6 Thoughts on a Thursday

Whenever things go Notre Dame’s way, people love to point to the luck of the Irish. They only mention it ironically when things don’t go well for them.

The program received bad news this past weekend when left tackle Charles Jagusah was lost for the season. With Notre Dame replacing two starting tackles from 2023, one could argue that the Irish couldn’t be more unlucky.

I know for some fans, this is viewed as a disaster. Maybe it’s even seen as a reason to temper expectations of what the team can accomplish this fall.

While there is no debating that this is less than ideal, it’s not like Notre Dame hasn’t experienced this kind of back luck before. They’ve actually experienced this same sort of thing during their best seasons of the last 15 years.

When an impact pass rusher like Aaron Lynch didn’t make it to the summer in South Bend, it didn’t feel like a good omen for the 2012 defense. Projected starting corner Lo Wood also tore his Achilles. Jamorious Slaughter was viewed as their top defensive back and he was lost for the season in the third game.

All of that happened and Notre Dame still rode their defense to an undefeated regular season and an appearance in the national championship game.

The Irish had an unenviable quarterback situation at the beginning of the 2018 season. They managed to work through that until Ian Book took over in the Wake Forest game, which was the same game that their top offensive lineman, Alex Bars, was lost for the season. They weathered that while overcoming a four-game suspension to Dexter Williams to open the season and made it to the College Football Playoff.

Things weren’t great in 2020 either when Kevin Austin, after missing the entire 2019 season, broke his foot in the summer. A player who most presumed would be the top receiver was eased back into action before rebreaking his foot and being lost for the season. The receiver position seemed dire. Yet, the offense found a way to outscore Clemson in a thrilling regular season matchup and make the CFP.

The 2012 situation at corner and the 2020 situation at wide receiver were considered bleak before those injuries. Those teams found a way to overcome that and found answers along the way.

That adversity led to discovering freshman KeiVarae Russell, recruited as a running back, as a starting corner in 2012. It led to a fifth-year breakout from Javon McKinley, who had never started a game in his four previous years, as Notre Dame’s top receiver and a legitimate big play threat in 2020.

Aaron Banks eventually replaced Bars in 2018. Through all of the injuries and issues at left tackle in 2021, Joe Alt came out of it as Notre Dame’s present and future.

Adversity presented an opportunity and it turned out those seasons weren’t over when the worst happened.

It could be that an unlikely freshman ends up as Jagusah’s replacement. Maybe it will be a fifth-year senior who has never earned a starting spot in his career. The ceiling at the position might not be as high as it would have been if Jagusah was healthy, but no one needs to wave a white flag on the season.

2. Tosh Baker is first in line to take the open spot and he should be. It’s more than just his age and experience. That experience isn’t much, but it’s more than everyone else competing for the job.

For me, the big thing is that after spring ball when offensive line coach Joe Rudolph told him Aamil Wagner passed him for the right tackle job, Baker’s response was that he wanted to stay and compete rather than run to an easier path to playing time.

From Matt Freeman’s piece on Baker earlier this week:

“Tosh battled,” Rudolph stated. “He didn't play bad. He did a lot of good things in the spring, and it was a tough conversation. You’ve just got to be honest, and you’ve got to say, ‘Hey, this is where we're at.’ “What I love about Tosh is he was like, ‘Hey man, I want a chance to compete and take that back.’ He wasn't like, ‘Oh, I'm leaving. I'm going here. I'm doing this.’ Like, these guys got love for each other, and they understand that even though they have had disappointment.”

The Transfer Portal was open. Many players would have left. And no one would have blamed him for doing so as 2024 is his final year. Yet, Baker returned and earned respect from his position coach.

“I think it says everything about him,” Rudolph explained. “I think it not only says everything about him, I think it says everything about what he believes in this place and what he believes in his teammates.

“At a place like Notre Dame, that's got to be an edge for you. That group that you put on the field, like, they’ve got to love each other, man. They’ve got to be willing to make sacrifices for each other. They’ve got to be willing to go to places that you wouldn't go if you didn't care about the guys around you.”

More than just making him an easy guy to root for, it’s the fact that he still has a belief that he can play at Notre Dame despite not winning a starting job during his career.

I wouldn’t have bet on McKinley to do anything close to what he did in ‘20 after having 11 catches in four years. I also wasn’t confident Jamir Jones would fill in for Daelin Hayes and Julian Okwara as well as he did in 2019 after both went down with injuries. Jones had one career tackle for loss and seven pressures before ‘19. He had 6.5 TFLs, nine total havoc plays, and 30 pressures in his final season.

Baker still has to win the job and that’s something he hasn’t done before. If wins it and does a decent job, it wouldn’t be the first time someone like him stepped up in his final opportunity.

3. I always love to see a player surprise in camp and the early winner for that is defensive tackle Armel Mukam. Defensive coordinator Al Golden mentioned that “Armel has really stepped up” since Gabriel Rubio went down with an injury and it sounds like he is making the most of his chance.

Mukam missed the spring while recovering from a shoulder injury, so he wasn’t exactly a consensus choice to be the young defensive tackle who would be elevated. He also was the lowest ranked defensive tackle in the composite rankings out of the second year players who signed with the Irish in the 2023 class. I had him as a 4-star prospect on ISD and 247Sports ranked him as a top-200 prospect, but he was viewed as a long term project by most with limited football experience and a lot of physical development that needed to be done.

It’s easy to see that he’s come a long way in that department. He isn’t as cut as Jason Onye is, but they look awfully similar when standing side by side in stretch lines.

