6 Thoughts on a Thursday

“Football is a numbers game. If you’re lucky you get like 80, maybe 70 snaps per game on defense and if you can get one punch out, one forced fumble, you can change the game. Or if you can get your hands on (the football) or get one or two TFLs, you can change the game.”

That’s from former Notre Dame defensive back Shaun Crawford in his interview with my guy Greg Flammang talking about his mentality as a defender. He’s pretty much describing havoc plays, the negative plays caused by the defense (forced fumbles, tackles for loss, pass breakups, and interceptions) and he’s 100% correct. Those plays can change a game and he had some memorable ones. Great defenses are loaded with playmakers.

It’s not just one or two dominant guys that make a defense elite (although that certainly helps). Having a defense with reliable playmakers is essential in order to play great defense. Notre Dame didn’t have enough of them last season.

They had Isaiah Foskey (15 Havoc plays), JD Bertrand (11.5), and Benjamin Morrison (11) as the only ones who hit double digits with those game changing plays. It’s a big reason why Notre Dame had their lowest finish in DF+ (combined FEI and SP+ ranking) in six years. They ended up 36th.

Their three recent top-15 defenses (2018, 2019, and 2021) had nine, five, and five respectively. It would have been six in 2021, but Kyle Hamilton had nine in only six games.

It’s a common theme with top defenses. Georgia had six and seven with their defenses that won back to back championships.

Clemson and Ohio State had two of the top-3 defenses in 2019. They had 10 and seven.

Ohio State isn’t the number one defense that season without Chase Young (30 Havoc plays!) and Malik Harrison (20.5). Those two could be the equivalent of five by themselves.

Notre Dame doesn’t have a Young type of game wrecker on their defense. They probably don’t have a Harrison. If they’re going to be great, it will likely have to be a playmaker by committee approach.

The question is, do they have enough of them?

Bertrand and Morrison are two. Jordan Botelho had 6.5 in only 127 snaps last season so I’m going to pencil him in as three in a starting role. A healthy Cam Hart had 14 in 2021. If he returns to form, that’s four.

From there it’s a question if they can find a couple more in the front seven (one of the linebackers? Rylie Mills?) and possibly one at safety (Xavier Watts?). Without that, it’s going to be difficult to make that big of a jump unless they get a truly dominant performance from one player.

Notre Dame has a bunch of young players who could end up being prolific havoc producers. They haven’t had a true sophomore put up double digits in that department since Kyle Hamilton., though.

2. Someone on ISD’s board asked how many game-winning plays Hamilton made in his career, presumably because they thought he didn’t make a big enough impact.

The answer is 31.5 (havoc plays). That was in 30 career games, but it’s actually 29.5 games because he got called for targeting against North Carolina in 2020 and missed one half.

Notre Dame is desperate to have another Kyle Hamilton this year and every year. It boggles my mind that someone would think he didn’t make enough plays, but I know there are people out there who think Jaylon Smith didn’t do enough to live up to the hype at Notre Dame as well.

The Irish aren’t landing another Hamilton at safety in this recruiting cycle. I knew they weren’t before official visits, but they still could have ended up with a couple of their top targets if things went well this month.

It hasn’t gone well this month.

Likely adding Brauntae Johnson‍ in a couple of days won’t change that. Even though he is a very talented athlete, he would join Taebron Bennie-Powell‍ as a safety commit who didn’t play safety last season. The other safety commit is Kennedy Urlacher‍ and I’m not convinced he’s going to be a safety in a couple of years.

I said everyone should let it play out with safety recruiting this month before jumping on Chris O’Leary, especially because any issues in the previous cycle were completely out of his control. It’s played out enough now to say that he can’t avoid criticism now. He’s going to get heat from Notre Dame fans until something happens to change their minds.

It could be that TBP or Urlacher end up looking like terrific evals during their senior seasons. It could be that Notre Dame ends up flipping a committed safety or a new name pops on the radar who fans can get excited about. It has to be something because if the cycle finished today, it wouldn’t be a good look for O’Leary.

3. More blue-chip recruits on your roster? Good.

Higher ranked recruits in general? I’m in favor of it.

From that sense, Malcolm Ziglar is a preferred prospect compared to Notre Dame’s two safety commits. They are composite 3-star prospects and Ziglar is a composite 4-star.

