Check out part 1 of this Notre Dame Off-Season Project where we went big picture with some deep thoughts on Notre Dame’s ceiling, recruiting efforts, and Brian Kelly’s role in making sure the Irish take the next step as a program. For today, we will drill down to some roster issues and look more at small picture items with the depth chart, including some info with a recently hired new defensive coordinator. A full depth chart preview will come later in the winter once more roster moves shake out.
The Quarterback Question
The recent addition of Jack Coan from Wisconsin certainly offers a lot more clarity at this position and to be honest zaps a lot of the off-season intrigue. Now, I don’t have as much to write about! I will not be deterred, though.
Prior to this recent transfer, I was prepared to talk mostly about Drew Pyne. For someone who hasn’t truly entered the spotlight he has to be going through a ton of emotions right now. Due to the knee injury to Brendon Clark it looked like Pyne could build off being the backup in 2020 and maybe even grab the starting job next fall and beyond.
Now, with Coan in the mix he’s all of a sudden going to be in a 3-way battle with true freshman Tyler Buchner involved. It’s quite possible Pyne moves from “Wow, I’m going to start!” to throwing to walk-ons in practice. It’ll be an uphill battle for him either way. He’s just so small (listed at 5’11” so he could be sub 5’10” in reality) and without a superb skill-set he’s going to have to be sharing a mind with Tommy Rees to stay afloat.
Maybe he’s that skilled mentally? The staff has clearly alluded to that a handful of times in meetings with television crews who keep bringing it up every time Pyne saw the field. I’m curious to see how athletic Pyne can be (he was a decent runner in high school) but he’s looked a bit stiff so far in his brief action. If he’s not able to be a very good runner, I’m not sure there’s a lot of desire to develop him when his arm isn’t real strong either.
Can Buchner actually be The Guy in 2021? First, he’ll need a full and normal spring practice. It’s not happening without it so let’s hope things proceed like they would any other year with 15 workouts.
I’ll give you 5’10” 185 lbs. and absolutely nothing more.
I’m sure Coan wasn’t promised anything from Kelly and still feels comfortable he’ll come and in take the lead in practice. No one can predict how Buchner will react to trying to come in and be a messianic figure or just having the ability to win the starting job so quickly. Personally, I can’t even conceive that he’d open spring working with the starters or even getting close to pulling away as the No. 1 quarterback.
We finally got stability with Book and became free of quarterback competitions for a while. Although, if you remember Kelly is pretty notorious for keeping a rotation going and not moving quickly to a new starter, especially in the spring. My guess is we open spring with reps split like this:
Coan 50%
Pyne 25%
Buchner 25%
Keep in mind, it’s quite likely the media doesn’t even get to see spring practice. Or, if they do it’ll be extremely limited viewings that won’t amount to much information. Will we even have a spring game? In my mind, we’re headed towards one of two scenarios after spring: Either Coan grabs the job fairly quickly and it becomes clear (either through media viewings or leaked info) that he’s too far ahead of everyone else or we’ll go into summer not knowing much about the pecking order.
Ignite the Offensive Skilled Playmakers
It’s difficult to talk about the quarterback battle without mentioning the job to do for an inexperienced receiving group. Here are the wideouts who have caught at least one pass in a Notre Dame uniform and their career numbers through 2020:
Avery Davis – 39 receptions/476 yards
Braden Lenzy – 18 receptions/317 yards
Lawrence Keys – 18 receptions/185 yards
Kevin Austin – 6 receptions/108 yards
Joe Wilkins – 7 receptions/68 yards
The upcoming 2021 season is going to come down to 2 crucial areas at this position:
1) The 2018 class lives up to its potential
I mean, this is pretty much it isn’t it? I’d argue unless the 2021 Irish quarterback develops into a Heisman candidate that these rising academic seniors at wideout are the key to the offense’s ceiling this fall.
Ideally, Austin finally breaks out (and stays healthy!), Lenzy recaptures his 2019 mojo, while Keys and Wilkins give you respectable snaps and good speed as backups. This doesn’t seem like too much to ask but 2020 was such a step back for all of them (except Wilkins) that most fans are now distrustful.
2) The youth movement exceeds expectations
Seven receivers on this team heading into 2021 have not caught a pass yet. Six of those players have a full 4 years of eligibility remaining. Five of these players will be with the team for spring, although at this time it’s probably too much to think Micah Jones (rising redshirt junior) will make an impact.
That’ll leave Jordan Johnson (drink!), Xavier Watts, Jay Brunelle, or early enrollee Lorenzo Styles as the youngsters to be involved this off-season. You have to think at least one of these players is going to step up and have an important 2021. My early pick is Styles to impress a lot.
Moving Jarrett Patterson (or Not)
Notre Dame faces 2 massive questions with the offensive line ahead of spring practice: Will Jarrett Patterson be fully healthy coming off foot surgery and where do you plan on starting him once he comes back?
