6 Thoughts on a Thursday

It’s incredibly difficult for a young offensive line to be a good offensive line in college football.

That’s not conjecture. That’s reality.

Notre Dame could have future pros starting at all five spots this season. If it’s Anthonie Knapp, Sam Pendleton, Ashton Craig, Billy Schrauth, and Aamil Wagner for the Irish up front, it could be the foundation of something special and most of that group could start two or three years together.

But if that is who it will be against Texas A&M, it will be a group that has a combined six starts at Notre Dame. Their years of eligibility adds up to 12 and their career snaps add up to 562. Alabama’s 2023 offensive line was also very young and combined years of eligibility added up to 13. The big difference with them was that they came into last season with 3,525 career snaps.

It still didn’t matter because that Alabama line wasn’t very good by the standards set before them. They weren’t even a semi-finalist for the Joe Moore Award and were viewed as the weak point for that team. 

Notre Dame will not have a top tier offensive line this season. I guess they could prove me wrong, but if they did play like a top tier group, it would be unprecedented.

From 6 Thoughts back in April:

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 offensive line didn’t stop Alabama from making the College Football Playoff. It might have kept them winning it, but even an Alabama team with an average offensive line managed to beat Georgia in the SEC Championship game and take Michigan to overtime in the CFP semi-final.

That group did improve over the course of the season and they were probably fortunate to have Tommy Rees as their offensive coordinator because he had to have learned a lot about adjusting to personnel limitations based on offenses he had at Notre Dame in 2021 and 2022. (More on this in a bit)

Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock has coached different types of offenses with various strengths and weaknesses over the years as well, which is one reason why hiring him away was such an important move for Marcus Freeman. Denbrock will adjust to who he has to work with and to who he has to compete against (more on that in a bit as well).

A young offensive line is going to take some lumps. That wouldn’t have changed if Charles Jagusah was playing. That’s just the way things go at a position that rarely sees players have immediate success in college because of the physical and mental maturity it takes to play offensive line.

Success for them will be about adjusting to that youth and inexperience while growing over the course of the season. If Denbrock, offensive line coach Joe Rudolph, and rest of the staff can do that well, then this should be a team who is still playing ball in December.

2. It’s something that was talked about on Power Hour and Hit & Hustle by me earlier this week, but I want to continue to emphasize that if Pendleton wins the starting left guard job for Texas A&M, I think it should be seen as a very positive development for a few reasons.

The first is that it would mean he beat out two players who started at guard last season. That can’t be seen as anything but a positive. The second is that it means that the staff isn’t afraid to elevate a younger player if that player performs better. It’s not like we haven’t seen that before in recent years.

Think of true freshman Benjamin Morrison beating out Clarence Lewis to be the starter at boundary corner in 2022. Lewis led the defense in total snaps the previous season and it probably was very difficult for someone like Mike Mickens to not feel some loyalty to Lewis, but the right move was to elevate Morrison. No one has any regrets with how that turned out.

I look at the offense last season and what happened with Jordan Faison and Ashton Craig as examples of how age and experience is not always the answer.

Even with a super thin receiver unit, Faison wasn’t moved up to the travel squad until the Louisville game. Maybe it was about them not ruffling feathers with some other receivers or that Faison was a walk-on only a few months earlier. Whatever the reason, I bet Sam Hartman wishes he could have thrown to him a lot earlier than he did.

All Faison did was take advantage of every opportunity he had once he did see game action. The same could be said about Craig, who only got into the game against Clemson because of injuries to Zeke Correll and Andrew Kristofic.

I don’t know if the staff even thought about Craig as an option last season with two fifth-year players with starting experience ahead of him on the depth chart, but they certainly rethought things after seeing Craig finish the season.

If Pat Coogan or Rocco Spindler is better at left guard than Pendleton, then there is no doubt they’d be playing. They still might play even if Pendleton is the starter. One of the biggest parts of preseason camp is getting a better evaluation of your own players, though. They now have a better one of Pendleton and if he’s the best option, they shouldn’t wait until it’s too late to make changes like they did in 2021.

3. 2021 is very relevant here and not just because of the questions that the Notre Dame offense had with their offensive line. It’s that they did a poor job of evaluating them and waited too long to make changes.

Whether it was in the spring or in the summer, that offense couldn’t run the ball in practice. It didn’t matter that they added a Cain Madden after the spring or that they moved Zeke Correll to start at guard. They were not good and spent too much of that season wasting Kyren Williams as a runner because of it.

Working in Tyler Buchner to give them a running threat at quarterback was a good idea by Rees and the staff, but it was more of a bandaid over a bullet hole. Even making the switch to Joe Alt at left tackle and Kristofic at left guard wasn’t going to solve all of their issues. They had to make a philosophical change of how they were going to do things because what worked before wasn’t going to work with that line.

When they opened the season at Florida State, they dropped back to pass 42 times and 18 (43%) of those were true pass sets. (True pass sets are drop backs that don’t involve play-action, RPOs, quick game, etc). On those traditional drop backs, they kept Williams in to block only once.

Compare that to when they played USC in the first game they had after a bye. They had 33 drop backs and only eight true pass sets (24.2%). Williams stayed in as a blocker on four of those eight.

They went from 17.5 true pass sets a game to nine once they adjusted the offense after the bye week. It’s not a coincidence that they allowed four sacks per game in the first six games to 1.5 per game and it wasn’t just Joe Alt that made the difference.

They also changed what they were doing with the run game outside of just utilizing Buchner. They ran a lot more inside zone because that’s what suited who they had on the offensive line and after five straight games of negative EPA (expected points added) per rush in the first five games, they had positive EPA running the ball in six of their final seven regular season games.

