ND Opponent Updates | Clemson, UNC, Stanford, and BC Spring Games
When assessing what happens in a spring game, one has to be careful not to overreact too much one way or the other.
Notre Dame fans are well aware of this as Lawrence Keys didn’t use his spring game to catapult him to slot receiver success, Jafar Armstrong never became the next CJ Prosise as many hoped he might be after the 2017 Blue-Gold game, and Daelin Hayes wasn’t primed to be a breakout star as a pass rusher despite his three-sack day in ‘17.
A spring game is really just another practice where teams do their best not to show too much to any future opponents.
That last statement is 100% true, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing to learn from a spring game. A few of Notre Dame’s 2022 opponents had their spring games this past weekend and there were some nuggets here and there that can be taken from those games.
Clemson
Injuries were the story of the spring and the spring game. They only had one scholarship running back available on Saturday and had close to 20 key players out. Most of those players are expected to be back during the season so no one should judge anything that happened too harshly.
However, does any Clemson want to read that the offensive performance looked like a “rerun of 2021”? That’s the way The Athletic’s Grace Raynor described it, which has to be at least a little frightening for fans who believe that things are headed in the wrong direction under Dabo Swinney.
The offense didn’t get a first down until the seventh series. Starting quarterback DJ Uiagalelei finished 17 of 36 and averaged only 4.9 yards per attempt. Maybe it was just a bad day. Or maybe Notre Dame will be seeing stud freshman Cade Klubnik in November instead of Uiagalelei.
The good news for them is that the defense is loaded with talent and they have more elite young players ready to help. Safety Sherod Covil, a personal favorite of mine in the 2022 class, picked off Uiagalelei to add to his strong spring as an early enrollee.
The D-line is overflowing with talent and had six sacks on Saturday. Some of that might have had to do with a banged up O-line. Some of it might have been inevitable no matter who was blocking. One thing is certain as Clemson’s spring ball is now complete: they have to get healthy and find some answers to get the offense back to where it was for most of the last decade.
Stanford
There isn’t much news coming out of Stanford because they don’t have many people who actually care about spring ball covering their team.
One thing that jumped out to me was that the running game was held to 34 yards on 17 carries in the spring game. That’s bad, especially considering that David Shaw admitted they showed vanilla looks on defense.
Stanford was 112th in EPA per rush last year so the yards per carry seem like a massive red flag heading into the offseason.
Boston College
The big thing with BC is that Phil Jurkovec is healthy, wide receiver Zay Flowers is back, and they have the kind of weapons at receiver that should make the offense pretty dangerous in the fall. That seemed to be the main takeaway at the conclusion of spring.
What could make it interesting is the fact that they only have one starter back on the offensive line. BC has typically been the kind of program that has been better on offense when they have a veteran O-line as the backbone of what they do. This offense is going to be built different so we’ll see how they look by the time they get to South Bend in November.
North Carolina
I think most outside observers expected highly ranked 2021 recruit Drake Maye to be the quarterback after Sam Howell, but it appears like there is a legitimate battle between Maye and sophomore Jacolby Criswell.
Whoever wins the job will have the best slot receiver in the country to throw to in Josh Downs. He made big plays in the spring game, but much like last season, there is a pretty big drop off at receiver behind him on the depth chart. They are going to be portal hunting much like Notre Dame will be at the position.
There were two other things that caught my eye after spring ball for UNC. The first is that true freshman Zach Rice is expected to start for them at offensive tackle. I guess that is not entirely unexpected as their struggles up front have been noticeable, but it is something to make note of.
The second is that former top-50 recruit Desmond Evans had two sacks in the spring game and earned raves for his strong spring ball at defensive end. (In my best Stephen A. Smith voice) However, those sacks in the spring game came against a backup tackle who has played only one year of organized football.
UNC has some intriguing raw talent on their defensive roster and former Auburn coach Gene Chizik is now the defensive coordinator. They need him to fix what former DC Jay Bateman couldn’t.
Men’s UA Green Gameday Half-Zip Jacket
