No Easy Answers for Notre Dame to Replace Charles Jagusah

Notre Dame had their left tackle of the present and the future with Blake Fisher when he won the starting job as a true freshman in 2021. Everything was mapped out for the position from that point on starting in week one.

We know the Irish were forced to take a couple of detours when Fisher went down with an injury against Florida State. It was an injury that forced him to miss the entire regular season. They started two other players at left tackle before settling on another true freshman, Joe Alt.

He took over the job during the Cincinnati game and never let go of it from that point on.

The coaching staff is in a similar situation now after Charles Jagusah suffered a season-ending injury early in camp. The guy who was supposed to be a fixture for them at a critical position is no longer available. And just like 2021, they don’t have an immediate answer to the problem that was just presented to them.

Offensive line coach Joe Rudolph’s job just got much harder. While it’s a much better situation to have this happen in early August rather than the second quarter against Texas A&M, there is no comfort in pointing that out. They now have a month to try and find the best option when there aren’t many available.

Aamil Wagner came into camp as the number one right tackle. They may choose to move him to the left side, but that only opens up another position. Whether they decide to slide Wagner over or not, they are short one starting tackle.

Tosh Baker was battling for the right tackle spot with Wagner in the spring and started at right tackle in the Sun Bowl against Oregon State. He also has played on the left side and started two games in 2021 against Purdue and Wisconsin as a redshirt freshman. It’s logical to move him back there even if it’s just to get him used to possibly having to play there.

But Baker is in his fifth season and he only has three career starts. He’s played only 327 snaps in his entire career. If he’s a starter on either the right or left side, it would likely be more of a stop-gap than a long term solution.

True freshman Anthonie Knapp was backing up the left tackle spot at the beginning of camp. He was one of the surprises of the spring as an early enrollee because he’s further ahead than anyone expected both with his physical development and level of play.

He handled himself very well in the Blue-Gold game going up against Notre Dame’s edge rushers who were giving Jagusah fits on that same day. That’s not enough to anoint him as the “next man in”, but he’s shown enough to put his name in the conversation at the very least.

I would expect Baker to get first crack at the open tackle spot. Don’t count out Knapp winning the job before Notre Dame breaks camp.

I know fans will be clamoring for top-100 prospect Guebry Lambert to get a shot and while I’m sure this will elevate him from working with the third and fourth team to getting some reps with the twos, he didn’t look like someone who would push for time in the very brief time we saw him early in camp. Now we’ll get to see if they can fast track his development and if he can do enough to earn an actual look at competing for a spot.

He should be considered more of a wild card than a legitimate option at this point.

Maybe we would have said the same thing about Alt at this time back in 2021. The first time I saw him was deeper into camp and he had established himself in the two-deep by then. We were already impressed with Fisher at that point, but Alt made it obvious that he was way ahead of where anyone expected him to be after mostly playing tight end in high school.

It took some twists and turns to get there, but it worked out very well with Alt. It could very well be the same for one of Notre Dame’s young tackles. Unfortunately, the staff has to find some kind of answer for projected first round pick Nic Scourton and A&M’s edge defenders to open the season. They don’t have the luxury to try and figure things out as they go even if that might be how it plays out.

They also are going to have to deal with some stud defensive ends on Louisville and Florida State as the season progresses as well. They need to have tackles who can handle those groups.

There were still lots of unknowns about Jagusah and how good he could be right away in these matchups. This isn’t quite the same as losing someone like Alt last season. It’s also not the same because they can’t just easily slide over Fisher or move Aaron Banks to left tackle when Liam Eichenberg had an eye injury against Florida State.

The answers are going to be harder to find and figuring this out now becomes the biggest storyline for the Irish this August. It could possibly stay unanswered into September.

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