6 Thoughts on a Thursday

There’s probably a lot of Notre Dame fans who remember them playing against Clemson in a monsoon like it was yesterday, but that was nine years ago. It feels like it could have been 100 years ago because that was before the infamous program reboot, before the Irish appeared in a College Football Playoff game, and long before anyone thought of Marcus Freeman as a head coach.

He was still a couple of years away from coaching at Cincinnati.

Things have changed a lot since my first year covering the team for Irish Sports Daily. How I write about the team now is a lot different than I did back then and it’s because things in college football have changed. That means how I cover the team has had to change too and a lot of that has had to do with deciphering what numbers matter most.

Total sacks are one way to look at how successful a pass rush is. Sack rate (the percentage of sacks per opponent dropbacks) is a better way to evaluate it and pressure rate is even more important.

Notre Dame had 31 sacks last season (42nd), which was down from the previous year. However, they finished 23rd in sack rate and tied for fifth in pressure rate. That pressure helped them finish first in pass efficiency defense.

I wasn’t thinking about pressure rate back in 2015. It wasn’t something I thought about when I played or coached the defensive line either. Now I think it’s one of the most important metrics when evaluating a defense.

Pressure has always been important. Pressure leads to confusion. Pressure leads to mistakes. Pressure leads to the ball getting out quicker than a quarterback wants to get it out. Pressure leads to turnovers. There’s nothing new about that.

Pressure as a measure of pass rush productivity wasn’t emphasized before, though. Sacks were always everything when it really should have only  been considered a piece when assessing how successful a team’s pass rush is.

The pressure Notre Dame’s defense generated last year was very much a collective effort. There was no dominant pass rusher, but they had two very good interior rushers in Howard Cross and Rylie Mills. They also had a secondary capable of playing a lot of man coverage, which allowed Al Golden to scheme up five man pressures.

Cross and Mills finished in PFF’s top-10 pass rush grades for Power 5 defensive tackles against true pass sets (minimum 100 pass rush opportunities). They didn’t have an edge rusher finish in the top-75 (RJ Oben was 55th at Duke), but JD Bertrand and Marist Liufau were in the top-12 at linebacker.

I think Notre Dame’s defense will pressure quarterbacks at an even higher rate this season and they’ll be better rushing off the edge as well. I don’t know what the sack total will end up being, but the number of sacks the defense generates won’t be how I judge Notre Dame’s pass rush.

2. 5th qtr irish had a great question that he asked Mike and I for Power Hour that we were unable to get to this week. It’s actually something I had been thinking about for a while in regards to Notre Dame’s roster.

Does ND have enough quality depth they can use against their best opponents?

Guys that can take productive snaps in those games? Depth of production beyond the starting 22 will be key to a playoff run.

He’s exactly right. That kind of depth matters.

The best players are going to make the most difference in those games and it’s difficult to take them off the field. When players like Javontate Jean-Baptiste and Howard Cross are balling out against Ohio State, every defensive snap without them can feel like a mistake by the coaches. Then again, maybe if they play a little less, then they’ll be fresher to make a play in the fourth quarter.

It’s tough to weigh that if the coaching staff feels like there is a big drop off between them and the next guy.

Josh Burnham played four snaps on defense in that game. NaNa Osafo-Mensah played five. Jason Onye played none. Obviously there wasn’t a lot of trust in them or they would have played more in that specific game.The same goes for the defense as a whole because Notre Dame rode their starting group for most of that game.

I do think there are going to be more non-starters who can impact games on both sides of the ball. Boubacar Traore is going to be able to step in and do more than just that one sack against USC this season. Kyngstonn Villiamu-Asa may not start, but I think he's the kind of freshman who can step up in the moment like he did all the time at St. John Bosco. The Irish are deeper at the skill positions on offense as well, so I could see a lot of backups having great moments this season with limited opportunities.

We saw a bit of this last season for Notre Dame against USC when Traore, Jaylen Sneed, and JD Price made huge plays in addition to the standout performances Notre Dame got from Xavier Watts and Benjamin Morrison. It might be different people in different games, but I feel confident we’ll see more of that this fall.

3. There was another question that was asked by mattobrien about scheduling that has to be on the mind of Pete Bevacqua as well.

What is the new administration's approach to ensure ND has a credibly competitive schedule over the next 5 - 10 years?

I'm not advocating that ND needs to play 2 - 3 top ten teams per year, but I struggle to see even 1 in most future schedules. How much will we be penalized by the NCAA playoff committee for playing weaker schedules?

ACC: Clemson and FSU are actively pursuing a way out of the ACC.

USC: This series may be challenged.

SEC: They may add a 9th conference game which could impact future games on the schedule vs.Texas A&M ('24, '25), Arkansas ('25, '28), Alabama ('29).

Adding Boise State as a home game in 2025 is the first move that’s been made by the new people running things. I think the idea of adding a better Group of 5 program to the schedule as a one-off home game is a smart move given that these programs are desperately looking for relevance at the moment and don’t have the bargaining power to ask for a home and home. Unfortunately this game doesn’t give us any idea what Notre Dame will do with the shifting landscape of college football.

