6 Thoughts on a Thursday

The off-season in college football is all about hype. Whether it’s a Junior Day in February, spring ball in March and April, or visiting recruits in the summer, the focus for fans is on the future until we get to August with fall camp getting started.

The start of the Marcus Freeman era has certainly taken advantage of that hype. The program has leveraged social media to get even non-Notre Dame fans excited about him being hired. With Notre Dame Director of Recruiting Chad Bowden as a necessary hype man to Freeman, the staff has sold several blue-chip recruits on the excitement of what’s to come for Notre Dame football.

So far Freeman and his staff haven’t wasted any opportunities to be full steam ahead with the hype train whenever they get a chance. They made the Blue-Gold game an event again, complete with high profile recruits and literally hundreds of alumni in town. It seemed inevitable that the next big recruiting event would have some kind of similar feel to it because that’s been the M.O. for the staff.

Here comes Irish Invasion this weekend and yet…there is a distinct lack of hype around it.

There will be some good prospects competing there, but if you were expecting a bigger, flashier camp with more high profile recruits than we saw at Invasion in recent years, it seems like you’ll be disappointed.

I’m sure the list will grow with names we haven’t confirmed at this point in time, but the guest list looks small at the moment. It’s the opposite of what I expected given how things have gone on the recruiting trail.

The reasons for it might vary. It could be that official visits in June, which are going to be huge for the 2023 cycle, are taking up a lot of energy and a camp like Invasion might be de-emphasized because of it. It could be that with so much staff turnover, it might be a year one blip for Freeman and this camp will be bigger and better than ever in future years.

They chose not to run a Coaches Clinic this season, which was also a bit of a surprise, but I believe that will come back next year as well.

I’m going to be there this weekend to cover it and I hope that I get to watch plenty of talented 2024 and 2025 kids competing there. I have to admit that I’m curious if that will be the case or not because at this point in time it’s unclear what to expect for the camp on Sunday.

2. Notre Dame has had a number of players earn offers at camp who then eventually ended up signing with Notre Dame.

We can go back to Tyler Eifert and Drue Tranquill. Those two worked out pretty well to say the least. In more recent years there’s been the Ademilola twins, Jacob Lacey, Paul Moala, Jay Brunelle, Tyler Buchner, Lorenzo Styles Jr., and Ashton Craig.

The Ademilola twins, Lacey, Buchner, and Styles were all younger players when they earned those offers and that’s what we’re likely to see from any recruits who are offered this week. I don’t think we’re going to see many more Moala or Brunelle types who are rising seniors looking to earn an offer who end up in the class.

That being said, both Eifert and Tranquill fit into that category so I hope that door isn’t completely closed. That feels like a different era than before with how fast things go in recruiting. We're really starting to look at 2026 recruits at some of these camps so having a board set happens faster than ever, but not being open to evaluating rising seniors at these camps is how those players can end up being great at other programs instead of Notre Dame.

3. Micah Jones caught everything at Irish Invasion and looked to some like he had the potential to be the next in line following Miles Boykin and Chase Claypool as a bigger receiver at Notre Dame.

The Irish offered and we know how things turned out with him.

George Karlaftis came to Invasion and looked like he was a notch below others like Jayson and Justin Ademilola and Jayson Oweh. Notre Dame backed off recruiting him and everyone saw how Karlaftis turned into a game wrecker at Purdue.

I think about these two specific examples all the time when it comes to evaluating players on a single day. It’s a piece of the puzzle with the evaluation. Overreacting one way or the other can come back and bite you. It did in these two instances for the Irish.

4. There isn’t a stronger one-two punch at a position for the Irish this season than who they have at Vyper. Isaiah Foskey and Justin Ademilola can be a dynamic duo. The picture couldn’t be more clear for that position in 2022.

What that position will look like in 2023 is a lot murkier.

Foskey is going to be in the NFL. Ademilola will have an option to come back for a sixth year, but chances are he’ll want to move on and be in the NFL too. Both Jordan Botelho and Will Schweitzer moved to linebacker so if Ademilola is gone, that will leave only Joshua Burnham at Vyper returning based on the current depth chart.

My guess on what is most likely to happen is Botelho moving back there with Burnham next season because this move to linebacker for him feels like it’s more for now than a permanent situation. We’ll see how that plays out.

Or maybe Botelho has found his home and will thrive. That would be a great thing for him and Notre Dame.

If the Irish hold on to Keon Keeley‍ in this class, as they expect to, then there is no doubt he could be someone who jumps into the mix immediately. If they were to somehow land Samuel M'Pemba‍, then get ready for a party where they all meet at the quarterback.

I have mentioned before that I feel Preston Zinter‍ is a candidate to play there in the future too and Kahanua Kia should be back for the 2024 season. The Irish should be just fine at Vyper no matter how things play out and I’m particularly excited about how Burnham will develop there.

5. Michael Mayer is Mel Kiper’s 7th ranked prospect overall heading into this season.

Mayer is a phenomenal player. No one needs me to remind them of that. He’s going to be in the NFL in 2023 and it’s very likely he’s going to be a first round pick.

But 7th? It seems kind of crazy when I look at how the position is viewed by the NFL compared to so many other positions, but maybe it’s not that crazy. Kyle Pitts went 4th overall in 2021. TJ Hockenson went 8th in 2019. Eric Ebron went 10th in 2014.

It’s not completely unprecedented for a tight end to be rated that high and I think it’s fair to say that Mayer is going to be as safe of a prospect as there is in the entire draft when you consider production on top of talent and ability to play in any system.

On the other hand, Pitts and Ebron were viewed as a different level of athlete compared to Mayer. Pitts ran a 4.44 40 on his Pro Day and averaged over 17 yards per reception in his final college season. Ebron was dynamic after the catch and averaged over 15.

Hockenson is the comp that fits better with Mayer in terms of being an all-around tight end, but even he averaged over 15 yards per reception in his final season at Iowa. Mayer only averaged 11.8 per reception last season.

Mayer is clearly an elite 3rd down option, but there is a level he needs to go up as a junior with some plays after the catch and he’ll also have to test out really well when the process gets going after this season. Hockenson ran a 4.7 40 yard dash, but he also had a 37.5 inch vertical and his 20-yard shuttle was elite (better than Pitts and one hundredth off of Vernon Davis’). Those tests will matter for Mayer.

I think Mayer is going to have a long, successful NFL career. I don’t know if he’s going to be a top-10 prospect in the NFL Draft, though, unless he goes up a level this season.

6. It’s the end of an era now that Stephon Tuitt has decided to retire from the game of football. The loss of his brother last year had a big impact on his decision as did him coming back and earning his degree from Notre Dame this year. There is no doubt he still has the talent to play if he is healthy, which has also been an issue for him in recent years.

He was the first Brian Kelly recruit to become a star at Notre Dame. He’ll always be remembered by Notre Dame fans for that fantastic 2012 season and the way he almost single-handedly won the USC game in 2013 with his second half performance.

I really believe if Notre Dame had run a different scheme during his time with the program that his sack numbers and impact as a whole would have been even better than they were. If he was a full-time 3-technique defensive tackle, it would have been scary for teams to deal with every week. He was scary enough in the Bob Diaco scheme.

There have been a lot of good defensive linemen who have played for the Irish over the last dozen years. Tuitt’s peak was better than all of them in my opinion.

Best of luck to him with what comes next in life and hopefully we see him on the Notre Dame sideline checking out a game in the near future. ND Baseball Jersey