But…

That composite is doing a lot of work making him a 4-star because 247Sports, ESPN, and Rivals all have him as a 3-star. I also have him graded as a 3-star (87).

The reason he’s a 4-star is that on3 is way out on a limb and has him as a top-100 prospect in the class. He’s their fifth ranked safety.

He checks the right boxes with size and the reported testing numbers are good. The way he tests athletically didn’t show up on film for me, though. I don’t see the twitch, instincts, and his lack of physicality when tackling and with defeating blocks is…not good.

I think this is where prospect tiers need to be applied again. I have Ziglar as a potential Power 5 starter, but the film says he will need significant development to get there. He’s in the same tier as TBP and Urlacher.

All three have questions that need to be answered about their games and some of those answers may come in the fall with development as a senior.

4. I wasn’t planning on going this heavy with safety recruiting, but since we’re already doing this, might as well talk about the one that got away.

Devin Moore.

I bet you thought I was dropping Peyton Bowen there, but Moore is the former commit who could come back to haunt Notre Dame the most. He’s competing to start at corner for Florida this season and he could have played corner for the Irish as well, but he would have had a clear path to start at safety.

That was a recruitment where the staff was holding on while Florida kept pushing and that small window where there was some uncertainty with the staff after Brian Kelly left made a difference as well as Billy Napier hiring Corey Raymond to coach the secondary.

I think Moore could have been someone who made Notre Dame’s defense better today and I won’t be surprised if he ends up being a great player for the Gators this fall.

5. Did you buy a college football preview magazine yet? If you already have, it’s probably a good idea to skip the depth charts for each team.

It’s not just that things change during fall camp or that position battles can be fluid. There’s a ton of teams where the two-deep looks drastically different when they went to print that it does today. Athlon has been a staple with preview magazines for years. I buy it every year, partly because of tradition and partly because there are nuggets in there about Notre Dame’s opponents that are useful during the season.

As for who they have listed for Notre Dame, they have Lorenzo Styles as a starting receiver, the now retired Kaleb Smith in the two-deep, Tyler Buchner listed as Notre Dame’s backup quarterback, and Prince Kollie as the backup Will linebacker.

It’s pretty typical to see that with most programs. The transfer period after spring ball isn’t nearly as busy as the one in the winter, but there’s still a ton of additions and subtractions on rosters across college football.

Notre Dame had their losses and they’ve added as well (running back Devyn Ford and safety Antonio Carter II). The losses are depth pieces and the additions might be as well depending on what happens with Carter.

None of those roster moves are likely to drastically change the trajectory of the team this season. There are other Notre Dame opponents that fit that same category.

Ohio State lost some depth and replaced that depth with former blue-chip recruits (Styles and Ole Miss defensive tackle Tywone Malone) who weren’t starters at their previous school. They tried to address a need at offensive tackle, but the best they could do is grab a starter from San Diego State, Josh Simmons, who wasn’t exactly a standout last season. He’s more of a long term project for them to work with than a plug and play starter.

Clemson lost one defensive back who wasn’t in their two-deep in the spring transfer window. Pitt didn’t add or lose anyone this spring/summer. Navy is pretty much going to be the same team they were in the spring outside of getting some players back from injury. NC State lost RB Demie Sumo-Karngbaye to Kentucky and he was a good player, but injuries limited his availability. They didn’t add anyone of significance in the last few months.

It’s more interesting with Notre Dame’s other opponents and at the very least these subtractions are worth monitoring.

Central Michigan lost their projected starting tight end plus a right guard and a receiver who were in their two-deep. That might not seem like a big deal and it should have little impact on how they would match up with Notre Dame, but even those smaller losses for a middle of the road MAC program can hurt them.

Duke had the weird situation of losing a guard and center who transferred in for the spring semester, but didn’t win starting jobs. If they get an injury or two with their interior line this season, they might be in a lot of trouble.

Woe is Stanford, who are still in rebuild mode and new coach Troy Taylor is doing his best to fill in the gaps. They added a couple of Ivy league transfers who are expected to start at guard and center. The odds of both of those guys being quality players for them is slim.

They also lost offensive lineman Barrett Miller, who had 30 career starts. With only one returning starter back on the OL, that’s a significant blow. On paper it looks like a year three of Charlie Weis type of line for the Cardinal.