While I doubt that USC will look to get out of their annual rivalry with Notre Dame, other prominent Big Ten teams may be looking for more of a break from their conference schedule rather than matching up with the Irish. I also would not be surprised to see those SEC teams back out at some point or at least not agree to play a program like Notre Dame in the future.

I guess the main alternative for Notre Dame would be to schedule the better Big 12 programs to fill any gaps left by a potential absence of the Big Ten or SEC. That might not mean games against top-10 teams, but there are still a handful of quality programs (Utah, TCU, Oklahoma State) who could help Notre Dame’s strength of schedule.

As for Clemson and Florida State getting out of the ACC, if/when that happens you can lock down Notre Dame to the Big Ten or whatever the separated super league is at that time. The foundation of this version of college football is already barely holding on and those two getting out means the ACC will be dead.

The problem with planning 10 years ahead with scheduling is that these conferences might not even exist in five years. Three years might even be generous.

Notre Dame has games with ACC teams scheduled for 2037. The odds of those games ever happening aren’t very good.

4. The two young offensive linemen who looked the best in the Blue-Gold game were Sullivan Absher playing inside at guard and early enrollee Anthonie Knapp at tackle. I guess it was more than them just flashing on that day because Marcus Freeman mentioned them when talking about the offensive line in the fall and asking where those guys fit. This was the specific part that jumped out.

“Maybe they’re not in the first five, but they better be ready to go.”

Both of them weren’t players that anyone had circled as being “the next man in” on the O-line before spring ball. I think most people thought of Absher as a long term tackle and Knapp as an interior lineman. That flipped and it has the potential to be a really good thing.

We’ll wait and see how things progress with both of them, but Knapp is someone I thought could legitimately play tackle in college with the versatility to play other positions. I really liked what I saw from him against RJ Oben, Boubacar Traore, and on this pick up of Jaylen Sneed rushing off the edge.

via GIPHY

There are questions that need to be answered up front for the Irish and I don’t know how good they will be early on in this season. I think the future is pretty bright with this group, though.

Joe Rudolph has a track record of development and he’s got good material to work with on the roster.

5. Notre Dame’s staff seemed to be pretty confident in their situation at Vyper with their 2025 class. There were no new names popping up after the May evaluation period and unless they’re being extra secretive about flipping a prospect from another program, which is entirely possible, they seem to be pretty content with Dom Hulak‍ at that spot.‍.

After Irish Invasion on Sunday, we all know why.

Notre Dame projected Hulak as an edge since they worked him out at camp last year, but we didn’t get to see him lineup there very often as a junior. He mostly played as an off the ball linebacker on defense and played multiple roles on both sides of the ball. This camp gave us a more extended look at Hulak as a defensive lineman.

ISD’s Christian McCollum had mentioned after the camp how explosive Hulak looked as a pass rusher and his one on one reps were impressive.

Hulak measured in at just under 6-4 and 240 pounds at Invasion and his broad jump of 9-7 and a short shuttle of 4.26 is awesome at that size. To put that shuttle time into perspective, it’s just behind the 4.25 that first round pick Chop Robinson recorded at this year’s NFL Combine.

He’s got twitch. He’s got NFL arm length to play the edge. When speaking with IC Catholic assistant Matt Bowen back in March, he said expects Hulak to line up off the edge to rush the passer against teams who throw more often and in sub-packages.

Seeing some of that this fall is probably going to make Notre Dame look even smarter with their projection with Hulak. He has the traits to develop into a great pass rusher.

6. Notre Dame has their first batch of official visits this weekend and it will continue throughout June. It’s the same for all programs and we can expect a ton of commitments across the country over the next couple of months.

I know fans stress about whether or not Notre Dame will close with their top targets, but one thing they don’t have to worry about is a bunch of their 2025 commitments going on visits to other schools. That’s a different kind of stress, especially for a coaching staff.

It’s like that for many of the programs Notre Dame is competing with. USC has four players committed who are in the ISD Fab 50. Isaiah Gibson‍, Justus Terry‍, Julian Lewis‍, and Matai Tagoa'i‍ are all taking multiple official visits this month.

Oregon has WR Dallas Wilson‍ as a commit in the Fab 50. He’s taking other officials this month too. So is another member of the Fab 50, Ole Miss RB commit Akylin Dear‍. Ditto for Auburn’s Fab 50 commit, DT Malik Autry‍ and FSU edge commit Javion Hilson‍.

Notre Dame fans worry about Lane Kiffin trying to flip Deuce Knight‍ despite Knight taking multiple trips to Notre Dame this spring, working out at Irish Invasion, and returning again for an official visit. Imagine if Knight was taking visits like these others I mentioned. The level of freak out by Notre Dame fans would be out of control.

Not much is predictable when it comes to recruiting. Silent commits don’t always become public. Players who seem solid can flip without warning. That’s college football these days.

One thing I feel confident predicting is that Notre Dame fans won’t have to worry about losing a bunch of commitments and that’s primarily because Notre Dame is not in the game of taking a commitment from someone who doesn’t actually care about being committed.

USC might hang on to their highly ranked prospects, but they are going to have to worry about those players visiting other schools even after officials are over. That has to make it really hard for a staff to adjust their focus to the next couple of classes when they have to constantly worry about having multiple backup plans if their current one falls apart.

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