6 Thoughts on a Thursday
If you’ve been a member of ISD for awhile, then you’re aware that I’m a big D-line guy. I played the position. I coached the position. I value defensive play over most other position groups. That’s because I believe that, next to quarterback, no other group can make a team go from good to elite like a dominant defensive line.
Manti Te’o might have garnered the headlines as the best player on the 2012 defense, but it was the front of Kapron Lewis-Moore, Louis Nix, and Stephon Tuitt along with some solid players in the rotation that made that defense a great one. They were the number one catalyst behind that 12-0 regular season.
That’s the kind of frontline talent everyone would like to see on the defensive line for the Irish in the coming years. If they assemble that, then it will give them their best shot at being a College Football Playoff team. It’s that or having a Heisman caliber quarterback on the other side of the ball. (Ideally it would be great if they had both, but let's not get greedy)
While doing a quick look at the rosters of the CFB Playoff teams since it started in 2014, it's clear that there is something that those teams have in common. I don’t think there is a need for me to run down the defensive line rosters of Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State who have made the final four multiple times. Everyone understands the defensive line talent those programs recruit on a regular basis. Ditto for Georgia this year as every Notre Dame fan got a close look at how great that front was for the Bulldogs.
Florida State made it in 2014 with a former Heisman winner at quarterback and two former 5 star recruits on their defensive line. Oregon advanced to the championship game with Marcus Mariota and an explosive offense in that same year, but people forget they had two future top-10 picks playing on their defensive line. Michigan State had dominant players in Malik McDowell and Shilique Calhoun playing up front for them in 2015. Washington had future first round selections Vita Vea and Greg Gaines and 2nd team All-American Elijah Qualls on their D-line in 2016.
I think my point is pretty obvious. Other than Oklahoma, a program that was fortunate enough to have a game-changer in quarterback Baker Mayfield in their two Playoff trips, these teams had elite defensive lines. Even the Sooners had a All-American edge rusher in Ogbonnia Okoronkwo this past season that helped their cause.
It’s not like other positions don’t matter because it takes talent everywhere to be a great team. It’s just that it’s no coincidence that defensive line play has a lot to say in whether a team makes the Playoff or not. That’s a fact.
For Notre Dame, that means that they won’t have a shot at being a Playoff team next season if they don’t have a few players step up to become great on the D-line next season. Jerry Tillery is an obvious candidate inside to do so, but it will take a lot more than just him. Whether it is defensive ends Daelin Hayes, Julian Okwara, Khalid Kareem, or others, they have to be a lot better than they were in 2017. If they can’t do it, then I don’t see any chance of a Playoff run happening.
It’s really not just about 2018, though. It’s about 2019 when those three ends will all be seniors. It’s about the future and where they need to be as a defensive line every year to compete at the highest level. That’s why this current recruiting class that includes the Ademilola twins and Ja’mion Franklin is so important. It’s also why the Junior Day they just had could mean a lot for the future of the program as it pertains to competing for championship.
It’s not a done deal with this group that took this picture with Elston, but it wouldn’t surprise anyone if the Irish were able to pull in at least two of the four other ‘19 defensive line prospects standing with commit Jacob Lacey. NaNa Osafo-Mensah, Joseph Anderson, Mazi Smith, and Hunter Spears could all end up being players the defense is built around. And there are other blue-chip recruits that have already visited that could be part of it too.
If Notre Dame wants to be annual contenders, this is the way it has to be in most years for D-line recruiting. I believe it will give them their best shot at being a championship program again. The teams that have been in it at the end in the last four years back up that assertion with the talent they have had up front.
Those programs laid out the blueprint for how to do it. Now Notre Dame needs to follow suit.
2. I’ve been thinking a lot about the new transfer proposal that would allow for players to transfer and not sit out a year if a head coach (not an assistant) leaves or is fired from a program. While I recognize the absolute hypocrisy in coaches being able to leave for better situations and players not being able to do the same, I still think they may have to iron out the finer details of this proposal before it passes.
I think it could cause a lot of chaos that would be fun to a certain extent. However, I would worry it could decimate some Group of 5 programs that built up strong rosters after a coach leaves. It would only be fair to let Central Florida players go where they want to after Scott Frost leaves for Nebraska, but if a half dozen or more good players left the program all at once, it means UCF goes from a great story to a likely mediocre program in a hurry. If you’re a fan of that program, it would be devastating.
