6 Thoughts on a Thursday
If there was one word that fit the way Notre Dame fans felt heading into the 2017 season, “hopeful” would have been it.
As dire as things were in 2016, the reboot of the coaching staff and refreshed approach by Brian Kelly made many believe that the Irish could get things pointed back in the right direction. It also didn’t hurt that they had some good building blocks on the roster that included two stud offensive linemen, a budding star at receiver, and plenty of raw talent sprinkled throughout the roster.
There were high expectations for Brandon Wimbush, who was borderline electric as a running threat. Unfortunately he was one of the worst passers in the country and Notre Dame ended up wasting their talent at receiver.
Expectations weren’t as high for the defensive tackles and the lack of depth there. It was something that was supposed to come back and burn the defense. It ultimately didn’t.
Julian Love was expected to be good. He ended up being great. Nyles Morgan was supposed to finally live up to the hype that he came in with when arriving at Notre Dame. He didn’t become the breakout star at linebacker. That ended up being Te’von Coney, who wasn’t even the starter at Buck early in the season.
That team was an example of where things didn’t exactly go according to plan, but they still ended up being pretty good. There were so many questions about the defense heading into the season and they ended up answering them in mostly positive ways. There were less questions about the offense and they didn’t find all of the answers they were looking for in the passing game despite being explosive running the ball.
As we head into the start of fall camp this weekend, this is the year where I don’t quite know what to expect from Notre Dame in several areas. I have more questions than expectations, which is probably why this August feels like it’s more important than any other they’ve had in the last five years.
I want to know how much of Notre Dame’s identity on offense and defense we’ll discover during camp and how much we will have to wait to discover during the first month of the season. Not knowing that identity by the end of camp doesn’t mean they won’t be a great team this season. It might mean they may take some time to get there, though.
2. My number one question about this 2021 Notre Dame team heading into camp is, do they have the answers at wide receiver?
This is basically rolled over from last year where things looked bleak when Kevin Austin broke his foot last summer. It looked even worse after the first two games when no receiver had more than 40-yards receiving and Javon McKinley had one catch.
Things turned around from the Florida State game on, but it went from bad to pretty good. When I’m asking about having the answers at receiver, I’m talking about being better than pretty good.
That seems like a tall task considering the lack of production from the players returning, but it feels like part of what is necessary for the offense to be better than it was in 2020. Everyone is familiar with the names that are projected to be important and it would be significant if players like Lawrence Keys and Braden Lenzy can build off of strong springs. Kevin Austin is going to be the receiver that everyone wants to hear about and Notre Dame needs him to be available and productive.
The group isn’t making any top-10 receiver lists before this season. There’s plenty of talent on hand to be considered there by the end of it. It will all start with players stepping forward in August.
3. What can we expect from a rebuilt offensive line?
The other piece of that is, how good is Cain Madden? Because they’ve had such strong play from their guards in the previous four years and it’s the position with the most concern on the offensive line before camp starts.
The last time Notre Dame had to replace a lot on the line was 2018. Saying that it took a while to get things going that season would be an understatement. They were outclassed against Michigan’s front and then surprisingly struggled against Ball State. Everything improved from that point on, despite losing their best player in Alex Bars, but it took longer than anyone would have wanted to play at a higher level.
There aren’t nearly as many questions about the Irish defensive front and they dominated the offensive line in the spring, but that was also without the only returning starter in Jarrett Patterson and Madden wasn’t on the team at that time.
We’ll see if those two can help Jeff Quinn put together a strong starting five and where everyone will end up slotting because there still might be some musical chairs. By now it’s fair to say that Quinn has been able to get his group to play pretty well even when they have suffered major injuries (Bars in ‘18, Robert Hainsey and Tommy Kraemer in 2019). I’m optimistic he can get similar results out of this current group despite losing so much experience.
4. Outside of Kyle Hamilton, who can become a consistent playmaker on defense?
I have no worries about the defense as a whole being good. They have the talent to be a top-15 unit again. I’m not sure if they are going to be elite or not unless they find at least one more guy who can be a Havoc machine from the front seven.
Veterans like Drew White and Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa are prime candidates to make a leap this fall, but I’m in the camp with many others that’s excited about the potential of young linebackers like Marist Liufau and Jack Kiser. They both had a game last season where they could be classified as game wreckers, but it’s another level to have that kind of impact from week to week.
I’m excited about a lot of young players in general on the defense and wouldn’t be surprised at all if a few of them end up generating significant hype heading into the season.
5. Does Notre Dame have a dominant pass rusher on the roster? The answer is no today, but maybe that can change.
When watching last year’s team, it made me realize how much I took for granted the pass rush for the Irish in 2018 and 2019. They got after the passer fairly well last year, but it wasn’t at the same level it was the previous two years. Those teams had multiple players who were capable of disrupting an opposing offense by getting after the passer and right now Notre Dame is looking for one.
That’s not to say there aren’t a few candidates. They just don’t have anyone who has proven to be great and they really need more than one to help a secondary that has talent, but is also mostly unproven. A defensive back’s best friend is a strong pass rush.
Isaiah Foskey and, if he’s available, Jordan Botelho both have the potential to be great this year in my opinion. I could have said the same thing about Daelin Hayes before many seasons and it took him longer to be the pass rusher fans hoped he could be.
I’m very high on MTA and Jayson Ademilola with what they can do with interior pressure as well, but neither has been close to the level Jerry Tillery was at in ‘18.
I think most teams in the country are envious of the type of depth Notre Dame has on the defensive line, but they’d be more jealous if some of these guys take that next step as pass rushers. Rylie Mills is someone I feel could emerge as one of the top pass rushers on the team and I’m very interested in seeing where he’s at during camp.
6. This might be the most important one. What’s Jack Coan’s ceiling? If we are to assume that Coan is going to win the quarterback job, this is the logical question.
He was very good in 2019 at Wisconsin (top-20 in passer rating, 9th in ESPN’s QBR). However, he thrived in a game manager role for them. He was limited by what they asked him to do within the offense there and he’ll be asked to be more than that if he wins the job at Notre Dame.
Can he be better than that when asked to stretch the field more? That might not be something that Tommy Rees wants him to do. He might need him to do it, especially if the running game takes some time to gel with so many new faces on the offensive line.
Coan might also be the first starting quarterback who wasn’t a dual-threat since his offensive coordinator took snaps in blue and gold so the way Coan will succeed is going to look different than every other quarterback they’ve had recently.
Ian Book might have been underappreciated by Notre Dame fans and somehow overrated by national media. I think people who watched every one of his games knows he hit his head against his ceiling several times and what he was great at could only take the team so far. I don’t think we know Coan’s ceiling yet and how high it is might be the biggest factor in Notre Dame exceeding expectations or not this fall.