Notre Dame's "Combo Guys" Open Up Possibilities on Defense
Notre Dame fans can’t help wanting to know more about the team as it’s finishing the first week of preseason camp. The problem is that the team hasn’t even put on full pads yet. (That won’t happen until Thursday)
Whose rising or falling on the depth chart is all speculative at this point, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun with the possibilities. Based on some things said by Al Golden this week, it’s easy to theorize that we might see some new wrinkles from the defense this fall.
A lot of that has to do with versatility of the linebackers. It’s something I wrote about in 6 Thoughts and Greg and I talked about on a recent Hit & Hustle prior to the start of camp. Golden was asked about linebacker/Vyper Jordan Botelho and he added fuel to our discussion with his mention of Botelho and Marist Liufau as “combo guys”.
Combo guys simply means that they are able to do different things with both of those players. That’s also why moving Josh Burnham to Vyper makes sense because he can then develop into another combo defender who can line up in different spots and fill different roles. Jack Kiser has also mentioned that in addition to training at all three linebacker spots, he has taken reps at Vyper as well.
We haven’t seen it yet and we may not see a lot of it when they have their next open practice later next week, but there’s enough bread crumbs with Golden’s comments and things I saw in the spring to suggest that we’re going to see the versatility of players like Liufau, Kiser, and Botelho leveraged more than we have seen from recent versions of Notre Dame’s defense.
The time that we are most likely to see a Liufau or Kiser lined up on the edge would be on 3rd down. The Irish have finished in the top-20 in 3rd down defense in each of the last three seasons (19th, 11th, and then 10th in 2021) and there is no reason to believe they won’t be just as good in 2022. Notre Dame has played with four defensive linemen on the field in their main sub-package, but we’ll see if that changes because of the linebackers.
They could play a 3-3-5 knowing that they have some combo defenders who can line up on the ball and rush the passer. They could also decide to mix it up depending on the match up they are dealing with in a specific week. That’s the beauty of having options.
In 2019, Clark Lea took full advantage of his options to get the best 11 defenders on the field on 3rd down in 2019 when the main sub-package for the Irish featured only one linebacker and three safeties. He did that because Kyle Hamilton was too good to keep off the field in those situations and also because it was a bit of a rebuilding year at the linebacker position.
He went back to playing two linebackers on 3rd down the next season.
Notre Dame is loaded with linebacker options in 2022 and they can do a bit more than play traditional off the ball roles. That may open things up to see three linebackers play on 3rd down in the fall. They have the personnel to make it work. Men’s UA Half-zip Jacket