I’m guessing Patterson will be practicing in the spring (he’ll be ~4 months post-injury) but be limited in some fashion. What makes him so fascinating is that Patterson could legitimately play any position on the line next year. However, the dilemma presenting itself is that he’s likely your best lineman for 2021 and that may mean allowing him to solidify the tackle position when the perceived talent at tackle is far superior to the options at guard.
At 6’4″ 1/2 I don’t love Patterson’s profile for tackle and I’d rather he play on the right side. Yet, if they believe he’s the best player it’s possible they will move him to left tackle in a Zack Martin-type of position switch as the obvious interior body-type who is so good he can protect the quarterback’s blind side, too. We also have to consider Josh Lugg who probably will not compete at left tackle and settle in at right tackle instead.
Place Patterson at left tackle, Lugg at right tackle, with Zeke Correll retaining the center position and there’s a ton of work to do at guard with highly-touted underclassmen Andrew Kristofic (6’5″ 1/4), Quinn Carroll (6’6″ 3/8), Tosh Baker (6’8″), Michael Carmody (6’6″), and Blake Fisher (6’6″) all recruited for tackle and with the length to stay there. With this set up, we’ll likely see Kristofic or Carroll in a competition for a guard spot.
Defensive End Havoc
Notre Dame is losing both of its starters at defensive end, plus a solid backup in Ovie Oghoufo. Most years this would be a pretty big blow. However, the Irish didn’t get a ton of production from this group this past year. Ade Ogundeji blossomed, developed from a lowly 3-star, and was a solid strong-side end with 7 sacks. But, he only finished with 23 tackles and no tackles for loss outside of his sacks.
No doubt, Daelin Hayes’ leadership will be missed and he leaves behind a quality 14.5 stuffs over his final 16 games with the Irish. What Notre Dame should be able to improve upon is Hayes’ 6 tackles for loss and just 3 sacks in 2020. New defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman just has to find a way to get more havoc out of the pass-rushing positions up front.
The combination of Isaiah Foskey and Jordan Botelho offers the defense some terrific athleticism and an upgrade to Hayes’ more ‘set the edge’ approach. Do you keep both at the same position? Foskey is listed at 257 lbs. and might be 265 lbs. by August so I think it’s a possibility he moves if they feel good about Botelho and putting so much on his plate.
Either way, depth has to be developed quickly this off-season. Outside of Justin Ademilola, who has turned into a really nice player, many questions linger for defensive line pass rushing.
Sorting the Linebackers
This is the 5th time Brian Kelly has hired a defensive coordinator and Freeman will be the 4th who played and currently coaches the linebacker position. He’ll be walking into this position room absent Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah which is disappointing but he’ll have a bevy of options to tinker with this off-season.
We’ll wait to go through things more thoroughly in the coming weeks and months. The Rover position (Freeman’s defense at Cincinnati called this similar position Sniper) in particular that JOK leaves behind will be a huge focus. Presumed next man in Paula Moala tore his Achilles, won’t be ready for spring presumably, and I’m not sure he’s been impressive enough to date (22 career tackles, 1 TFL) that he’d be Freeman’s choice even if healthy.
My early guess is that someone like Liufau or Kiser (both have practice reps at Rover/Sniper) are in the mix to start at outside linebacker.
Miracle Grow the Secondary
Freeman has to be pumped to coach Kyle Hamilton for one season before the Georgian leaves early for the NFL. The rest of the secondary is likely to keep him (and a new defensive backs coach) up at night. Right now, there are 3 major issues to tackle, from least concerning to most:
1) Lack of a Strong Safety
Nominally, Kyle Hamilton and D.J. Brown both play the free safety position and that is how they are listed on the official school depth chart. Brown, the former corner, surprised a little bit in 2020 by moving up to the third safety early in the season. With Shaun Crawford exiting the program there’s now a dearth of options at strong safety.
However, in the limited snaps Hamilton and Brown shared together it was the latter who lined up at strong safety.
An early-season look at nickel coverage.
The new staff will have to decide if this is a good long-term solution. Brown is just a shade over 6’0″ and 194 pounds which doesn’t exactly disqualify him from that position, plus with Hamilton’s skillset–playing center field and flying down hill–his safety-mate has to at least share some of those abilities too.
2) Bracy in the Mix
The fall from grace for Tariq Bracy was tough to watch in 2020 and could have ramifications heading into his senior season. If you can get him reacclimated to being a starter again at least there’s a nice duo to work with in combination with promising rising sophomore Clarence Lewis who essentially took Bracy’s job this past year.
If Bracy’s confidence is damaged and he’s just not the same player who was trusted to start 2020, things are going to get pretty wild.
