6 Thoughts on a Thursday
I always hate grading coaches. It never feels like a fair thing to do because there are so many factors that play into it.
Part of it is the talent they are working with. When evaluating the job Al Golden did in his first season at defensive coordinator, that’s a big factor for me.
How the defense performs always matters. What they did in limiting top receivers this season like Marvin Harrison Jr., Josh Downs, Juice Wells, and Zay Flowers was impressive. What they did in limiting points (24th in points per drive) was a big reason why Notre Dame turned their season around despite an inconsistent offense.
The red zone was a problem all season, though. The Havoc rate, 14%, wasn’t nearly good enough either.
There was a lot of good. It was also a bit underwhelming at times.
As it stands today, there aren’t a lot of upperclassmen who project to be NFL Draft picks this spring. Isaiah Foskey is going to be a high pick. Jayson Ademilola has a good shot to get drafted. Brandon Joseph may be a late-round pick, although his play this season didn’t help his stock. TaRiq Bracy looks like he played his way into having a good chance at being drafted. Cam Hart is the only player who is choosing to come back who might have had a decision to make, but that’s it.
Out of the fourth and fifth year players returning, Hart might be the only one who projects to be drafted today.
There are some others who have a chance to play in the NFL, but they need to prove themselves more before that becomes a reality. If you look at the players who will be draft eligible after next season, it’s a long list of players who have to be a lot better than they were to get in that conversation.
It’s now or never for many of them to make a leap with their development. There are a couple who ended the season as ascending players (thinking of you Jordan Botelho and Xavier Watts). It needs to be more if the defense is going to improve next season. That’s also why Notre Dame is hunting for defensive linemen and safeties in the portal.
The easy thing to point to for ‘23 is for some of the talented freshmen from the 2022 class to develop. The only issue with that the list of players who became impact players on defense as sophomores in the last dozen years at Notre Dame is a short one. It’s just Manti Te’o, Stephon Tuitt, Jaylon Smith, KeiVarae Russell, Julian Love, and Kyle Hamilton.
Benjamin Morrison is sure to join them after already being that guy as a freshman, but the odds aren’t great that others are going to join him.
The more likely scenario is what happened with the 2017 defense. Julian Okwara, Khalid Kareem, and Troy Pride weren’t stars in year two, but they were very good players who were just scratching the surface of who they would end up being. Notre Dame needs some from the 2022 class to have similar trajectories.
The Irish didn’t land a lot of elite prospects on defense in the 2020 and 2021 classes. There’s only six composite blue-chips (4 or 5-stars) who play defense from those classes. There are eight from the 2022 class and nine from the 2023 class.
Talent is not likely to be an issue even as early as a year from now. It’s going to be a question heading into 2023 unless we see some significant development from players who haven’t been overly productive in their time at Notre Dame.
I expect the defense to be better in year two for Al Golden, but how much is going to depend on how many players can improve from now until next season.
2. Development matters even more on the defensive line this offseason because there just aren’t that many good defensive linemen in the transfer portal.
I’m sure Notre Dame wants to add to the defensive line via transfer, but how many of these guys are capable of being impact players? 247Sports has DT Braden Fiske as the top ranked interior defensive linemen in the portal. Notre Dame offered him, but he chose Florida State.
Fiske is a good player who has plus pass rush potential, but I watched three games from him, two where his pressure numbers were prolific, and I’m not sure he was going to be a starter at Notre Dame. He would play in the rotation for sure, but I couldn’t say definitively he was going to be better inside than Rylie Mills or Howard Cross.
That’s the player who is considered the top defensive linemen available. That says a lot about the players who are currently in the portal.
Jacob Lacey is ranked as the sixth defensive tackle in the portal. I’ve always liked Lacey, but he literally just left Notre Dame because he wasn’t playing enough.
More are joining the portal and it’s not like there aren’t some players who couldn’t help Notre Dame next season or beyond. I just think there are more Chris Smiths, who was a serviceable rotation guy, than anyone who is going to come in and really elevate the defense in a major way.
