6 Thoughts on a Thursday
No one wants to be reminded about the last time Notre Dame traveled to Tallahassee to play Florida State, but I was thinking about that game because it shows how much things have changed for them and Notre Dame since then.
In 2014 it Brian Kelly versus Jimbo Fisher. Everett Golson versus Jameis Winston. Brian VanGorder versus Charles Kelly. (That’s two defensive coordinators both programs would love to forget)
That was when Fisher had Florida State back up there with the top teams in the nation. They were undefeated and defending national champions. There were 11 players from that team who were drafted in the next year’s NFL Draft.
They had a ton of talent that included four future NFL Draft picks on the offensive line, a number one overall pick in Jameis Winston, and two eventual NFL stars in Dalvin Cook and Jalen Ramsey.
It must feel like forever ago for FSU fans.
It’s year two of a rebuild for Mike Norvell, but it feels more like year 1.5 with the way things went for them last season. Expectations are that they have a shot at being bowl eligible in 2021, which is far cry from competing with Alabama and Clemson. The talent has dropped significantly.
It was only a couple of years ago that they were sixth in 247Sports’ team talent composite, which keeps track of the recruited talent that is currently on the roster. They’ve now dropped all the way down to 20th and it’s going to take a while before they can get back up to where they were previously.
It’s a team filled with transfers. They have added 20 from the transfer portal in the last two recruiting cycles and eight of them are currently listed as starters.
The best way to encapsulate where things stand for them after 2014 compared to how things are going currently at Notre Dame is that there isn’t one player on FSU’s offense who would be a starter for the Irish. Seriously. Not one.
They have talent in the backfield, but none of them would be listed above Kyren Williams or Chris Tyree on a depth chart. Even with Notre Dame losing four starters on the offensive line and FSU having everyone coming back, there isn’t one player who would be a no doubt starter up front. They have two O-linemen who were rated as blue-chip prospects as recruits who are in their two-deep and neither is a starter.
Notre Dame has some uncertainty at wide receiver. It’s nowhere close to the status of where things are with FSU’s wide receiver group. ESPN’s David Hale ranked them last in the ACC at that position.
Even on the defensive side of the ball, there could be an argument that a few players like Georgia transfer Jermaine Johnson, redshirt freshman corner Travis Jay, and linebacker Amari Gainer could start for Notre Dame with Jay the most likely. That’s still not anywhere close to the level of talent FSU used to have on the defensive side of the ball.
That is FSU right now. Even a year from now it will likely be different, but when they don’t have a bunch of “dudes” on their roster that would project as starters on a Notre Dame team that lost eight players to the NFL Draft, it makes it pretty clear how I feel about this opening week matchup.
I think many things will have to go FSU’s way for them to have a chance at winning this game. They simply don’t match up well and it’s why I believe the game will be a lot less close than the line says it should be.
2. I feel like this is a safe place to talk about this so I’m just going to throw out a hypothetical knowing that no one has to actually worry about it being real: what if Drue Tranquill was injured in camp in 2018 and projected to miss a significant chunk of that season?
I’m sure everyone would agree that it would have been devastating for that defense. The drop off between him and the next guy at Buck (Will) was significant. It would have put that defense in a very difficult spot.
It’s a different situation this season with Marist Liufau’s injury in many ways. For one, he is more of a rising star than an established stalwart for this defense. He’s only entering his third season (with a possible three more years after this one due to a Covid exception) and Tranquill was in his fifth year in 2018.
The other way it’s different is that Notre Dame is in a much better place when it comes to depth. Shayne Simon, a starter for part of last season, was not in the projected two-deep at the time of Liufau’s injury. There’s him, JD Bertrand, Bo Bauer, and the possibility of sliding Jack Kiser back to inside linebacker all sitting there for whatever direction Marcus Freeman chooses to go in. He has options even if none of them have the ceiling of Liufau.
This is where things are when it comes to the depth chart at Notre Dame at a few positions for Notre Dame.
One injury could have been disastrous for that 2018 team. We only needed to see what happened when Julian Love went out against Clemson to see the impact of that.