Only converted wide receiver Cam Hart has seen the field at corner and I’m not sure he logged more than 10 or 15 snaps last year, certainly nothing outside of garbage time that I can recall. Everyone else is either a freshman or redshirt freshman. Even with Bracy in the mix it’ll still be a major youth movement, including 3 incoming freshmen enrolling early and ready for spring.
3) A New Nickel
One of the big questions heading into this off-season is how much Freeman will adjust his scheme to fit Notre Dame’s personnel. Like many coordinators, Freeman mixes up his fronts but his 3-3-5 Tite base (more on this coming to the site soon) has been his bread and butter while at Cincinnati as he’s risen to one of the top coordinators in the nation.
In regards to the secondary, Freeman likes to play with 3 safeties on the field quite often. The lack of proven depth in the secondary is a big issue for Notre Dame and now they will have to go out and make a change in approach to the Elko/Lea years that shied away from 5 defensive backs at times.
My initial feeling is that Houston Griffith would’ve been a perfect fit profile-wise as the 3rd safety in Freeman’s scheme but the Floridian product decided to transfer this off-season.
This leads me to look at the bigger corners in the aforementioned Cam Hart (6’2″ 1/2 207 lbs.) as well as Ramon Henderson (6’1″ 189 lbs.) while converted corner K.J. Wallace (5’10” 1/4 189 lbs.) has been said to be very physical at safety despite his lack of size. Just from a spec perspective, Hart would seem to be the guy to try first in combination with Hamilton and Brown as 3 safeties on the field together.
I’d have to imagine we see some of the 2021 DB recruits see early playing time, or they take more people from the transfer portal. Also, imo there’s no way Buchner starts as a true frosh, especially not after having his senior year of football wiped out because of the pandemic. Excited to see how Coan does at ND. Been a while since we had a legit pocket passer, or a QB of his size.
I could see Buchner getting a few starts, but not being the starter straight from game one or anything like that.
Yeah, I think so too. Ian Book spoiled us, I guess, with a recency effect to not remember that Kelly and starting lots of different QB’s in the same season is pretty much a given. I certainly wouldn’t be the under on like 0.5 or 1.5 Buchner starts in 2021. But it isn’t going to be @FSU to open the season.
Not only are we young at the cb position but also not particularly talented. There is only 1 4 star (true freshmen Riley at #313!). That’s 1/8 or less than 13% of our CB’s being 4 stars. It’s our weakest recruited position *by far* and a far cry from the 50%+ to be a championship contender.
Yup, it’s pretty concerning. I have to think they are looking at the grad transfer market every second of the day right now.
For this coming year, it’s really the player development that is hurting us. ’18-’19 are far and away our best consecutive DB recruiting classes under BK (maybe the top 2 overall classes individually). Yet, we’ve got one amazing S and one replacement level CB out of it.
We SHOULD be going into this year with a good, experienced secondary.
Griffith (#70), Allen (#106), Boykin (#366), all busted and are gone. If Tariq Bracy (#435) and DJ Brown (#487) were even the clear 2nd/3rd best players from that class, we’d be in decent shape.
Especially, if
Rutherford (#208), Ajavon (#230), and Wallace (#295) had shown something to this point.Add in Hamilton (#60, but anyone who actually re-evaluated him bumped him to 5*), and I’d kill to be looking at classes with those rankings for DBs from ’20-’21.
Good point.
Even if we still had those guys it would still be the worst recruited position on the team I think. Nevertheless, if those could have developed into even average starters we wouldn’t be in the dire straits that we are in currently.
But it’s also why you need to recruit a few more 4 stars per position because no one is going to have a 100% hit rate and with a really low sample-size it’s relatively easy to miss on most of them.
How long has Mickens been here? Only one or two years? How does he stack up then? Thankfully we’ll have a new chance with a new safety’s coach and perhaps a new D to coach them in.
As Eric mentioned above, we need a grad transfer in the worst way. Is there anywhere to advertise this stuff?
It looks like 2020 was Mickens first year. I would say nothing Mickens has done has impressed. But this was his first year and covid, so even though my list has more cons, I don’t feel that they are necessarily his fault… yet.
Pros:
Cons:
These are just what comes to mind. I’m sure there’s more on both sides of the ledger. Glad to hear others opinions of Mickens so far.
It is interesting. I feel like in the whole Clark Lea era Notre Dame was able to sustain some pretty impressive pass defense stats, despite not having great material in the secondary to work with.
IMO, it’s more a team defense concept than the CB coach (though hopefully Mickens recruits better players and helps the program in that way).
I remember Kelly said before this season he was concerned about the DE/pass rush this year in having to replace Okwara and Kareem, not really as worried about the secondary. Idea being you can disguise and cover for a lacking DB group if you’re getting pressure and wrecking the QB’s game (as in, see what ND did to Sam Howell, even without Kyle Hamilton for most the game).
If the pass rush isn’t getting home, the secondary is going to get picked apart whether it’s a 3, 4 or 5 star player going up against elite QB’s (as in, what guys like Burrow/Lawrence/Fields/etc do to put up massive numbers even other playoff defenses with a ton of DB talent).
