Notre Dame's Young OL Preparing for Life in College Station
If you've been paying attention, Notre Dame’s offensive line situation hasn’t been a secret.
The Irish will start true freshman Anthonie Knapp and redshirt freshman Sam Pendleton on the left side of the line on Saturday night at Texas A&M, which means Notre Dame will have a combined six starts along the offensive line heading into the game.
It’s a bold move, but one that has been telegraphed as Tosh Baker was quickly replaced at left tackle for Knapp while Pendleton has worked with the first team for an extended period of time despite Pat Coogan and Rocco Spindler returning.
Sure, Notre Dame offensive line coach Joe Rudolph was bold days after Charles Jagusah went down when he said the staff had confidence in Baker. But life changes quickly and Knapp has gained the trust of the staff during camp.
Freeman has preached competition since the first day he took over for Brian Kelly, and this is a prime example of a guy developing and embracing competing.
“I think you make decisions in the moment based off previous experiences and then that’s the beautiful part of practice,” stated Freeman. “There’s competition. I tell those guys every day ‘You should be trying to take somebody’s job and every day if you’re a starter, you should know guys behind you are trying to take your job.’
“We’ve had 10 practices since then that basically kind of got us to this conclusion that Anthonie Knapp will be our starting left tackle. He’s worked tirelessly. He's done a really good job of building trust with his coaching staff and that’s why we made that decision.”
Pendleton did start camp as the No. 2 center behind Ashton Craig, yet his body of work in a reserve role earned him the opportunity to compete for another job, which he took full advantage of when given the chance.
“It’s just consistency in doing the job you’re expected to do over and over and over and that’s why you make decisions,” explained Freeman. “It's not a one day thing and it’s not a last year thing. It’s ‘Okay, who do we believe has consistently shown in practice to get the job done over and over and over?’
“That’s why we made those decisions. We have a lot of confidence in the two-deep of our offensive line. There’s guys with experience that are in the two-deep, but at the end of the day, you have to make a decision on who you want that first group to be and Anthonie and Sam are two guys we felt will give us the best chance to have success.”
If the left side wasn’t a question mark, the focus would be on the right side as Notre Dame will start Aamil Wagner at right tackle, who has played in just seven career games as a reserve.
The first-time starter had a strong camp and Freeman has great confidence Wagner will be ready for his expanded role.
“Aamil has done a really great job from the start of camp until now,” Freeman stated. “He’s been really consistent. Him and Billy (Schrauth) have a good camaraderie on that right side.”
Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko might be excited to let one of the best defensive lines in the country loose on Notre Dame’s inexperienced offensive line, but he also knows the Irish have recruited the position group as well as anyone in recent years.
"I think about it probably a little different than you guys," Elko said. "Notre Dame has recruited offensive line really, really well for a really long time. If they have young kids that have entered into the starting lineup, it probably means they're NFL Draft picks.
"The six starts may be a concern for them to some degree just in the opener, but I'm sure these young kids they're putting out there for the first time are extremely talented. That's why they've won the starting jobs. That's certainly how we're preparing. We're preparing for a typical Notre Dame offensive lineman who is going to be really big and really talented. I think they've been a finalist for the Joe Moore Award more than they haven't in the last eight years."
As for Schrauth and classmate Ashton Craig at center, they are the only offensive line starters who have started in the blue and gold for the Irish.
Freeman believes that the two will give Notre Dame a powerful punch up in the middle with their size and strength, which is something the Irish haven’t always had on the interior.
“I think the things that Billy and Ashton do really well is they’re powerful people, said Freeman. “The things you ask your center to do is different than the guard in terms of some of the recognitions and calls and checks he has to make.
“Ashton is extremely intelligent and he’s really good with some of his calls and stuff like that. He’s been consistent with his snaps, but the power. Those two are powerful individuals. They like to create a new line of scrimmage on the other side of the ball. That’s something that’s going to be necessary to have success in the run and the pass game.”
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