They have identified and developed talent on defense to where there are players passing others on the depth chart who have already played significant reps. Liufau and Simon passed Jordan Genmark Heath and Jack Lamb at Buck (Will) last year. This year Bertrand passed Simon. That kind of thing is supposed to happen at good programs and shows how Notre Dame is in a better spot now than they were even three years ago.
Genmark Heath is starting for UCLA. Dillan Gibbons was beat out at guard this spring at Notre Dame, but is now set to start for Florida State. Cornerback Isaiah Rutherford is projected to start at Arizona this season.
This program has come a long way in a short amount of time when they have multiple players who would be in a battle to make the two-deep for the Irish who are starting at Power 5 schools. If you’re looking for one more reason to be optimistic about this season, add this to the pile because this overall roster is as deep as any Notre Dame has had during the Brian Kelly era.
3. Brian Fremeau has his FEI projections heading into the season and Notre Dame is at seven. The only opponent above them is Wisconsin at six. None of Notre Dame’s other opponents crack the top-20.
Cincinnati is 22nd, USC is 25th, North Carolina is 32nd, and Virginia Tech is 39th. The USC and UNC rankings are particularly interesting to me because SP+ has them ranked much higher (14th for USC and 11th for UNC). FEI is lower on most of the opponents for the Irish and if that proves correct, then the schedule looks a lot easier than it looks if you’re using SP+.
We’ll see which one is proven more accurate as the season progresses.
4. When looking back at last year’s FSU game, the main thing that stood out was how different the defense was by the end of the season than the one that played in that game. A lot of that had to go with Covid and certain players not being available that week.
Shaun Crawford was forced to play corner and it was him and TaRiq Bracy. DJ Brown replaced Crawford at safety. Notre Dame’s starting corners at the end of the year, Clarence Lewis and Nick McCloud, only played a combined 32 snaps because both had barely practiced. That means the only starter at the end of the season in the secondary who started that game in the secondary was Kyle Hamilton.
Liufau, the starter at Buck to end the season, also played only 11 snaps. Shayne Simon played the majority at Buck that night. It definitely was not the best the defense played last season, but there were also some circumstances that contributed to that.
5. FSU’s run defense was bad against Notre Dame last season giving up 8.4 yards per carry. This counter in particular gashed them early in the game.
Tommy Tremble didn’t have anyone to block. That’s how bad their linebackers and safeties played this.
I would be shocked if their scout team didn’t rep this play against them about 100 times this week. They don’t want to get embarrassed like this again. My guess is that FSU worked against plenty of heavy formations and think they are going to see plenty of 12 and 13 personnel in this game.
Their defense is going to expect this and Notre Dame should have chances to take advantage of that. Look for Tommy Rees to use some counters off of this same play and likely some play-action that can take advantage of FSU’s linebackers.
6. Jamir Jones was the lowest rated position player Notre Dame signed in the 2016 class. He didn’t have an impressive offer list. He earned his offer working out for Brian VanGorder in camp. He also happened to come in at the wrong time in terms of opportunity.
He started out as a linebacker and played on special teams without the four game rule that was later instituted for freshmen. He moved to defensive end, but his path to the field was blocked by others who had signed in that class. Julian Okwara and Daelin Hayes were both 4-star recruits ahead of him on the depth chart at Vyper.
Jamir finally got a chance to shine as a senior when Hayes went out for the season with a shoulder injury. That opened the door for him to not only be more involved in the rotation, but play a pass rush role on 3rd down. He took full advantage of it starting with a sack in the Virginia game.
When Okwara was injured later in the season, Jamir took over as a starter. He was productive (30 pressures), but only scratching the surface because he simply had not played that much. With no four game redshirt and no extra year because of Covid, his Notre Dame career was done in 2019.
I couldn’t be more thrilled that he made the Pittsburgh Steelers out of camp this year. He didn’t make an NFL roster last season and it would have been easy to give up and move on with his life. He’s had a lot stacked against him that would have pushed many to do just that. All he did was put his head down and keep working, beating out a player who the Steelers used a draft pick on at this same position.
There aren’t many Notre Dame underdog stories that fans can attach themselves to these days. Jamir is one of them that deserves to be celebrated. Looking at his time in college, the odds of him making an NFL team appeared to be very small. It’s nice to see a good player from a good family win overall.