Louisville and USC are playing EA Sports NCAA Football with their rosters (more on them later).

A lot of these moves aren’t the kind of things that will make these teams significantly better or worse. It’s primarily about depth.

Will losing Buchner hurt Notre Dame that much this season? Only if Sam Hartman gets injured. Will adding Ford matter for the running back room? It’s most likely he doesn’t become a factor unless the Irish are dealing with injuries there as well.

The depth charts in Athlon’s preview might have more mistakes than they’ve had before, but most of the guys who should or shouldn’t be on there aren’t going to make them look that bad for not listing them, unless these teams have the misfortune of having an injury or two at a spot where they lost someone who could have helped. It’s impossible to predict what will happen there, but odds are that at least one of these programs will get burned from their losses after the spring and they better hope they are developing the players who are already there to prevent that from happening.

6. Louisville added 11 transfers after the start of the spring semester. Including freshmen, Jeff Brohm has added 39 players to the roster as a whole this offseason.

They have six transfers on the offensive line and two of them are expected to be starters, but they brought in several with starting experience. They have to hope that is enough to keep them afloat because finding out their best five and then having that group gel isn’t going to be easy.

They play four Power 5 programs before they face Notre Dame in October and my guess is that the week one depth chart is going to look much different than the one they’ll have when they play the Irish.

Even though they have three starters returning from the secondary, they brought in five defensive backs who have plenty of playing experience so they are either very unhappy with what they saw in the spring or they are just trying to throw as much talent in the pool as possible and hope they find a way to swim.

It seems like a strange thing to do because Louisville’s defense was very good last season and adding a bunch of players who expect to play into the mix of players who started last year feels like it has the potential to end horribly. Having cornerback Storm Duck and safety Cam Kelly transfer in after they already transferred to other programs in the winter and went through spring ball at Penn State and Virginia respectively is even more strange.

They also lost seven transfers after the spring, including their starting tight end, a starting linebacker, and their starting kicker this spring. Their listed Athlon depth chart is going to be wild to look back on in a few months.

In their team preview, an opposing coach said, “One thing you know is that they’re going to give Jeff (Brohm) a lot of time here, so they won’t rush things or try to reach into the portal to fix their problems. And they have problems, too.”

To that I say, “Huh?”

It sure looks like he went into the portal to find some stop-gap solutions. I honestly have no idea how good or bad Louisville will be in 2023. I’d lean towards bad, but at least they’ll be interesting.

As for USC, there isn’t a team in the country who added two transfer players with the potential impact that USC did in the trenches. Former Wyoming guard Emmanuel Pregnon is a monster. Former Georgia defensive tackle Bear Alexander is not a typical Pac-12 interior lineman.

USC’s biggest red flags are on both sides of the line. To add two starters there with the kind of upside that these two have is why somebody is paying for Alexander’s condo with a view of downtown Los Angeles.

Pregnon, all 6’6” 318 of him, should be very good immediately. He already showed a ton of promise at Wyoming in his first full-season as a starter. He might be a one-and-done player for them, but has multiple years of eligibility remaining.

Alexander is more of an enigma. He’s big and talented. He had some great freshman flashes. He also didn’t play all that much other than in blowouts. Touting his play in the national championship game is misleading because they won that game 65-7 and everyone on Georgia pretty much did whatever they wanted.

I think USC is hoping he is Jalen Carter or Jordan Davis. I think it’s a lot to ask for him to be that guy this season.

One of the things that makes Georgia great on defense is that you’re surrounded by so many other great players. Players don’t have a choice but to be great because they are trying to match the standard that is set by others. It’s not like that at USC, at least not on the defensive line.

It’s pretty clear that Alexander thinks he’s a star, but I’d like to see him play like one. I’d also like him to stay at a school for longer than a year. He went to four high schools and this is now his second college.

He might be a game wrecker. He also might be at Michigan State with a bag from Matt Ishbia in a year.

USC has holes on their roster and they have a few positions where an injury or two could be crippling for them. They decided to go big on high-end potential in the portal. Louisville is throwing as many bodies as possible to plug their holes.

It would all seem like a nightmare to have to manage those rosters with egos and expectations that arrive with their new players. It didn’t hurt USC last year. Or maybe it did, the defense did stink, and we’ll see more issues this season even though they cleary upgraded their talent.

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