And if you’re a fan of any Group of 5 program, you’d always know that is on the horizon if your coach was to leave. Essentially it would mean that the better you get, the better chance you’d have to go back to a rebuilding situation with the roster after the coach left.
Strictly for those fans, I’m unsure about this being a good idea. There is already a separation between the Power 5 and the rest of the schools. This probably makes the gap even wider.
On the other hand, I can't deny that this tweet from Football Scoop is intriguing to me.
It adds another element to each program that wouldn’t have existed before. Much like an NFL team, Notre Dame and others would have to hire someone that is responsible for scouting individual talent that may come available. Most likely it would take way more than one individual to do all the work. It would make staffs even bigger (maybe not good a thing), but the offseason would be way more interesting.
Just imagine what it would be like over the last few months if teams were able to go after players from Oregon, Florida State, UCF, Arizona State, and many more programs in an attempt to fill holes in certain areas of their roster. It would be a frenzy and make transfer season as big as signing day in a lot of ways. It would also change the way a lot of programs would handle the 85 scholarship limit.
The coaching carousel and the recruiting already makes my job busy in December and January. This would take it to another level. It would definitely be fun to see it play out, but a lot less fun if you were a fan of a smaller program that lost its head coach.
3. This number is not shocking when you consider that we already know that Bill Belichick is smarter than everybody else in the NFL. Although it did make me say “wow” after I read it.
Yahoo!’s Pete Thamel noted in this story on the Patriots that they have 18 players on their 53 man roster that were undrafted free agents. That’s over ⅓ of the team (34%). The college football equivalent would be like having a big time program with 29 scholarships going to 3 star players who didn’t have Power 5 offers. You just don’t see that kind of thing, at least not with any team that is close to being as successful as the Patriots are in the NFL.
Those undrafted free agents did make me think about the previous point about having a pro personnel director equivalent for each program and the raiding of Group of 5 programs that have new head coaches. This would be a way to have something similar with 2 or 3 star players on a Power 5 roster. 34% would be stretching it, but having 5 to 10 players from those schools that were passed over the first time around in recruiting wouldn’t shock me.
A lot of players are either misevaluated, unknown, or under developed. Then they get to a college program and get to show that they deserve to be playing at a higher level. This offseason there weren’t as many Group of 5 situations with head coaching changes, but the previous one there were several. Players from Temple, Houston, South Florida, Cincinnati, and Western Kentucky would have been all available for programs to poach.
Little known players from those schools could have been inserted onto teams and been taking spots away from former 4 star recruits. I'm not sure if it's possible, but I'd love to know if a program or two could be like the Patriots in college football by building a decent chunk of their team from formerly unwanted recruits.
I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s all hypothetical until a rule like that passes and even then we’d have to look at it four or five years down the road. I’m very intrigued with how the Patriots have built their roster in the NFL, though. I wonder if that could ever be a thing in college football that could compete with teams were consistently in the top-10 in recruiting. I doubt it, but I would love to find out.
4. This was leftover from last week that I forgot to mention, but Heisman odds are already out for 2018 because why the heck not.
Stanford’s Bryce Love is unsurprisingly the favorite heading into the season (I can hear the collective ugh from Notre Dame fans). Florida State’s Cam Akers is the only other 2018 Notre Dame opponent to make the list.
Of course, the name that stands out is Brandon Wimbush at 35/1. Maybe that’s just the obligatory Notre Dame quarterback nod. It’s definitely not something a hardcore fan would expect given that there is going to be a quarterback competition this spring and likely through the summer.
But stritcly looking at his stats, 30 touchdowns is 30 touchdowns. Over 800 yards rushing for a quarterback is no joke. That’s why his name showed up on this way-too-early Heisman list. Even if the less than 50% completion percentage and the film says otherwise, some of the highlights were spectacular.
Anyone betting on Wimbush to win the Heisman is probably crazy at this point. He has to come a long way to get there. It wouldn’t be unprecedented for someone like him to do it based on some previous winners. It’s just highly unlikely.
