6 Thoughts on a Thursday

We are less than a week away from the start of Notre Dame’s fall camp. It’s certainly not unique that Notre Dame has many questions on offense they need answered this August, but it feels a little different considering that I think the offense has a chance to be really good.

It’s not that they won’t have the answers or that they won’t have good answers. It’s more that they left spring ball with plenty of things that are yet to be decided.

Who will be the starting five up front? Will they play more than five on the offensive line to start the season?

They are deeper and more talented at receiver than they’ve been the last two years, but we don’t know who the starters will be. Will Notre Dame leave camp with a definitive WR1?

I guess technically it has not been officially declared that quarterback Riley Leonard will be the starter for Texas A&M, but that’s everyone’s expectation at the moment. The biggest question about the quarterbacks is how Leonard is going to perform within the offense after not being available for most of spring ball, but he’s fully healthy now and he’s impressed people as much as one can this offseason without putting on the pads.

Whether it’s throwing sessions with his teammates in Alabama or winning competitions down at the Manning Passing Academy, he’s added to the hype of how good he may be at Notre Dame.

There was more hype about Sam Hartman when he first arrived last January because he had ACC passing records and prolific seasons. I think it’s fair to say that the spring and fall camp he had threw some cold water on it. It’s also fair to say that he wasn’t helped much by the situation at receiver where the top transfer didn’t make it to the end of spring ball and the youth and inexperience at the position was evident.

Leonard will have more talent to throw to at receiver. He should also have an All-American candidate at tight end in Mitchell Evans. There’s a greater chance Leonard can have a great camp because of that, but it’s going to largely be up to him to show he is comfortable in Mike Denbrock’s offense and that he’s accurate enough to take advantage of the receiving talent.

You can take Leonard’s top throws and they are as good as any draft-eligible quarterback in college football. He just doesn’t have enough of those throws on tape, which is part of the reason why he transferred to Notre Dame.

PFF had his adjusted completion percentage at 70.2% last season. That was 46th out 69 Power 5 quarterbacks with 200+ dropbacks. He was at 70.7% in 2022.

If the buzz out of camp is that he has been accurate and looked sharp when throwing from the pocket, that’s going to be something to be excited about because we know he can do damage with his legs.

The only Power 5 quarterback with a higher rushing grade Leonard in 2023 was Heisman trophy winner Jayden Daniels and no quarterback averaged more yards after contact (5.55!) than Leonard.

2. I don’t think too much has to be said about how important it is for two of Notre Dame’s best players to be healthy during camp. It doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be 100% ready to go on day one, but as we get halfway through August, it’s extremely important that Benjamin Morrison and Mitchell Evans are all set to be at their best against Texas A&M to start the season.

Morrison and Evans are going to be two of the top players at their respective positions in college football this season. Evans was Notre Dame’s best player on offense in the Ohio State game. Morrison went toe to toe with Marvin Harrison Jr. and held him to two catches on five targets with two pass breakups.

Against elite competition, they played like elite players.

Of course everyone wants to hear about potential breakout players during camp. These two are already established big time players and while the A&M matchup shouldn’t be classified as a must-win, we don’t know what the margin for error will be with the College Football Playoff committee and getting that opening week win against a good opponent on the road could be end up being very important for the Irish.

Notre Dame fans will feel a lot more confident heading into it knowing Morrison and Evans are both available after both missed the spring due to injury.

3. I know there were very high expectations for Northwestern transfer Brandon Joseph heading into August back in 2022. He had earned accolades at Northwestern in their shortened 2020 season and had nine interceptions in 21 games before transferring to Notre Dame.

When we first saw him in the spring in South Bend, he was making plays on the football again. I think people thought he was going to be as advertised when it came to his playmaking, but I remember hearing some other things about him that weren’t exactly encouraging in terms of his fit within the defense.

We know how it played out with Joseph. Anyone who thought he could be a Kyle Hamilton replacement was grossly mistaken.

There are different expectations for Rod Heard II, another safety who is also transferring from Northwestern. He won’t have the weight of having to follow Hamilton and he gets to come in and be a complimentary piece in the secondary.

Heard is a different player than Joseph. He doesn’t have the Sportscenter Top-10 interception against Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game on his resume, but he’s a much more consistent tackler and is the kind of player that his former coach described as “the ultimate team guy”.

Heard has not generated a ton of hype before his first practice at Notre Dame. I think he’ll have earned quite a bit of praise before camp ends.

