This Wednesday the Fighting Irish step on the practice field for the first time following a disastrous 4-8 season. The program has followed up a truly forgettable season with a surprisingly uplifting winter and will begin laying down the tracks for what is hoped to be a highly successful 2017 season.
BOLD denotes returning starter
QUARTERBACK
Brandon Wimbush, r-SO
Ian Book r-FR
Competition: 2/10
Intrigue: 5/10
In some ways this should be a more exciting spring practice for quarterbacks compared to last year. In the spring of 2016 we knew it’d be Kizer and Zaire going head-to-head but we also knew a leader would never be named and barring something disastrous (didn’t happen) we’d head into the summer without much clarity.
Being able to see a million times more of Brandon Wimbush actually makes this spring one of the more anticipated in recent memory. In fact, it’s the first spring in a while where so much focus will be on one player. In addition, it’ll be fun to see what Book has to offer because while he should be a very distant second on the depth chart he’ll get plenty of reps in these practices.
RUNNING BACK
Josh Adams, JR
Dexter Williams, JR
Tony Jones, r-FR
C.J. Holmes, FR
Competition: 6/10
Intrigue: 7/10
Nearly all of the data points last year pointed to Adams being viewed as The Guy from the coaching staff. Who knows if that changes but Adams has been perpetually banged up and spring is often the time of year when the “starting” running back rests up more than other stars at different positions.
This is a fun position group because all 4 guys can do some damage, including early enrollee C.J. Holmes who should jump right in for some reps.
X WIDE RECEIVER
Kevin Stepherson, SO
Javon McKinley, SO
Deon McIntosh, r-FR
Z WIDE RECEIVER
C.J. Sanders, JR
Chris Finke, r-SO
W WIDE RECEIVER
Equanimeous St. Brown, JR
Chase Claypool, SO
Miles Boykin, r-SO
Competition: 4/10
Intrigue: 3/10
Rising sophomore Kevin Stepherson played so much last year that it feels as if Notre Dame is bringing back all 3 starters. Therefore, I’m not sure there’s going to be a bunch of interesting things going on with this group.
The lone exception to that thought would be Chase Claypool who has emerging X-factor written all over him. He’ll be someone to focus on this spring.
TIGHT END
Durham Smythe, 5th SR
Nic Weishar, r-JR
Alize Jones, r-SO
Tyler Luatua, SR
Brock Wright, FR
Competition: 9/10
Intrigue: 8/10
We’re told that Chip Long likes to use two tight end sets a lot so we’ll see how much of that is talk versus reality when the pads are strapped on in the spring. He certainly has the horses to make plenty of moves with the formations.
There may be no greater competition on the roster this off-season. This one offers a little bit of everything from a couple decent veterans to a couple budding young stars pushing for more playing time.
LEFT TACKLE
Mike McGlinchey, 5th SR
Hunter Bivin, 5th SR
Aaron Banks, FR
LEFT GUARD
Quenton Nelson, r-JR
Jimmy Byrne, r-JR
Trevor Ruhland, r-SO
CENTER
Sam Mustipher, r-JR
Parker Boudreaux, r-FR
RIGHT GUARD
Tommy Kraemer, r-FR
Tristen Hoge, r-SO
Robert Hainsey, FR
RIGHT TACKLE
Alex Bars, r-JR
Liam Eichenberg, r-FR
Competition: 6/10
Intrigue: 6/10
What do we know about the offensive line? We know with utmost certainty that the left side is set in stone. We can also safely assume Sam Mustipher will hold on to his starting spot at center, although that might be written in pen with some white-out on standby.
Nevertheless, let’s assume Mustipher remains at center then here are the likely configurations for our 2017 starting lineup:
Mustipher-Kraemer-Bars (30%)
Mustipher-Bars-Kraemer (30%)
Mustipher-Bars-Eichenberg (30%)
Mustipher-Hoge-Bars (10%)
There may be a hot take out there from someone that Alex Bars’ spot (wherever it may be) is less secure than Mustipher’s but I’m confident Bars will start in 2017. We almost never see legit starters play an entire season and then lose their spot on the offensive line. Can you imagine if it happened to two players in one off-season?
Transfer Threats: Boykin, McIntosh, McKinley
I know what you’re thinking the depth at receiver isn’t deep enough for any of these guys to bolt. Ah, yes but transfers seldom make 100% sense.
