6 Thoughts on a Thursday
irishbronx asked Mike and I on this week’s Power Hour who we felt were the top-five pro prospects on Notre Dame’s roster on each side of the ball. It was a great question and for those that didn’t listen, I listed Michael Mayer, Blake Fisher, Joe Alt, Lorenzo Styles, and Jarrett Patterson on offense. On defense I listed Isaiah Foskey, Jayson Ademilola, Marist Liufau, Rylie Mills, and I had trouble settling on a fifth. Thinking about it more, I’d probably lean towards Brandon Joseph.
I think doing that exercise at the beginning of every offseason is pretty valuable. It paints a picture of where things stand for the roster when it comes to top talent. Looking at most of the players I listed, it would be fair to say that this current team doesn’t look like it’s set up to make a run to win it all. They aren’t exactly overflowing with top NFL prospects at the moment.
That could change in a big way depending on the development of certain young players like Deion Colzie, Prince Kollie, Ramon Henderson, and freshmen who may emerge, but there aren’t a lot of obvious choices with the upperclassmen who could project to be day or day two NFL Draft picks.
It would have been pretty easy to pick five on each side of the ball for the reigning national champion Georgia Bulldogs. They have six currently projected in the first two rounds of Dane Brugler’s latest post-combine mock draft (four in the first round). That doesn’t include a handful of others who might also be taken in round three or players who are still on their 2022 roster like tight end Brock Bowers, cornerback Kelee Ringo, or defensive lineman Jalen Carter.
That team might seem like an outlier with all of the talent they had, but just look at the previous two national champions before them.
2020 Alabama had six first round picks on their roster and two more that went in the second round. Throw genetic freak offensive tackle Evan Neal on top of that along with two more second round picks projected by Brugler. Then add in the best player in college football Will Anderson. That roster was loaded.
2019 LSU was right there with those teams. When cornerback Derek Stingley gets selected in this year’s first round, that will make it seven first round picks from that team with six more going on day two of the NFL Draft.
Having that many top NFL prospects on one’s roster seems to be what is required to win a natty these days. Notre Dame’s 2018 team, which featured plenty of future NFL players, had 10 players selected in the first three rounds of the subsequent drafts, but only one went in the first round.
That’s the difference between a College Football Playoff team and one that can win the CFP.
I think it’s going to be a lot easier to pick out the top-five NFL prospects on each side of the ball for Notre Dame in the next offseason. At that time I’d expect to be able to add several current sophomores and freshmen to the list and the team should be set up much better to reach the bar that programs like Georgia, Alabama, and LSU have set in recent years.
It was a sobering exercise to look at where things are in regards to Notre Dame’s pro prospects compared to those other teams, but I believe it’s important to understand where Notre Dame needs to get to. It’s one thing to set the goal of winning a national championship every year. It’s another to actually have the pieces to accomplish it.
2. There were a lot of takes put out there after Kevin Austin’s great day of testing at the NFL Combine. Any of them that suggested that the coaching staff wasted his talent can be thrown into a fiery trash can in my opinion.
That completely ignores any context that has to be included when reviewing Austin’s time at Notre Dame.
NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein threw this tweet out there in talking about why things don’t work out for some players going from college to the NFL, but most of these could be applied to highly ranked recruits who didn’t have great college careers as well.
For Austin, the first two are applicable and they add important context with everything that happened with him at Notre Dame from why he didn’t make an impact as a freshman to why he didn’t play a full season until his fourth year.
His medical issues and lack of discipline seem to be in the rearview mirror, which hopefully means his best football is ahead of him, but don’t forget that the main reasons why he didn’t have the kind of production expected of him when he arrived at Notre Dame had to do with things that were outside of the control of the coaching staff.
3. I know Jordan Botelho is someone who has been discussed at length on ISD’s board this week and I’m sure some people are tired of talking about him much like they were tired of talking about Austin. They don’t want to hear about Botelho’s talent until they see more on the field.
That’s probably unfair considering that Botelho potentially has up to three years of eligibility left, but his first two years at Notre Dame involved him being mentioned for the wrong reasons too often (he checked the lack of discipline and attitude problems from Zierlein’s list). That’s the context that has to be added with him because if he did everything right in his first two years, I think he would have made a much greater impact by now.