3. Maybe one exception would be Anthony Lucas, the former top recruit who Notre Dame lost out on to Texas A&M in the last recruiting cycle. I haven’t watched what he did as a freshman at A&M, but I thought he would be the most talented defensive line prospect Notre Dame has signed since Stephon Tuitt if he ended up Irish.
He has the potential to be a high first round pick one day. That’s how special his physical traits are.
I don’t know what will happen with him and he also got into a little bit of trouble as a freshman at A&M. Who knows if that will be a hurdle or not with Notre Dame pursuing him. I just know that his talent is worth it if they feel like he checks all of the other boxes from when they recruited him. He is a potential game-changer up front if not immediately, then down the road.
4. After the bowl game last season, there was not a lot of buzz about Jayden Thomas.
He was the receiver who redshirted of the three who were freshmen. He was the lowest ranked of the bunch. He was the one who many thought would move to another position and maybe he might have if Notre Dame wasn’t so desperate for depth at wide receiver.
One year later and he’s heading into 2023 as one of the most important pieces on offense. He’s such a unique player at his size and his ability to block combined with his talent as a route runner has separated him from the others.
I can’t say I’ve seen enough to say he’ll be the top wide receiver on the team next season, but he just might be. I think his potential is extremely high.
I’m certain he will be a better version of the player he was this season in 2023 and he’s a perfect example of someone who took advantage of the extra reps he got because of a lack of receivers on the roster. I believe that really helped his development and Notre Dame is going to benefit from that greatly.
No one had Thomas on their Bingo card as a significant contributor a year ago. He’s a reminder that there’s likely to be someone unexpected who steps up and takes advantage of an opportunity this off-season.
5. Who might that be?
I wouldn’t have predicted Thomas in 2022 and I think that’s the point. It has to be someone that most wouldn’t predict.
So someone like Tobias Merriweather, who was slowed by a concussion at the end of the season but showed what kind of talent he has, is a little too obvious. I think it’s fair to say it’s an expectation that he’s going to make a big jump in ‘23.
Ditto for Jaylen Sneed. Oh, the 5-star linebacker they put in just to rush the passer in the bowl game even though he hadn’t done it in college? That’s too obvious.
There has to be plenty of opportunities for reps in the spring at the position for it to happen and that’s why my best guess is that it will be one of redshirt defensive linemen Aiden Gobaira, Tyson Ford, or Josh Burnham.
6. The day after Notre Dame scored 45 to win the Gator Bowl, we saw the College Football Playoff semi-finals both end up in shootouts.
Offense wins championships in college football these days. Even great defenses can give up points because great offense beats great defense (most of the time).
TCU is crashing the CFP party this season despite how they compare with raw talent because they have a great offense (8th in F+). Each team in the CFP this year finished no lower than 11th in OF+.
Three of the four teams finished in the top-10 in OF+ last year. The one who didn’t, Cincinnati at 18th, got blown out. 3 of 4 were in the top-6 the year before that. The one who wasn’t was Notre Dame and we know how that ended.
All 4 were in the top-5 in OF+ in 2019. 3 of 4 were in the top-5 in 2018. Notre Dame was the other and the 29th ranked offense in OF+ scored three points in that semi-final.
There’s no more need to pile on. It’s pretty clear what Notre Dame needs to do.
Yes, they need to upgrade the talent. The most important part of that is upgrading the talent enough to propel the offense into at least a top-10 group in OF+.
The reason why Sam Hartman would be such an important addition to the program is what he did to help elevate the offense at Wake Forest. They finished 12th in OF+ in back to back seasons. They were 12th with less raw talent on their roster than Florida Atlantic. They had lesser recruited talent on their roster than Colorado.
They aren’t close to that good without Hartman. Notre Dame has to land him and then there is a lot more that has to happen with their roster to compete for a national championship, but they’ll be taking a big step forward towards elevating their offense if Hartman is their quarterback.
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