I want to make the important distinction that Notre Dame has been able to run the ball better against their defense this summer and that they’ll also start the season with a true dual-threat at quarterback with Riley Leonard. That makes it a lot different than the kind of mess we saw up front in ‘21.

But since they are heading into the season going against a strong pass rush and how well they will protect Leonard is still very much in question, Notre Dame has to come into and out of the game knowing what will and will not work for them in the pass game.

4. Someone asked a great question for our Hit & Hustle mailbag this week about what Denbrock has done when going against defenses with great pass rushers in the past.

While it’s relevant because of the upcoming opponent, what he did at LSU doesn’t really fit because he had an offensive line that was a lot closer to what Notre Dame typically has than the one they have at the moment. LSU offensive tackles Will Campbell and Emory Jones are projected first rounders in the 2025 NFL Draft. Denbrock essentially had an Alt and Blake Fisher equivalent, so how he was going to call a game any way he wanted to and how they were going to protect was different than having two brand new starters at offensive tackle.

Against FSU last year, they had to deal with an elite edge rusher in Jared Verse. They dropped back and threw it 48 times and 29 of those were true pass sets (60.4%). It should be noted, however, that LSU kept a back or a tight end in 16 of those 29.

When they played Alabama and another elite edge rusher in Dallas Turner, they had 28 drop backs that were true pass sets and kept a back or tight end in on eight of them.

That’s a significant difference between that and how it was approached by Denbrock’s offense at Cincinnati. They didn’t have a great offensive line and when they played Isaiah Foskey and Notre Dame in 2021, only 33.3% of their drop backs were true pass sets and they kept a back in on four of 12. Quarterback Desmond Ridder got the ball out extremely quick (2.08 seconds) and they ran screens or play-action on 25% of their pass plays.

When they played Alabama in the CFP that same season, 30% of their pass plays were play-action or screen. They also kept a back or tight end in for seven of 13 true pass sets. Looking back at the previous season when they played Georgia in their bowl game, they couldn’t run the ball against the Bulldogs so had to throw it a ton. 35% of their passing plays were screens or play-action.

My guess is that it will be a lot closer to what he did at Cincinnati than what we saw from Denbrock’s offense at LSU, at least in the games where they have to block stud defensive ends like Texas A&M’s Nic Scourton and Louisville’s Ashton Gillotte.

5. There is probably too much focus on Notre Dame’s offensive line versus Texas A&M’s defensive line, but I wouldn’t have dedicated the first four thoughts to it if it wasn’t a topic that every Irish fan has been thinking about.

I do want to pivot to something no one is talking about, though. Everyone is assuming Texas A&M’s secondary will be a strength. It really should be for them this season. They did a fantastic job adding talent in the transfer portal. They brought in seven transfers who could end up being players for them on top of returning starters CB Tyreek Chappell and S Bryce Anderson.

Giving those pieces to someone like Mike Elko means they are going to have a strong pass defense. However, is that pass defense going to be great in week one with all those new faces? That I’m not as sure about.

I think most people believe Elko returning to College Station with his defense will be a seamless transition, but the only player in the secondary who played when he was the defensive coordinator for Jimbo Fisher is Chappell. (Defensive tackle Shemar Turner is the only other defender who played for Elko in 2021)

Elko plus the talent they have means they are going to be very good. It just might not look as good in week one as it does if a bunch of transfers are playing in the secondary.

Louisville’s defense last season is a great example of how things aren’t going to be as sharp when a bunch of new players come together in week one. They were a completely different defense in that game compared to how they were for most of the season.

Against Georgia Tech, they gave up 34 points and 6.97 yards per play. That was the second most points and the highest YPP they allowed during the regular season. Most of their issues came against the pass where they allowed Haynes King to average 9.8 yards per attempt, which he never matched the rest of the season.

Georgia Tech did not have an explosive passing offense. They averaged 3.1 receptions of 20+ yards per game last season. Against Louisville they had six different receivers with receptions of 25+ yards. Three of the six defensive backs who played in that game for them were transfers.

Louisville finished 26th in DF+ (combined FEI and SP+ ranking). They looked below average in that game.

They have a lot more uncertainty in general with their offense heading into the season and everyone thinks they’ll be lights out on defense immediately. I wouldn’t expect Elko’s defense to look below average in week one. They just might be more vulnerable when it comes to giving up the big play than they will be when everyone gets more reps in their defense. 

6. This opening game against Texas A&M is a big one for Notre Dame. It might be game one for Elko, but I just saw a Texas A&M reporter call this a must-win game for him.

That might seem hyperbolic, but the reasoning behind it made some sense. If A&M just paid 76 million to get rid of the previous coach and hire you, they wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of you if you aren’t winning right away.

I said it made some sense. Come on, game one is a must-win game? That’s not how this works, even in an era where the only thing that matters for programs who invest the money that Notre Dame and Texas A&M do is making (and then winning) the CFP.

It’s a long season, though. No one cares if you’re celebrating week one. Just ask Charlie Strong when they were saying Texas was back in 2016.

The thing about college football that I love is that every game feels like a must-win. I was asked to predict Notre Dame’s record and I said 11-1. Well, it doesn’t matter which game they lose if I’m proven right. That loss will be seen as a disappointment.

It’s not that teams aren’t capable of winning a championship if they drop one during the season. Heck, five of Nick Saban’s national championship teams had one loss. The pressure increases with each game and it’s always going to get to a point where it’s win or go home.

It’s a long season. There will be games where almost every fan is happy and others where they don’t win by enough. That’s how it goes at this level of college football and it’s why a great thing to be a Notre Dame fan rather than a program who is simply hoping to be good enough to make a bowl game.

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