Defensive line coach Al Washington talked about why he’s excited about what he’s seen from Mukam so far:

”Development. He came in he was like 250. He was a hockey player. He had like two years of football. Gets hurt (shoulder). Man, he changed his body and really embraced the teaching process of learning. He still has a ways to go, but man, he’s done an unbelievable job.”

Rylie Mills also talked about the biggest difference he’s seen from Mukam:

"Just his mentality coming off the ball and learning how to play low. He's a bigger guy coming in, so he just had to unlock that. The biggest change I've seen is that he's coming off with low pads. He wants a dominant demeanor. He'll go out there, he wants to make a play. He's running after the ball. I tell all the young guys, you look at Armel, if you want to be in position where you want to play and get on the field it starts with good technique and out-efforting the guys around you."

"The guys that come out with that mentality, I think Donny, you saw it last year, when he gets in there and makes a play, he's a Hinish so you know what you're going to get. But if a guy like Armel, the difference last year was, is he coming off low? Is he coming out with the mentality that I'm going to blow up the guy in front of me? You're starting to see that now. When we go to inside run and go to team periods, he's running against ones. He's coming off the ball and knocking dudes back. It's a testament to him and the work he put in. It kind of shows the young guys, hey, if you want an opportunity there are going to be chances. You got to make the most of it."

Physical development and the right mentality can go a long way. It’s also looking like a pretty darn good evaluation from Washington and the staff, who flipped Mukam when he was committed to Stanford.

4. I don’t know how things will all play out in the end with Deuce Knight‍ and Notre Dame. I have no idea if Mike Denbrock’s offense looking great at Notre Dame this fall will make a difference.

Auburn’s offense in year one of Hugh Freeze hasn’t seemed to hurt them in potentially flipping Knight. They finished 107th in EPA (expected points added) per dropback, 90th in pass efficiency, and starting quarterback Payton Thorne was 64th in ESPN’s QBR, and he averaged a putrid 6.6 yards per attempt.

Obviously Freeze has had more success in the past than he had at Auburn, but it feels kind of stupid to judge him on his past while it’s wait and see at Notre Dame for Denbrock. If Freeze is showing what Knight can do, he’s showing old Cam Newton tape (he didn’t coach him) or tape of another offense.

Everyone who roots for Notre Dame would love to see them have success throwing the football. However, I don’t see them slinging it around the yard to beat Texas A&M, Louisville, or Florida State. I didn’t see it even if Jagusah was their left tackle.

I think we’ll see more 11 personnel (one back, one tight end) in a lot of games this season. I think those three games against those three pass rushes will be closer to what we saw from Notre Dame against Clemson in 2022 or what Michigan did to close out last season.

Notre Dame had only six true pass sets in that game. True pass sets don’t include screens, quick game, play-action, or RPOs. They played heavy with multiple tight ends often, ran unbalanced formations, and ran it down Clemson’s throat.

That was very similar to what Michigan did last season when they played Penn State (only two true pass sets) because they couldn’t handle first round pick Chop Robinson in pass protection. It was very much the same against Alabama (four true pass sets) and Washington (seven true pass sets) when they got to the College Football Playoff.

Denbrock isn’t going to be calling plays thinking about scoring points to keep Deuce Knight happy. It’s going to be about doing what’s best to score points to win those games. Don’t be surprised to see Notre Dame playing heavier in those specific games.

5. We’re always talking about A&M’s defensive line against Notre Dame’s offensive line because we know how difficult the matchup will be. The opposite matchup, A&M’s O-line vs ND’s D-line, isn’t talked about nearly as much because the expectation is that Notre Dame should have a big advantage.

I think that will be the case and A&M’s O-line was not very good the last couple of seasons. It is notable that Reuben Fatheree, who missed most of the 2023 season, is back and healthy after starting at right tackle in 2022. That likely means Chase Bisontis, the mayor of Struggletown as a true freshman, is moving inside to guard. The only one who seems locked in from the same position he played last season is left tackle Trey Zuhn.

It could be four different starters in 2024 than the ones who started at the other spots last season.

Mike Elko is apparently very strict on what the media can report from practice, so we may not get a depth chart from them until game week. No matter who is starting for them, they aren’t going to be that different from Notre Dame with a unit that hasn’t worked very much together.

6. I posted this on the ISD premium football board earlier this week, but this is what Jordan Clark had to say about true freshman safety Kennedy Urlacher.

"I think physically he has every tool to be a first round safety. He's insanely explosive. He's a big kid naturally. When he got here he was already 190 something pounds. I'm not sure what he weighs now, but he has every tool that he needs and he's a student of the game as well. He wants to learn, he wants to grow as a player. So I think that, if not this, in the years to come he is going to be a really special player here."

Clark spent time with Urlacher when they both arrived in January and also worked out with him after the spring as well. Clark had this to say about true freshman Karson Hobbs, who arrived in June:

“Karson is a super confident kid. He’s insanely confident and like Kennedy, he really likes to learn. More so than me taking him under my wing, we’ve been working together trying to learn the system together and I think that you see the preparation in the way that the plays. He doesn’t look like a freshman. He looks like a guy who has been here for a long time. Just in watching that, it says everything you need to know about him.”

These comments aren’t meant to cement these two as future stars. I’m highlighting these comments to add to what I’ve seen from the freshmen class from the spring and this summer. These two weren’t close to the highest rated prospects Notre Dame signed in 2024, but they fit with the theme where it looks like the staff really did a fantastic job evaluating the class as a whole. A lot of guys who weren’t highly rated look a lot better than how people viewed them as a recruits.

Not everyone will play or develop into impact players, but I think they are going to get a lot of hits out of this group. It’s not just the top ranked players like Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, CJ Carr, and Bryce Young who will have people buzzing before this class is finished at Notre Dame.

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