT and Pitt.
Maybe that’s a rut he pulls out of, and if he’s putting up 38+ points a week I agree he’s probably not losing the job…But he’s bound to lose a game at some point and cast some doubt about future performance with a bigger, stronger, potentially higher ceiling guy behind him. Kelly’s been pretty quick to make QB switches.
So, ironically, I could probably see Jurkovec starting 10 games next year…Or 0. Probably not many in between.
That may be the better analysis, and it is an all or nothing type scenario. In all honesty, I think Book is as good a runner as a QB needs to be. He is no Wimbush or Bryant, but he is more than adequate. He makes a lot more of the throws that a QB needs to make to move the chains than Wimbush.
He is inconsistent, to be kind, on long balls.
The problem with that is that it allows the defense to crowd the line and cover the pass and the run. Wimbush could throw deep, which stretched the defense and let his legs make plays that his arm couldn’t make consistently.
PItt’s defense was the roadmap to stopping Book. We need to counter that. If we do, he probably doesn’t lose the job next year at all.
I am also not worshipping at the feet of 75% completion percentage. It is great and all, but if you are mostly throwing high percentage short passes, which he does, you will get a good percentage. ELi Manning was 8-8 starting Monday’s game, but for about 10 yards. Great percentage, but not effective.
I was initially surprised about all the pushback on Book above given that he’s completing 75%(!) of his passes, but even the ESPN QBR rating isn’t super high on him; he’s currently only 26th overall.
I don’t know – he seems to be playing pretty darned well, but maybe the more likely thing is he stops hitting 75% of his passes and regresses more than he starts hitting deep balls and becoming a serious threat with his legs. I’d still take the under on 3.5 Jurkovec starts for 2019, but if you gave me 6.5 Jurk starts in 2020 I’d take that over.
Bryant (and to a lesser effect Jalen Hurts) didn’t get benched because they were playing poorly, just that there was a younger guy behind them was a better player. If Jurkovec is what his pedigree says, he should probably be the starter over Ian Book sooner than later. That’s a big leap of faith and an unknown as fans though, so who knows.
Not saying I believe Jurkovec will be a 75% passer, so maybe that’s a conversation-ender but I also don’t really believe Book is ever going to be a “serious threat” with his legs. The ability to throw the deep ball remains an unknown, but I get the feeling that’s either a “have or you don’t” type thing, and as of now Book is more towards the latter in that regard.
A lot depends on how this season ends, but I see Book as kind of settling in big picture as something of a “dependable game manager”. These days elite college teams are subbing those QB’s out for younger talents that have better tools and inarugably Jurkovec > Book in that regard.
The odds are probably in Jurkovec’s favor but I think injury/suspension or Kelly forcing him on the field and messing things up is about 70% of the odds he’ll start more than 3.5 games next year.
Something is likely to go wrong (for Book to lose the job) because we’ve seen it happen too many times. But I’m not sure that’s the same as Jurkovec being so good he forces Book to the bench.
We won’t know how good Jurkovec is (or isn’t) until he plays. Could be great, could be lesser than Book. Gotta play to find out. Seems to be what programs are doing these days with their top-end freshmen QBs. Even Georgia was giving their kid some time over Fromm. Surely not because he was so good, right?
I mean if Book ends up 11-0 with 75% passing and 25 TD to 5 INT, he’s staying in…Some of that shine probably is bound to wear off, though.
Justin Fields isn’t really a comparable recruit to Jurk either. Probably the best-known comparison we have in terms of ranking is… Brandon Wimbush.
Yes, but to play devil’s advocate Brandon Wimbush was similarly rated to Jurk and, uh, was fine but not special. Jurk isn’t really comparable to Trevor Lawrence as a recruit – Lawrence looked like a once-in-a-decade type coming out of high school. BK was being willfully ignorant, or at least exceedingly hopeful, when he said he thought Jurk was the best QB in the class.
He’s closer in rankings to Tua, but still distinctly lower ranked.
Yeah, the “oh highly* rated backup” comparison doesn’t really match when you look at the actual rankings. It’s just that Jurkovec actually was decently ranked and Book wasn’t.
But beyond that, while I believe in the utility and general accuracy of recruiting rankings in the macro, there’s also plenty of counter-evidence once kids get on campus. If we played Jurk, then the next kid would hold that tantalizing “maybe he’s better?” appeal any time Jurk threw a pick, etc.
I’m actually kind of concerned given what little came out about Jurk from camp. He’s apparently got this really strange arm motion and release? Like, I remember the media being all flabbergasted when they saw him throw. Normally I’m not one to get hung up on mechanics if the results are good, but we don’t have any results to judge. Bottom line, I don’t have the super high “OMG Jurk is going to win 2 Heismans” sense from what little we’ve seen. He may be fine, but there are concerns.
Jurk also looked pretty bad relative to the competition as a high school senior when he went up against other high QB recruits (Elite 11 tryouts; Army All-American game). By no means is that the be-all-and-end-all, but it’s worse than the alternative.