It’s a point taken and true that ND DB development and recruiting isn’t national championship level. But that’s probably also the case for most positions. IMO the overall strategy at the DC/HC level has done fairly well to mask/overcome that deficiency, though it’s obviously not a fool-proof plan because the DL isn’t so good that they’re going to get pressure on Bama’s Joe Moore line and then they’re not masking anything.
Hard to pin much of the blame on Mickens. He didn’t even recruit the kids we brought in last season. But I think that this year’s crop is being seriously undervalued by the recruiting services. Kids like Riley and Barnes have the athleticism and tenacity to make an early impact, IMO.
As someone who is (roughly) Pyne’s height and weight, I resent the implication I could not play QB for ND. Where can I cancel my subscription? 😎
18 Stripes Premium membership can’t be canceled. It’s in the fine print. Tough beat. 🙂
Is Isaiah Pryor not in the mix at all? He obviously didn’t contribute much this year but I was hoping he’d get acclimated and play a big role next season.
He could be for sure. I think he’s officially a linebacker now and not a safety although with Freeman those lines are going to be blurred a little bit.
He’s definitely the body-type that Freeman likes to use.
Pryor is a good bet for breakout player under Freeman. Pryor just isn’t great moving backwards in coverage. But if Freeman does end up going with 3 safeties on the field, he can take a whole bunch of the deep coverage responsibility away from Pryor, which could be great for him.
Of course, the upside to Pryor is supposed to be his hard-hitting, tackling skills, and those didn’t really impress me when he did see the field in 2020. He has to be 100% solid on the tackling to stay on the field.
Great article E! Here are some thoughts:
(1) My guess is that QB is going to be an open competition, won by Coan
(2) BK and Rees have to figure out a way to improve the rotation at WR — the defense does a great job of going 2 or 3 deep, but the young receivers rarely play
(3) ND has some talent at o-line, it’s just a matter of determining the 5 best — it seems like they go through this exercise every 3 years
(4) With the bodies available at DT, perhaps someone like MTA might play some SDE?
(5) I could definitely see Liufau getting a tryout at rover
(6) How about moving Styles to corner? If I recall correctly, it seemed like a lot of recruiting summaries loved his potential to be a star there
(7) Can Freeman try to re-recruit Griffith from the transfer portal?
I am wondering the same thing about Griffith?
re: #7: It is certainly possible. Being in the transfer portal itself does not mean he can’t come back.
I don’t see one box that I would check on Pyne’s side in a comparison to Coan. Buchner’s physical skills will move him ahead of Pyne for # 2 by the summer. If ND is winning, I don’t see Buchner getting more than mop up reps. If they drop a couple you could see Buchner start getting some real playing time. Buchner will need to have one hell of a spring and summer to get his first college start in Tallahassee.
We’ll see why Powlus was given a scholly by this time next year.
Mobility and knowledge of the system, plus experience working with the receivers, are all boxes I would check in Pyne’s favor.
That being said, my expectation is he doesn’t end up seeing the field at all next year, unless Coan gets hurt in one of the first 2 or 3 games.
I’m not sure Pyne has much greater mobility. 260 yds rushing his senior HS season. Just to compare, Coan had 330 in 4 games his senior year. Coan was also a legit D1 lacrosse recruit, so he’s an athlete. Bigger and stronger than Pyne too.
In the end though we agree on Pyne’s chances to play.
The early take of Pyne is a sneaky interesting recruiting thing. As you’ve noted, he’s teeny. Then he went to Elite 11 and had a historically bad long-throw, indicating that his arm is super weak. I wonder what the coaches saw in him to make him worthy of shutting down QB recruiting for that year, especially since they only took a 3-star the year ahead of him.
Despite all that, why was he stilled rated relatively high (sounds like a middling-low 3 star from that description)?
Yes indeed. His ranking started out high, which must have been based on HS tape. He slid a good bit after camps, but there is some stickiness to ratings. He did end up as the #19 QB on 247, though, which isn’t so good.
Pyne was a composite 4 star, and a 247sports 3 star. 247 rankings are usually the better indicator. Obviously not always the case.
interesting. Why do you think 247 rankings are generally better?
Because 247 does the best job with player evaluations of the recruiting services, at least from what I’ve seen. The composite scores are just an average of the way 247 + ESPN + Rivals evaluates prospects…. therefore the rankings can vary pretty heavily. Kyle Hamilton is a good example. According to ESPN, he wasn’t a top 150 player in his class. According to Rivals, he was a top 100, but not top 50 player in his class. 247 had him rated as a 5 star prospect, and the number 18 player in his class. To use Pyne as an example again, Rivals had him as a borderline top 100 player in his class, ESPN had him in their top 300(4 star prospect), and 247 had him as a 3 star prospect.