What I really want to know right now is Wimbush’s mindset heading into this spring. Normally someone that led his team to a successful season and broke a record for rushing touchdowns at his position would be setting big goals for the next year.
Does he have Heisman finalist or winning a national championship on a list of goals for this fall? Or have the struggles and adversity only having him concentrating on the process that leads him there and those goals aren’t even entering his brain?
It would make sense that everyone hopes that he is leaning towards the latter so he can build himself up piece by piece. That might be the best way to get himself back to the player people expected him to be.
Or I could be wrong and maybe he needs to dream big to get his confidence up. Perhaps that’s the best remedy for him this offseason.
Whatever is the best solution, I hope we all see the same guy who can make this frozen rope back shoulder pass while rolling to his right.
It may be asking a lot for that to happen, but I hope that’s what we see from him. A guy with that kind of talent is hopefully remembered for the amazing throws he can make and not the throws he didn't.
5. To some Irish fans, Matt LaFleur will be the guy who helped ruined Everett Golson in 2014. That’s a completely unfair assessment, but I doubt I'm going to stop anyone from thinking that way if that's how they feel.
I bet those people are shocked that LaFleur, the quarterback coach under Brian Kelly back in ‘14, is now going to be the play-caller for Tennessee Titans. Prior to Notre Dame, most know he was the quarterback coach for Robert Griffin III back when he lit up the league as a rookie. After Notre Dame, he coached Matt Ryan during his MVP season and was the offensive coordinator for Jared Goff for his resurrection last year. He now will be working with Marcus Mariota trying to help him bounce back from his regression as a passer in 2017.
This means that if Mariota has a monster season, LaFleur could very well be a head coaching candidate in the NFL. At the very least he will be tabbed as someone that should get a look going forward. That probably sounds preposterous to everyone who remembers that late-season Golson collapse. It’s pretty incredible how fast things have progressed for LaFleur since then.
His career after that lone season with the Irish is a good example of not judging a coach based on a small sample size (or in his case, less than half a season). I think it’s pretty obvious he’s a good coach based on how things have gone. Some people were too quick to judge based on that without looking at all the other factors.
That’s one reason why people should give Chip Long, Tom Rees, and Del Alexander a chance before deciding they are bad at their jobs. I especially feel that way about Long when you consider that the offense was still pretty good with the quarterback being less than a 50% passer, but really those three guys as a whole deserve some slack. I’m not saying that any of them are going to be on track to being an NFL head coach five years from now like LaFleur seems to be. I’m just saying that one year isn’t enough to make a definitive statement on how good of a coach someone is.
6. Depending on where you look, Notre Dame is somewhere near the bottom of the top-10 in terms of recruiting rankings. They could end up dropping a couple of spots and just finishing outside of the top-10. Last year they finished right at 10th.
It would definitely be better if they has a consensus top-5 class, but I do think this current class is a better one for them than most of recent ones they’ve signed. Even if last year ends up being ranked higher, I would give the 2018 class a better grade.
It’s not perfect, but they did a better job of signing quality players at need positions. After the cornerback disaster in 2017, they have bounced back well with numbers and high upside prospects. If they land one or two more, that would certainly help as well.
They’re bringing in a very good duo at defensive tackle and the linebacker group has a few that can become high level starters. On the other side, they once again have signed two strong tight ends. There are two receivers that I feel have a chance to become big play threats at the next level. Most importantly, they have someone that I believe can develop into a special quarterback at Notre Dame. I get that the running back and O-line class isn’t what many would hope it would be, but that has a lot to do with those positions being weaker in the 2018 class as a whole. If the circumstances were different, I'd be a bit harsher on them for not doing as well at those spots.
This all happened coming off a 4-8 season the previous year. The 10 wins last fall helped them keep the class intact and close out some recruits, but they were at a disadvantage going into 2017 recruiting. Now, if they can finally put together back to back promising seasons on the field then things can take another step forward. The kind of step forward that Brian Kelly hasn’t been able to take aside from the 2013 class, which finished in the top-5.
We’ve heard he’s putting in the work at a different level from this recent Junior Day. Hopefully that leads to more difference-makers ending up at Notre Dame in the class that follows this one.