6 Thoughts on a Thursday

Throughout spring ball, the best word I could use to describe what everyone is looking for is clarity. In just about every area, we all should have a better idea of Notre Dame’s football team in most respects before the summer.

We’re starting to get a clearer picture of the situation at receiver. We may not know who will be the WR1 quite yet or who will even be the definite starters at each spot, but we are figuring out where everyone is likely going to fit.

Jayden Thomas has primarily been competing on the boundary with Deion Colzie. Micah Gilbert has also been getting work there and they’ll be joined by Beaux Collins once he officially is able to enroll in the summer.

That means Thomas hasn’t been lining up in the slot that often. Jaden Greathouse has mostly been doing work there. When Jordan Faison is back with the team full-time, he’ll be there too along with Jayden Harrison. Jeremiyah Love has been taking some reps at the position as well. Receivers coach Mike Brown won’t lack options to choose from.

A surplus of talent there is the kind of thing that should make Mike Denbrock excited. His 2023 offense at LSU saw slot receivers feast on match ups consistently. Future top-10 pick Malik Nabers saw 54.7% of his targets come when he was aligned as a slot receiver. He dominated from there with 51 catches and 12 touchdowns.

He wasn’t the only one who made an impact. Brian Thomas only had eight catches, but four of them went for touchdowns. Kyren Lacy had 15 catches from the slot and three of them went for touchdowns. That’s 21 touchdowns from receivers aligned in the slot. That’s more total receiving touchdowns than programs like Notre Dame, Clemson, Michigan, Texas, Georgia, and Alabama had from receivers in all alignments last season.

The LSU offense found big play after big play by winning favorable matchups there. Together that trio averaged 19.4, 20.9, and 21.9 yards per reception.

It was a massive difference from the production the LSU offense got out of the slot in the previous season. Nabers averaged six yards less per reception and LSU receivers combined for only five touchdown catches from the slot for the entirety of the 2022 season.

Quarterback Jayden Daniels and Nabers leveling up had a lot to do with the jump in production from the slot, but Denbrock also deserves credit for helping them level up with more emphasis on taking advantage of mismatches and they were much more aggressive in taking shots down the field.

When I think of more 11 personnel (one back, one tight end) and more three receiver sets, I think of those previously mentioned Notre Dame receivers who are competing in the slot and Denbrock unlocking his slot options at LSU last season.

Faison averaged 17.9 yards per reception on slot targets last season and Greathouse averaged 17.3. They combined for eight touchdowns. We know they are going to be playing there and he’ll move some others inside to create mismatches too.

Expect those numbers from last season to only get better this fall.

2. Brown was asked about Greathouse after practice yesterday and this answer does a nice job of summing up why he’s having a very good spring.

"There's a number of things. He's a bigger body playing in the slot, which is a little bit different. Most of the slots are smaller guys. But he still has the quickness. He understands how to set defenders up and how to move you guys. He understands zone coverages and spaces and zones and knows where to sit. And so he's got a really, really good feel. Natural feel. And then his catch radius is really good. He's made some really tough, contested catches here in camp. Even if you're there, you put the ball in his vicinity…he's done a really good job of coming down with it. “

“And so we'll have to figure out different ways to use him and move him around. We've challenged him, we've thrown him outside, we put him inside, we put him to the field, to the boundary. He's got a unique skill set that I think can handle a lot of things."

It’s the quickness part that really stood out to me yesterday. ISD’s Matt Freeman told me to watch out for it before practice and he was spot on.

Greathouse looks like a sleeker version of the player he was as a freshman and when he was back returning punts, the improved twitch was noticeable.

I don’t think people should think of him as being a high-end possession receiver at Notre Dame as some assumed he would be. He looks like he is capable of more than that.

3. Jayden Thomas was talking yesterday about the difference between playing slot compared to the boundary and he talked about the advantages of being a bigger receiver going up against smaller nickel corners or getting isolated against safeties and linebackers.

It’s the linebackers and safeties piece of it that can really disrupt a defense when they get caught in the wrong coverage. This throwback to the Fiesta Bowl matchup against Oklahoma State when Jack Kiser had to try and carry a slot receiver down the seam felt downright cruel and might have ended Mike Elston’s dreams of becoming the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame.