Now, of course, 247 rankings (like all the services do) change as seasons/camps/whatever else happen. When we signed Pyne, 247 had him as a top 100 overall player.
I thought the composite is the best # to look at because it kind of evens out many of the differences. At least that used to be the case. Do you think 247 has sunk much more resources into their evaluations more recently that they are simply the better evaluation?
Probably a little bit of both I’d imagine. Rivals does a good job too though. Of any of them I’d say ESPN is the least reliable; they still have one of our OL commits (Joe Alt) listed as a Tight End on their recruiting service.
It’d be fascinating to see the composite formula. I wonder if 247 knows that and counts ESPN less than they count 247 and rivals. I wonder if anyone has tried to figure it out by taking the current rankings of certain players.
Yeah, it would be really interesting to see. But in any case, my personal way of looking at a player is 1. 247 rating 2. Rivals rating 3. 247Composite.
A few blogs have done some statistical analysis of the recruiting sites. These are are all a bit older, like when Scout was a thing and 247 was new.
They basically grade players by things like being drafted, all-american, all-conf, total starts, etc. Made some formula to give them stars based on that, then looked at the regression against the star ratings on the different sites.
The results were: Rivals was the best across the board. Generally ESPN/247 the worst but with the caveat that 247 was still very new and the sample size wasn’t great (since it takes 4-5 years to really know the results).
Some of these ratings have surely changed, with the exception of ESPN always being the absolute worst in all things. The other sites are dedicated to recruiting, ESPN is a media company that needs to throw something together for casual observers and is financially invested in the SEC.
Statistically, the composite should be the most accurate overall. All of these sites have their biases (this was proven out in the statistical analysis, generally biased on geography or which camps were attended), so the composite aggregates them and smooths over a lot of the biases, and with something as imprecise as this, more guesses are better.
My personal feelings. 247 is second best because they are a growing company that needs to prove themselves and have been very dedicated to investing resources in it. Case in point: they developed the composite (the best statistically speaking). Rivals has historically been the best, but is very biased towards the results at their own camps. They don’t update their rankings often, don’t even try with many players outside the top 300, and aren’t developing at the rate of 247. ESPN is absolute trash (have I mentioned that yet).
All that said. Pick the site you find the easiest. It doesn’t really matter which one you use. Every site gives a reasonably good sense of which teams recruited the best. And overall they are pretty good at predicting who will be the best players.
That’s fair and reasonable for sure. And of course 247’s own rankings aren’t perfect. I guess I would trust the composite score if it were to drop ESPN’s input from the calculation. Which I guess is the point I was trying to make. 247 and Rivals are good, but as long as the composite takes ESPN’s rankings into account…I’d just trust 247’s own rankings and/or Rivals rankings more than it.
Yeah. Aggregating more guesses is almost always better. And ESPN has people who are technically professionals in that they are getting paid. But they are soooo awful. I would be happy if the composite dropped them.
The confusion (subjectivity) is why I always look at the cohort. Those people are putting their own jobs on the line with their evaluation. The services know people like us pay for anything.
When he enrolled Pyne was a 4star on 247 (0.9164) and the #8 pro style QB and #225 player over all. Four stars are roughly the top 350 players on 247 (according to their site) so Pyne would have had a ways more to drop to be a 3 star.
That’s the 247 composite, not 247’s ranking itself. 247 itself had Pyne ranked as a 3 star prospect, the #19 pro style QB, and not even a top 5 player in Connecticut.
Whoops, you’re right.
Very weird recruitment. If I remember correctly, his team didn’t throw a ton his senior year either. He’ll be an interesting Reviewing the Redshirts this off-season!
I’ll agree that so far what I’ve seen of Pyne is underwhelming. I had thought that from the little we’ve seen of Clark so far that he may outperform his ranking. Until the injury I thought he’d be the favorite, of all the recruits, to be next years starter, coming out of the gate. The injury sounds like it might derail him, for some time, so we may never know. Perhaps ND thought Balis could put some muscle on Pyne but, even still. As it stands today it certainly looks like they misjudged something.
So Pyne was the #18 dual/pro QB on 247, I’ll give everyone one guess as to the schools landed numbers, 1, 2 and 3 ?
Agree that Clark looked like he had some potential in what limited action we had seen. Also, pre-injury aggravation, the rumor was the coaches didn’t think they needed a grad transfer, which presumably speaks well of Clark.
In any case, I’m happy they got Coan for next year. If Desmond Ridder wasn’t available, Coan’s probably the best they could get for 2021. Ideally we’ll start recruiting the position better so we’re not in the same position where we have to take a non-awesome grad transfer to potentially start again any time soon.
2022 prospect Steve Angeli is another not so highly rated pro style QB (3star) that ND seems to be hot after. Watching his film I think he is rated so low due to the past season being his first as a starter. He seems to have good tools and I think he’ll move up, more than a little in the rankings. They are also looking at a 4star dual threat QB from Ky. named Gavin Wimsatt. I believe he is the #3 rated dual QB in the country.