Boykin got a taste of playing time last year which could keep him fighting for more snaps but he could also find himself the 3rd big receiver with the ascendency of Claypool.
McIntosh is either buried deeply on the receiver or running back depth chart, take your pick. He’s probably the most likely to leave out of anyone on the roster.
McKinley may not be 100% healthy for spring which could make him a little more patient or constantly looking over the depth chart while others get better. He’s also from California, which I’m sure everyone understands the risks involved there.
Breakout Star: Kraemer
Wimbush makes too much sense in this category and it’s really not fair if you’re a quarterback is it? Especially a quarterback in Wimbush’s situation without a huge competition on his hands.
Alize Jones coming back from suspension is a good pick here, as well.
I’m super high on Tommy Kraemer, though. He’s in a tough spot with a lot of competition against other talented players which might not make him a rising star the way Alize could be after a few practices. Still, we saw some glowing language used by Kelly about Kramer which isn’t super unusual but getting 1st-team reps in your first fall camp on Notre Dame’s offensive line without being an early enrollee–that’s kind of ridiculous.
Kraemer is the highest rated recruit on the entire roster. I have a difficult time not seeing him begin to shine this spring.
Major Story Line: Wimbush Drinking from the Fire Hose
Take a look around at the roster with 8 starters returning and it’s way too easy to talk yourself into buckets full of optimism for the offense. We could upgrade at right guard! Alize could make the tight ends dynamic again! Dexter will bring speed that Folston lacked! The receivers have decent experience and will be getting much better!
The arrival of a new OC in Chip Long will certainly grab enough headlines with tales of an altered offense but I’ll reserve my excitement for when the chips (get it?) are really on the table through a full season.
No, this spring is going to be about seeing how much Wimbush can shoulder as The Guy with expectations being sky high for one of the top quarterbacks from the 2015 class. Notre Dame foolishly blew Wimbush’s redshirt as a freshman but was fortunate to not use him last year. Now it’s his time as the seas have parted and the starting position, with all the surrounding talent, is his to operate.
Great post. One question: are we sure that CJ Sanders is the starter in the slot? It seemed like by the end of the year he wasn’t playing too much, though I could be misremembering.
One more nit: while I’m often happy to criticize BK, I don’t think it was foolish to play Wimbush in 2015: he was the backup for 11.5 of the 13 games.
Slot is a good question. Me thinks Sanders got banged up last year coming off his hip injury. Curious to see if he’s 100% all through spring but I imagine Finke will be right there.
We could’ve played MVG in place of Wimbush’s 13 snaps two years ago, though.
Wasn’t MVG basically just running the scout team? It’s possible he barely knew our playbook.
For those 13 snaps. However, you had to prepare WImbush to play a lot more. If Kizer had gone down and you had brought up MVG, the team would have been awful. Once Wimbush was getting the reps, it made sense to play him. Perhaps more than we did, but then Kizer was going with no prior experience too.
It doesn’t matter since we redshirt him in 2016.
With the 13 snaps, or whatever the low figure was, those reps weren’t the difference between Wimbush being prepared to play a lot more. It was just the difference between losing a year or not.
I’m a little confused here…(well everywhere most days) didn’t he redshirt this past season? and if so doesn’t that mean he still has 3 seasons of potential play ahead of him? I guess I don’t understand him losing a year, because this past season he wouldn’t have been able to redshirt anyway if it wasn’t burned in ’15. And the way the QB situation was I don’t see him getting any reps in ’16 without a redshirt. I guess I don’t understand how it really mattered one way or the other in this instance. I’m probably missing something, if so please enlighten me.
No, it didn’t matter in the end.
I’m pretty optimistic about the offense. Based on stuff I’ve read (plus the switch from Booker to a former AA TE and long-time TE coach in Long as TE coach), I truly think TEs will develop better and be featured more. Guess we’ll see.
Btw, Alize now is Alize Mack, not Jones.
Is that a real legal name change? I was waiting to see what thI official school roster says….
Unsure, just going by his tweet, which was picked up (e.g., on the NBC blog).
Chardee MacDennis?
Don’t call blowing a redshirt foolish. Especially not in a year where we were good. And especially not on a QB. How big a difference did Kizer and Zaire’s RSs make? When is the last time we had a RS SR start a game at QB? I think it was Frank Beamer who says the only person who determines whether someone redshirts is that player himself. When a player makes your team better, in any way, he plays.