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Not many teams are going to line up with a ‘backer and put him on a slot, but even teams who try to get away with playing a safety as a nickel deserve to get burned by speed from the slot.

Speaking of speed, these comments from Christian Gray about Notre Dame’s two new transfer additions at receiver this spring seem relevant.

“Those new receivers are actually fast. They’re fast, fast, fast actually. When I guarded Kris Mitchell, Jayden Harrison, I’m like, ‘OK, wow. I’ve never seen this before.’ The speed they have is really right. They do run like 10.1s and stuff. It’s great that all of us are going against them, because I feel like that’s what’s out there. Texas A&M, FSU all of them other kids. SEC and Florida fast kids, it’s great that we’re going against them.”

Harrison has been lining up in the slot at Notre Dame this spring. He had only 10 targets there last season at Marshall and only seven in 2022. Mitchell primarily played outside and had only seven targets at Florida International last season.

I’m not predicting that either of them will have a ton of slot targets for the Irish this year, but if/when they do, I’m going to expect it to be a situation where Denbrock identifies a safety who won’t be able to keep up with the speed they are bringing to the table.

4. I don’t think anyone believes Notre Dame is set up to have one of the best offensive lines in college football next season. Losing Joe Alt and Blake Fisher makes that pretty much impossible.

I was looking at the offensive line as a whole as they strolled into practice as a group yesterday and it looked like a young group because it is a young group. There are only three offensive linemen on the roster who are in year four or five at Notre Dame. The other 12 who are on campus for spring ball are in year one to three.

That’s not the formula to be a top tier offensive line. There have been 10 winners of the Joe Moore Award as the top O-line in college football. Every single one of them has had at least three starters who were in their fourth or fifth seasons in college.

That includes Notre Dame’s line who won in 2017. It featured Mike McGlinchey (fifth year), Quenton Nelson, Sam Mustipher, and Alex Bars (fourth year), plus the right tackle position was split between Robert Hainsey and Tommy Kraemer.

With Ashton Craig, Billy Schrauth, and Charles Jagusah as likely starters, the building blocks of a cohesive offensive line may be in place for multiple seasons. If Aamil Wagner ends up winning the right tackle job, then that could set up three fourth year players as returning starters up front in 2025.

I think the hope should be that this season’s offensive line sets the foundation for Notre Dame’s next Joe Moore Award. With the way the roster is right now, it doesn’t appear possible that it could happen as early as this season.

5. What made Kyle Hamilton a great player at Notre Dame, and has continued to make him a great player in the NFL, was his versatility. He could play deep on one snap, shoot into the backfield to make a play behind the line of scrimmage on the next one, and then match up in man coverage on 3rd down.

(I know Greg Flammang is thinking that he could have caught touchdowns too, which isn’t a lie. Lou Holtz handed the ball off to Jeff Burris. Brian Kelly could have thrown a jump ball or two to Hamilton.)

Some safeties simply don’t have the size to match up with tight ends, but Hamilton did. Adon Shuler does too. I’m not going to get carried away and compare Shuler to Hamilton, but watching Notre Dame line up in some nickel alignments with Shuler in man versus a tight end is something we didn’t see much of from DJ Brown or Ramon Henderson. Shuler has the length to compete against bigger bodies, which is similar to Hamilton.

Shuler is going to have a role in this defense this season, whether it’s as a starter or not. A part of that role could be him matching up against teams who have go-to tight ends.

6. One way to look at this video of Max Bullough being mic’d up is Notre Dame making sure that they feature as many linebackers as possible to give them each some shine.

Another way to look at it is that each of these guys did something positive that was worth being praised by Bullough, which pretty much fits with what we’ve been hearing about the linebacker position this spring.

Notre Dame has recruited a lot of talent at linebacker. That talent is showing up this spring and it’s going to make it very interesting to see who is going to take the lead in the fall.

Depth is always good at a position. Young depth is even better, but young talent has to be managed. Playing time has to be earned, but I think this could be a situation where four or more linebackers will show enough to earn PT.

I guess we can label it under the “good problem” category for Notre Dame’s defense. They might have a few of those with this group.

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