Yea Wimsatt should be more like the floor of QB recruiting. In this case and given the current QB room (depending on Clark’s injury and Pyne’s real ability) it may not be a bad thing to take both QB’s.
Angeli is a guy who you can take after you recruit a legitimate, no-doubter 5-star. Buchner is not a legitimate, no-doubter 5-star. They need to be putting Buchners back-to-back with Wimsatts, not Angelis.
The rumor is, though, that they might try to take Angeli *and* Wimsatt, which would be a-ok by me.
I honestly prefer Angeli between the two. Think the kid is gonna fill out real nicely, and with another year starting, shoot up the recruiting rankings.
I agree Irish. Angeli looks like a kid that is going to really climb the rankings. As far as “legitimate no doubt 5 stars” good luck landing one of those. 247 has one QB rated a 5 star in 2022 and he is already committed. Wimsatt is the 3rd listed QB in their ratings.
3rd for dual qbs but I think more like 6th-8th overall for QB’s if i remember correctly.
Yes, I need to be more careful which list I’m looking at. There seems to be 2 more 5stars too. Bringing the total to 3 five star QBs.
I recall when he got in one game, Dungy mentioned that he knew the school and had seen Pyne play. He thought he was pretty good, but that it was a very run heavy offense so he didn’t get the opportunity to show off.
It felt dirty rooting for Bama last night. But at least they did what I wanted them to do. A close game would have been a miserable outcome. Also, DeVonta Smith is amazing. He is the first Bama player ever that I actually like, want to watch, and want to succeed.
It is annoying that the past 2 years, we fully deserved to be in the CFP, then we get our doors blown off, then everyone says we didn’t belong in the CFP, and then we end up being as stiff competition as the NC.
I guess at least this year, some media folks did defend us after the Bama loss. But it’s going to be a long year with no mentions of how we lost by less than tOSU, just how we got blown out again.
Yep, we’ve made it twice, played the National Champ closer than the runner up twice, and been the only team to drop out of the top 4 both times. Exasperating.
But we should start getting the word around — we held the Death Star to 31 points (I don’t care they took some part of their foot off some gas pedal). Actually — we did play them pretty well, all things considered.
The question for college football, how to even the playing field?
I don’t think the Alabama loss was the issue – it was the ACC Championship blowout. If we had played Clemson close I think we would have finished no lower than #3.
good point. Everyone knows Bama is in another league. So playing other top teams close makes a big difference. We didn’t do that with Lawrence in the lineup. It didn’t help then that Clemson got embarrassed by OSU.
It’s more that a team gets blown out in the CFP every single year and it just doesn’t seem to impact the perception of those other teams.
There’s basically a huge gap after the top 2, maybe 3, and everyone seems to act like that gap only exists for us. But maybe it’s because I only really follow ND.
That’s true – though like you said ESPN talking heads were better at giving ND credit this year.
I mean, this year it was Bama–LARGE GAP–everyone else.
Well, that narrative about ND existed long before the playoffs did. We’re fighting against 20 years of major bowl game losses, most of which have been grisly blowouts.
Now, I think that narrative is somewhat unfair to ND in that ignores the fact we’ve almost always drawn the hardest possible matchup in the BCS or the CFP. We don’t get 8-4 UConn or Auburn, we get extremely pissed off top 5 LSU or Ohio State.
Oklahoma deserves as much crap as we do, but at least they upset Bama in the Sugar Bowl that one time. ND does not have a single impressive major bowl performance we can point to since the BCS came into existence. Fairly or unfairly, nothing about this narrative is going to change until we do.
OU is exactly what bothers me. I have written rants about them many times, but they always get too long and I want to spare everyone.
Basically, they beat a Bama team that didn’t show up to a meaningless game, 7 years ago, but otherwise have a nearly identical resume to us since 2010. And yet, their national perception feels so much better than ours.
Perhaps their wide open offense impresses more people. They do blow out lesser teams more often, no? Not that those perceptions are correct.
And having Heisman winning QB’s (with explosive WRs) tends to get more credit with those high-octane offenses.
That they do. And it impresses both people and advanced stats. And is predictive of better performance against better teams.
But for them, it hasn’t translated against good competition for the past 10 years.
I hear ya, and they drive me nuts too. But they have something to point to, and we do not.
I definitely can agree with everything you’re saying about the QBs. The fact that Kelly accepted Coan as a transfer pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the state of that position. Honestly, it’s not a big surprise to me that we are here. I’ve mentioned a few times over on TOS about how small Pyne was ever since he walked on campus. I spent a weekend with him and Mayer and Tyree and when he was a HS senior, he only came up to about my forehead and I check in at 5’11 myself. There’s no way he was 6’0 like he was reported last year. In cleats, he might be 5’11.