4. I think what Mike said about the offensive line on Power Hour this week is true. The earlier we see the staff settle on who the starting five is during camp, the better it will be for the first game of the season.

Whether that’s the best for the entirety of the season is to be determined, but the sooner they settle on five Joe Rudolph feels good with, the better it will be for that opening week test against A&M’s defense.

I know there will be a lot of focus on how the offensive line protects against what should be a very good to great pass rush, but for me, it’s how well they work together in the run game that is most likely to make the difference. The Irish have to run the ball well.

Notre Dame had a top-five pick at tackle and another taken in the second round, but they didn’t run block well enough last season. They were 66th in blown block percentage and a lot of those happened from the interior three.

They still ran the ball pretty well last season and were fourth in EPA (expected points added) per rush. There is no doubt that Audric Estime was a big piece of that. He finished eighth in the country in yards after contact (4.26). Jeremiyah Love was also very good after contact (3.86), but he got hit close to the line of scrimmage far too often and it’s why he didn’t break as many long runs as many thought he would.

The good news is that Billy Schrauth and Ashton Craig, who took over as starters late in the season, are better run blockers than the players they replaced. That’s what the film indicated last year and they had better PFF run blocking grades than Pat Coogan, Rocco Spindler, and Zeke Correll.

The tackles still have a lot to prove, but I don’t think it’s crazy to expect the line (and the tight ends) to run block a lot better in 2024. It starts in camp with them figuring out who they want to roll with in College Station.

5. If Charles Jagusah was locking up Notre Dame’s edges this spring, he’d be talked about as the next Martin, Stanley, McGlinchey or Alt. That didn’t happen, which doesn’t mean he won’t be a great player or Notre Dame’s next great left tackle. It could mean it might not happen for him right away, though.

It was a slower process for Liam Eichenberg who had some ups and downs in his first year as a starter. The arrow kept pointing up for him, but that’s part of the reason why he’s considered in a tier below that group who became first round picks.

It has always stuck in my mind how McGlinchey struggled to block Daelin Hayes in the Blue-Gold game back in 2017. Hayes did not become an impact pass rusher that season, though. He didn’t play his best ball at Notre Dame until 2020. McGlinchey was a top-10 pick the next spring.

Spring ball is spring ball. I don’t know where Jagusah’s game is going to be this summer, but I do know that Marcus Freeman has shown nothing but full support of him as Notre Dame’s left tackle whenever he gets an opportunity to speak with the media and Jagusah has the potential to become a player worthy of being mentioned with the best Notre Dame has had on the offensive line over the last decade.

After Leonard, I think he’s the player Notre Dame’s offense needs the most to look great heading into the season. There’s only been a handful of games for Notre Dame where they had to worry about the left tackle position in the last 14 years. It would be great for them if it stayed that way.

6. Last year it was Jordan Faison. Two years ago it was Ben Morrison. It was Blake Fisher in 2021. We didn’t get to see camp in 2020, but we know that Michael Mayer came in and showed out early. What Kyle Hamilton did in 2019 was legendary. No one is going to forget it, especially not Phil Jurkovec.

Hamilton, Mayer, and Fisher weren’t exactly surprises. Morrison might have been to some. I don’t know if many people knew Faison’s name before last August. Whether it’s a surprise or not, a freshman impressing enough in camp to show they can help at some point during the season happens regularly. It will happen again this year.

The question might be better phrased “How many?” rather than “Who will it be?” this summer.

I think it would be surprising if linebacker Kyngstonn Villiamu-Asa wasn’t continuing to show he can help as a rookie after he earned rave reviews during the spring. While I don’t feel as strongly about wide receiver Micah Gilbert based on who is in front of him at the boundary, he clearly demonstrated he’s capable of putting himself in the conversation to play as a freshman as well.

There’s plenty of other candidates who flashed enough during the spring as early enrollees who could be the next freshman we can’t stop talking about. Who's to say that someone who was injured like Kedren Young or someone who just arrived in the summer like Guebry Lambert can’t be the one that has everyone buzzing either. It’s not out of the question that someone took a massive leap with their physical development over the past few months as well.

There’s going to be at least one freshman who is going to make a statement in camp to let everyone know that they’re going to be a factor this season. To me, that’s always one of the most exciting things that we get to learn every August and it’s near the top of the list why I can’t wait for camp to start next week.

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