And, relevantly to this discussion, at those points he did not look in the same area code as a recruit as, e.g., Lawrence, Fields, or JT Daniels. So, if that is a relevant indication of current abilities, he may not be in a position to unseat Book any time soon.
How do you know that? Wimbush supposedly had more talent and he hasn’t shown it after many an opportunity. Jurkovec has played a few garbage snaps. Period. And nothing special happened. Not that it was likely to, in fairness. How many next phenoms have we had that didn’t pan out? Lots.
I’ll stick with the guy who got us to #3 ranking unless he seriously screws up, and losing 1 game isn’t a disqualifier. I’ll take remarkable accuracy and quick feet any day. He’s had 4 starts this year, still plenty of room to grow. Not time to be yearning for the unknown.
I’ll be quite happy if Jurkovec takes zero starting snaps this year and next. That would mean Book continuing to play well and the Irish continuing to win.
Two things beyond his own play could derail Book.
1. The line playing as it did for much of the Pitt game (both run and pass blocking).
2. Kelly screwing up another QB.
@The backup QB at ND has always been one of the best players in CFB.@
This label on Book of being bad on the deep ball really only comes from the Stanford game this year, No? I mean that was a pretty good pass to Boykin in the Pitt game. Are we expecting him to hit on 75% of those too? Four games in, I don’t think the tag should be stuck on him forever.
I can’t find the fancy graphic I saw earlier, but no it’s been across the board Book struggling to throw down field in quantity and connect. His 15+ yard stats are not good but I can’t find it now of course.
That said, he’s been absolutely automatic and very productive at behind LOS throws, 1-5 yarders and 5-10 yarders.
That really isn’t true hooks. The graphic you’re referring to is in Burger’s last film room post, gambit used it in a comment. 20+ yards to the left Book is 6-10 for 209yds and a TD. No attempts to the center, and 1-8 for 35yds to the right. One game accounted for most of those misses. 7 out of 18 is only 38.9%, but just two of those deep shots being completed would’ve been 50%. Would we really be complaining about a 75% passer who hits deep balls at 50% at over 17 yds per attempt?
The long throws to the left show he can do it. He’s still fairly inexperienced…he’ll get there.
“Would we really be complaining about a 75% passer who hits deep balls at 50% at over 17 yds per attempt?”
Probably not. And yet, Book isn’t a 50% deep passer. Agreed on his inexperience but I think my point was he’s not hitting deep passes with accuracy (yet) or frequency And you just said, he’s thrown deep 18 out of 137 attempts and connected on just 7 of them. Perhaps that’s a harsh standard but I wouldn’t say by any means Book has been effective consistently throwing deep.
Ok, so i went to CFB film room where that graphic was from. In 2017 Kelly Bryant was 11-43 from 20+ yrds, Sam Darnold was 35-94, Wimbush was 22-64. While that is far from a comprehensive list, Book’s deep ball completion% is higher than all 3. i’m going to stay very happy with 7-18 deep and 75% overall.
Any drops on those longer throws….I bet there were. How many misses were vs. Stanford?
Spicy!
Under
Starts, not games right? I’ll have to take the under.
Just dropping by to say this whole discussion is insane!
It would be better if he were a few percentage points “worse” on completion percentage because he threw the ball away instead of running out of bounds for a three yard loss which is a staple play with Book.
If a play has been “kept alive” for too long, particularly if the QB is clearly scrambling and not looking to throw, it becomes dicey to throw it away at the end because at that point you might have O-lineman downfield trying to block for the scramble.
The offense could return all but four guys who have seen the field this year: Bars, Mustipher, Weishar, and Williams. A couple of the graduating guys may leave, but we should be in pretty good position to replace any of those spots on the offense.
The defense is a totally different story, with Bonner, Tillery, Coney, and Tranquill leaving that’s arguably four of the top five players on that side of the ball (depending on how much credit you give to Bonner at NG). Football people are starting to notice Love and it seems more likely as time goes on that the NFL will be interested in enticing him away from his senior season.
To summarize, it’s conspicuously similar to last year with the offense and defense flipped. Last year we lost two generational offensive linemen, a freak athlete at receiver, a fourth round TE, and a Heisman candidate running back. The defense has carried an inconsistent offense this year to a 7-0 record, next year it’ll be time for the offense to return the favor.
Also, shout out to new holder Nolan Henry, a 4th year walk-on who hadn’t ever participated in a game until Pittsburgh. Here’s a link to the roster I’ve been updating: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tuz1FdIW9k2JGIFk7CiWwDHx_hvHRoIqHSMGVQRiGBM/edit?usp=sharing
And just to emphasize what we will lose on defense, Coney was included (with Tillery) as a top 30 player for the NFL draft by PFF this past week. So that’s two first round picks in the middle of the defense. Hard to replace that.
We lost two first rounders from the offensive line last year, so it’ll still be a similar story as far as that goes.
Unfortunately for my usual rosey outlook I trusted the depth and development more at offensive line than I do on defense potentially losing two guys like Tillery and Coney so the offense will really likely have to be in that elite tier to give the defense time to grow into the holes left by those guys.