As ISD’s Matt Freeman mentioned on Power Hour this week, it looks like Botelho is with the linebacker group. That’s not entirely surprising given the logjam at Vyper and the fact that he finished the season playing the Rover position.
I personally don’t think Rover is the best spot for him if he is going to stick at linebacker, though. I just don’t see him as someone who is best suited to play in space.
If he was on the ball playing more like a traditional Sam linebacker, like he did against Wisconsin last year, that would be different. I loved seeing him jam the tight end on this particular play.
However, Notre Dame isn’t going to see too many offenses that are similar to Wisconsin’s. I also think his skill set and body type is better suited to play inside linebacker. Things are pretty crowded there at the moment, but if it’s about using Botelho in a spot where he fits best and can help the team most at linebacker, that’s where I see him.
I think he could be similar to former Wisconsin linebacker Leo Chenal as a pass rusher, who was one of the best blitzing linebackers in the country.
I don’t know what anyone’s expectations of Botelho should be this spring, but I know he’s one of the players that I believe can help the defense if all of the pieces fit together with him.
4. Kyle Hamilton didn’t run a great 40 at the NFL Combine, but had a pretty strong workout outside of that. I imagine he’ll run the 40 again at Notre Dame’s Pro Day to improve that time even though I don’t think he needs to.
Just pop on the film and anyone can see how fast he is in pads.
It’s not just seeing it or looking at the production. These teams have access to the GPS numbers he had at Notre Dame. They track speed and know how fast he is on the field already, which was mentioned in Bruce Feldman’s 2021 Freaks List piece. They know how fast just all of these guys are on the field because most college football teams track those numbers.
So, why are they still running 40s?
I’m not saying it’s not a useful piece of information…if those on the field numbers weren’t available. But they are.
I don’t see them not running the 40 at the NFL Combine any time soon because there are people who will tune in just to watch that specific test, but it sure seems like a waste of time and money for all of the players who spend time training to run it.
5. I know a lot of Notre Dame fans have questions about the new staff that won’t be answered until they actually start coaching together. A lot of questions about chemistry can’t even begin to be answered until the team faces some adversity. When things are going wrong, how do members of the staff work together to fix it? That matters more than anything and it can’t be learned by going through spring ball.
What will be learned after going through spring ball is how each coach manages his room. There are going to be players who move up and down the depth chart. There are going to be players who are unhappy with how many reps they are getting with the ones or how many reps they are getting in general. There are going to be players who might want to switch positions or might be asked to switch positions when they don’t want to. How will each coach deal with that? It matters as much as coaching technique.
One thing that can be definitively said about Del Alexander and his time at Notre Dame is that he didn’t do a great job managing the players in his room. If he did, then the Irish wouldn’t be in the position they are currently in with numbers at wide receiver.
We don’t know much about Chansi Stuckey other than how he has won over other staff members so far. By the end of spring, he has to win over every player in the room in addition to connecting with some key recruits. It’s not an easy assignment, but it sounds like he has the right personality for the job.
6. One thing I’m really curious to see is how much of an impact can the early enrollees make this spring. Will there be any of them that jump the line when it comes to the depth chart? That really hasn’t been the norm for Notre Dame in spring ball, at least under Brian Kelly, but perhaps that changes under Marcus Freeman.
Before last season Freeman spoke about finding the best players and getting them on the field by adapting to what they know and what they do well. How much will that apply to someone like Jaylen Sneed if he goes out and proves he is one of the best football players on the defense, even if he has to improve in certain areas? I picked Sneed for obvious reasons, but it goes for any of the early enrollees.
I think there is always a fear of rocking the boat when it comes to young players playing over others who have been waiting for their opportunity and there is a balancing act that goes along with that. That can be the difficult part when it comes to managing the room, like I just mentioned at receiver. And no one wants to disrupt the culture that has been built in recent years either.
I hope we hear about a lot of competition at most positions this spring where some younger players get the chance to gain confidence and prove they can play or at least get a better understanding about how far they have to go to succeed at the college level.
Notre Dame is bringing in some talented freshmen in this class and they’ll do the same in the next one. Some of them could be ready to help the team win this season and getting thrown into the mix with veterans as often as possible this spring is the first part of making that happen.