Find a coach that cares more about winning in 4 years than this year, that is the foolish coach.
I think this goes a bit too far. Not redshirting Romeo Okwara was clearly foolish, and we paid for it last year.
That was not foolish at all. He contributed as a freshman on a team that went to the National Championship Game. Maybe without him there we screw up somewhere on ST that costs us a game. Or more likely, a starter plays in that position and gets hurt or just gets tired and isn’t as effective. I would sacrifice that RS year 100 times out of 100 (especially as a coach in his third season, who has no idea if he will still be at a school in 4 years).
It stinks that we burned his red shirt (especially because as long as I’ve been following ND, no one could have used one more). But that was because of the depth on the team. It was not foolish that we played him in 2012.
And that is assuming Okwara would have even come back last year. He was clearly more than ready to contribute in the NFL. Also, so what if he came back? He isn’t suddenly making 2016 a 10 win team. Might have made it a 6 win team.
Sorry for ranting. But calling blowing redshirts a bad or dumb move is probably my single biggest pet peeve in all sports discussion.
Pretty much disagree.
Although, it depends upon the way you look at it. You could always play the what if game.
We tend to “blow” Redshirts because of poor depth not because of good depth and the kid is just too good to sit.
It’s a tough sell to say we needed Jamir Jones or Javon McKinley last year.
There is no need to play the what-if game, because you can just play the what actually happened game. How many times have we ever actually been burned by burning a red shirt? Schwenke and Okwara and ?
How many times has a player been good enough that he A. could have played as a true freshman B. we would have been excited about him coming back as a 5th yr (since this is only a discussion about internet opinions) C. wouldn’t have gone pro?
I think the list of players leaving with eligibility, is a lot more extensive than those who we needed, would have stayed, but ran out of eligibility. OL probably pops up a lot here, but outside of ZMa, who is very much a counterpoint to my argument, the RSs are because they weren’t good enough as freshman, not because we are trying to save a year (e.g. McGlinchey).
Think of it this way. Can you name a time that any coach, on any team, actually played a worse player in order to preserve a RS? Is there any evidence that the people who make these decisions professionally consider burning a RS foolish?
Blowing a red shirt is not a GOOD thing. But it is also not a FOOLISH thing. There is a very big difference. The foolish thing, that results in burning a red shirt, is not recruiting enough players at a position, or having an S&C program that didn’t feed a QB enough milk so he broke a bone forcing the 3rd string QB to play.
I agree with your last paragraph.
But with the case of Okwara above you’re not just dealing with what actually happened. You’re saying what if something happened in 2012 or what if he never came back?
Sure, we aren’t dealing with a huge amount of players. But when you what if away guys playing less than a game over a year of course you can say we’ve never been burned by a redshirt. You’re rigging the argument before it even begins.
Onwualu would be someone who I think we’d be very happy to have back in 2017. He’d be a good discussion.
Oh, I did mention what-if for Okwara, that was probably useless. My example was mostly meant to point out that if we lost even 1 game for any reason in 2012, that would have been 100 times worse than the benefit of his RS SR year, even if he was the sole difference in getting us 4 more wins in 2016. In a perfect world (or video games) he redshirts, and we get 12 wins in 2012 and 8 wins in 2016, but even after his great rookie season with the Giants, I wouldn’t go back and put a RS on him. I guess my what-if was to show that the what-if game in that case doesn’t result in anything better for ND.
It would have been awesome if Onwualu was handled differently (immediately put on defense where there would have been no choice but to RS him), but don’t think the RS was a poor decision in any way. As a WR, it was pretty reasonable to play him his freshman season, especially since I assume he played a pretty significant role on ST.
I get, and am for, the discussions of saying it sucks we had to burn a red-shirt, but hate when people criticize the coaches for that specific decision. In every case I have seen, the decision to burn a RS isn’t the bad, and especially not foolish, part, it is the lack or recruiting and roster management that is the actual problem.
Did we miss Freddy Canteen?
Not graduating from Michigan until this spring and then coming to ND for the summer.
I’m excited to see how it all plays out.
I’m not seeing Cole Kmet on the TE list. I know he’s likely to redshirt, but I haven’t seen that announced for sure. Why isn’t he on the list exactly?
Oh. Because he isn’t here yet. SPRING Ball. Derp