If Wimbush is looking to jump start that MBA, there are a bunch of good football schools in the top 20. (Notre Dame is not one of them).
Top 20 for MBA or football?
MBA. I’d hope most of the schools in the top 20 for football are good football schools!
Seeing Kentucky at #12 continues to be really weird.
I actually changed my comment to “most” because I remembered Kentucky. There are a few other outliers, but they’re the biggest right now.
Is there really that big a difference between the #20 MBA program and the #31? i think we’re talking microns here.
I guess I have some insight here being in the industry and looking for a distraction this morning, but my two cents is that the top 40 of the most recent US News rankings are all undeniably great programs that would give you a great B-school education and have you competitive just about anywhere. It’d be splitting hairs between any of them.
I think some of those 40 (especially at the very top) just inherently have a persistent reputation that might give them slight bump above the rest but that mostly is a halo effect around the university as a whole and exists outside of this ranking or even their MBA program in general (e.g., I think a Yale MBA at #11 or UVA at #13 likely has a better reputation than, say, #6 Cal or #7 Michigan, even if only slightly).
From there, the dropoff to the rest of the top 100 is…noticeable, but you’re probably still doing yourself a favor if you attend one. It does honestly seems like the rest of the top 100 is randomly sorted, though. Very surprised by a lot of it (e.g., Rutgers, Tenn, Baylor are alarmingly high, Arkansas strikes me as too low, Clemson and Okie Light are insanely low). I’m inclined not to think that schools outside the top 100 are worth the money.
So I could keep going but that’s already more than you wanted to know about this.
I agree with alstein that you can’t really go wrong inside the top 40 or so, but it seems likely to me with our scholarship situation that Wimbush won’t be invited back for a 5th year and won’t ask for one anyway. I just meant that, if his main consideration is getting a head start on his MBA, there are a lot of schools in the top 20 MBA that would probably take him. Alstein highlighted Cal and UVA, but also Duke, Northwestern, UCLA, Texas, and UNC. There are even more in the 20-30 range, and you can also dive into degree-specific rankings from there.
He’s handled it very commendably but this year’s been difficult for Wimbush. Can’t see him wanting back as backup as a 5th year player.
Wait, really? ND’s MBA program isn’t Top 20?! I thought the COBA bros never stopped bragging about it.
ND’s undergrad business program has been (maybe still is) ranked #1 in the country. It is ELITE. That is where most of the bragging goes (at least that I’ve seen). Graduate business school isn’t as good. ND pretty much across the board is better undergrad than grad (coming from a guy with a MS from ND).
Wimbush should transfer to Georgia Tech. Imagine him running the option.
Also, Bilal seems like a lock to come inside next year, probably back to Buck unless Genmark-Heath looks real good in practice. There’s a pile-up of players at Rover and almost no inside LB depth.
I can imagine a LB unit of Bilal, Simon, and Genmark-Heath next year
I was thinking Bauer, Bilal, and Simon (or Owusu-Koramoah), but six of one/half-dozen the other. In any case, it seems like Bilal should be moving inside.
If Wimbush wants to play QB next year, he should try Auburn. Stidham is leaving and Malzahn (if he doesn’t get fired) sometimes pulls a rabbit out of his hat.
If Wimbush wants to focus on his career outside of football, he should try for somewhere like Duke, that has a strong alumni network.
If Wimbush wants to try his hand at WR, I think Jeff Brohm would have a ton of fun with a guy like him for a year. It might make more sense to try to go to a MAC-ish school to go up against lesser defenders.
Princeton will take him! (Actually, we’re pretty set at QB–Princeton signed a 4-star from CA that had offers from Bama. He’s backing up a senior this year, and should start next year I think.)
Anyone know if Jay Hayes has been playing much on Georgia?
He has not.
What’s the old saying? The grass is greener on the other side…but just as hard to mow
Can’t blame him. If I could have gotten a degree at ND and then had to option to spend a year at UGA, probably would have done the same thing (football or non football).
Scheduling note:
Irish and Midshipmen to play in Ireland at Aviva Stadium August 29, 2020. That moves the game from week one to week “zero” of that season and gives us a week break before our SEC showdown to open the home portion of the season.
So i just looked at the 2020 schedule, we have a sequence of Wisconsin at lambeau, host Stanford then at Pitt. But at Pitt is 6 days after Stanford. ARE WE PLAYING ON A FRIDAY NIGHT? that can’t be right
Self reply, also watching Brian Kelly lose back to back to Wisconsin and Stanford has to be the ndnation wet dream
I saw the Friday game too. What kind of nonsense did we agree to with this stupid ACC deal?
Well at least it means we have 8 days the following week to prepare for… BYE.
I’m seeing conflicting dates out on the interwebs…a couple of sites have us playing on the 16th (Friday) against Pitt but some others have it as the 17th. So not sure what to believe there.
This seems like the best way to do an Ireland game if it’s going to happen. And gives a week off to rest up after Navy.