It’s really to be expected, too, that he’s not really the jewel of the QB room. He just doesn’t have anything, physically that really blows you away. His big draw is really how intelligent and in control of the game he is but I think without the physical tools he’s not going to be in a position to use those assets. I really do like Pyne, the man. He’s an exceptional kid and I’d love him to work for me. Friendly, conversational, engaging. But as a QB yeah he definitely won’t light up your excitement meter.
He’s going to be an exasperating multi-year starter, isn’t he?
I hadn’t done the math before but espn is projecting only 3 starters on offense and 6 on defense are returning – and glancing through the top 15 teams they project – that’s *by far* the least amount of returning starters.
And isn’t returning production one of the best signs of a good team that year? Yikes, it’s going to be a tough re-build this year.
Also tough that ESPN is projecting 3 teams ahead of us at 7,9,11 respectively (UNC, USC, Cinci) on our schedule. I thought UNC and Cinci would drop off due to talent losses. What looked like maybe a weaker schedule without a Clemson, or OSU type team is all of a sudden much scarier. Also Wisconsin is close behind in their way-too-early-projection at #17. Also if FSU ever figures it out they have a lot of talent. It also doesn’t help that those 4 teams (not FSU) are played back to back 9/25, 10/2 and 10/23, 10/30.
Maybe they are way off with their projections (fair enough) but if those turn out to be 4 ranked teams, it could be tough-sledding with a much weaker ND team next year. 10-2 would be quite a feat.
One of the bummers if Coan starts the whole year is then we will go into 2022 with a brand new QB against OSU as first game of the year. The ideal situation would be to break in a new QB this year who can start the next two years. We play OSU AND Clemson both of those years. So it would be really ideal to have an experienced (and good) QB for those seasons especially, otherwise we are looking at absolute ceiling being 10-2 and likely to finish the next 3 years hovering around 9-3/8-4. This past years recruiting class was so important and might be the reason we don’t make it over the next hump with Kelly (because the class just wasn’t that good) unless we go on a rampage of top 100 players the next two years and have a lot of instant contributors.
Would Kelly make it through 3 (what would now be middling) years of 8-4/9-3? I’m thinking not.
Is your last line implying he’d be fired after 3 such years? I would be absolutely flabbergasted if that happened. He might retire at some point, though.
I think everyone’s ideal world is that Buchner shows up and is so good he has to get on the field regularly, if not necessarily as the starter. If ND is to be a contender in the next 3 years he needs to be the quarterback, unless we’ve got bag men lined up to lure Uiagalelei to transfer over here or something.
Yea I was implying (or wondering) that somehow he’d be gone (whether he thinks it’s impossible or a kind of mutually agreed upon stepping down or whatever) if he doesn’t reach 10 wins in any of the next 3 seasons after having such a great run when the goal is to take the next step it’ll only look like we’ve taken a step back.
Yes, that is definitely the ideal with Buchner. lol on the bagmen comment. But yea I wonder if we need to forcefeed Bunchner a little more this year either way. Like maybe he’s not quite ready but we need to have in a mind a little more than normal the future of getting him ready it would seem.
Edit: also I should add that I’m thinking in the 9-3/8-4 scenarios would include at least 1 if not 2 blowout loses to those top teams (OSU/Clemson) further cementing that we can’t play with the big boys.
I think that someone mentioned moving Styles to CB. That would have to be an option looking at CB recruiting, especially if Freeman just doesn’t like the material at CB although we have such a need at WR for playmakers that maybe he stays on offense.
At the very least we have a lot of numbers in the younger classes for Freeman/Mickens to evaluate and develop but it sure would be nice to have more high floor prospects to be working with.
I would vote against that move if only because as Saban recognized now that good offense beats good defense. A speedster who is tough to guard on offense is worth more than the CB who can cover. If somehow it turns out we have that (right now it’s just all potential) fine. But I’d rather throw as many darts at the great WR first before moving anyone to DB.
Good point. I don’t think we have that at WR so may as well keep Styles there.
Patrick Surtain II
What’s your point?
If you mean superior defense can beat a good offense that’s true but that’s not what Saban said.
I don’t think he recognized that at all. You need both. As spider-man points out he had Patrick Surtain at one corner.
Our problem is this year, we were built to run and play low scoring affairs. We were not built to be explosive. Ball control helped our defense immensely too.
The problem is our WRs were basically slightly faster TEs at Bama. McKinley was basically Billingsley at Bama. Big, fast enough, but he wasn’t much of a blocker like Tremble became. He was more of a WR than Meyer will ever be.
Without that speed/explosiveness at WR, a good (but historically great) Bama defense was able to stack the box put the corners on an island and know they wouldn’t get open, or that the windows would be tighter than Book would be willing to throw into.
Mac Jones was a good college QB. He may have a slightly stronger arm than Book, and it may be a little more accurate deep, but they are very similar. Whatever attributes in arm strength that Jones has, Book is the better runner and improvisor. That said, if our WRs were capable of creating the separation the Bama WRs made, Book probably would have won the Heisman (other than Smith). He would have made the throws we were screaming at him to make because instead of a tight window there would be yards of separation. There is a reason Jones, a Heisman finalist is considered a late first round pick. He was made better by his receivers.
We throw back shoulder to our WRs not because we want to, but because we have to. Did Bama throw any of those? No. Did tOSU? Don’t think so. Does Clemson? Rarely. Why? Because their receivers get open. They beat CBs one on one. They throw back shoulder in the NFL because it is hard to get pro WRs open against pro cornerbacks. We do it, and lesser teams do it, because their WRs don’t beat their man.
I am a little upset Terry Joseph left, supposedly a good recruiter. I don’t think he is that good though given the depth at safety it would seem he can’t recruit his own position. And given the lack of production from the few safeties he did recruit, I question his coaching.
It appears, based solely on stars, that Del Alexander can recruit his position. However, given the total lack of development at the position I question whether he can coach it. The number of freshman WRs around the country that find the field astounds me because ours never, or rarely, do. Losing Austin hurt, but we had a 5* and a 4* behind him. The former didn’t see the field after USF (I think) and the other never saw it. That is inexcusable. Micah Jones, who has a catch or two in his career, also a 4*, also never saw the field.
Great stuff. To the point of “We do it, and lesser teams do it, because their WRs don’t beat their man.” I agree but I wouldn’t stop at just pointing out lesser receivers (though a valid point). I’d say we have to look at coaching and creativity as well.
Bama put Smith in the slot a ton, because it helped maximized matchups. Any WR should be getting open running against LB like Smith did yesterday against that poor tOSU LB. That’s probably simplifying a complex scheme down, but still counts.
The Notre Dame scheme/mindset leaves something to be desired. Maybe the Lenzy injury derailed too much, but that is more to your point that ND has to find a way to get speed on the field more. Not sure if the next step is motioning Tyree from the backfield to the slot (wheel routes, all the rage!) but I’d really like to see Rees take the offense in a new direction.
It almost feels too much based on the Kelly comments that the focus was trying to do what they couldn’t do in 2012 (match Bama in the trenches, not get blown off the ball). And maybe that’s a pre-requisite to being in that level. But the next step is upgrading to 2021 where the best can — and do — strike and go to the end zone on any play.
DCIrish,and Hooks, indeed good stuff. The business about the back shoulder throws makes a lot of sense. Perhaps we can say also in Ian’s defense that with Boykin and then Claypool, those throws were easier to make, and maybe that helped him fall into a more of sort of comfort zone.
But darn, that throw to Avery Davis at the end of regulation in Clemson I… if only a bit of that Ian could have shone through in his (excellent) career…. But then, as I recall, by that time in the game Clemson was way down the roster on DBs with injuries, etc.
So of course we need both. My only point is that we don’t really have either and if you have a choice between one or the other the stud WR is more important. Saban did say that good defenses used to be able to beat good offenses but that is no longer the case; good offenses he said beat good defenses. Of course that doesn’t mean don’t worry about defense.
Ian had decent physical tools, but he didn’t trust what he saw down field. He was a single read and scramble QB. I’m hoping that with a pocket passer like Coan, a healthier (and deeper) group of WRs, year 2 Mayer/Tyree, and year 3 Kyren, that we have a much more explosive offense.
I could see that happen (more explosive offense). It will be a big loss though to lose Book’s running ability though. But if WR’s step up at all and Coan can throw it accurately 20-30 yards downfield (we also need to assume good protection) then a more explosive offense can happen.
Absolutely. I’m looking forward to seeing guys like Watts and Styles getting on the field. Both could/should be absolutely lethal slot receivers. Ideally I’d like to see either or both returning kicks/punts as well.
i certainly hope so! It would be nice for a chance to get some instant contributors.
Yessir! Could be a very, very fun team to watch next year.
I think we could be more explosive which is obviously a positive but I think with some new starters at OL we have to expect that our efficiency numbers will go down.
However, I think that the trade off is probably worth it. We could still excel at being efficient while still taking a step down but if we gain one or two more explosive plays a game that is worth it.
After watching the talent on the field Monday night, then considering what we’ll have next year, it’s pretty daunting.
In the most important position on the team, we’ll have a transfer Big QB who lost his starter job. A solid add given what we’d otherwise have, but the big three will have the very top QBs of their classes playing.
Totally unproven wide receivers to go with him, behind an 80% new line.
Strong TE and RB.
that’s it for the offense, and CFB is all about offense these days.
Some great news….rising senior, Houston Griffith took his name out of the transfer portal and is coming back to South Bend. No doubt our new DC had a strong hand in this.