6 Thoughts on a Thursday
If you’ve been following our countdown of the top 25 players during the Charlie Weis era (can we call it an era?), then it’s likely been a reminder to you that the defense wasn’t very good during that time. The list has been primarily dominated by players on offense.
One guy who Weis recruited that didn’t make the list, but was in the top 25 for Brian Kelly, was Harrison Smith. That’s because the former 4-star athlete struggled to find his way in the defense in 2008 and 2009 (he redshirted in 2007).
It almost seems crazy that someone who is now considered one of the best safeties in the NFL was moved to linebacker halfway through the season in ‘09. The next year when Kelly took over the program and Chuck Martin brought him back to the safety position, he flourished over the next two years and became a first round pick by the Minnesota Vikings. Not bad at all for a player that many didn't have high hopes for after his first three years in the program.
I wouldn’t say people wrote off Jalen Elliott after his sophomore season in 2017, but I wouldn’t say anyone felt very confident about his future either.
While he started most of the season at strong safety, his performance was up and down at best. Everyone knows about the lack of interceptions and plays on the ball, but it was the missed tackles that frustrated fans more than anything else. The good news was that Elliott frequently seemed to get himself in the right position to make a play. The bad news was that he rarely seemed to take advantage of those opportunities.
A couple of months ago I would have said that Elliott was the returning starter on the team most likely to lose his job during spring ball. But after watching him in the spring, I think he might be one of the prime candidates to have a breakout year.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying he could have a similar trajectory to Smith, but they both came into Notre Dame with similar backgrounds on the football field. Neither specialized at one position in high school. Both made a significant impact on offense and defense. The big difference between them was that Smith blew up in terms of his ranking after freakish athletic testing at a Nike camp and Elliott was not as highly touted.
Smith needed time and once Martin and the defensive staff had a plan in place for him, he started to shine. Elliott could have used the time making the transition to safety full-time in college, but couldn’t redshirt due to some previous recruiting mistakes at the position and ended up starting last season for the same reasons. There weren’t a lot of other options available.
This spring there were more he had to compete against and Elliott could have fallen back to pack, but it appears he is on track to stay at the front of it. There is still competition that will take place this summer and in fall camp, but Elliott is a wildcard heading into it. He may just hit big.
The known and unknown of Alohi Gilman is exciting. As of this moment, I would expect him to play and play a lot at safety for the Irish this fall. There is still unknown about Elliott too, though. And if he can change some of those frustrating missed opportunities into big plays the other way, it may be that him and Gilman could be extremely productive side by side with each other.
How good can Elliott be? Obviously a lot better than he was last season and if he can take that next step as a player, then the entire dynamic of the secondary could change in a very positive way.
2. I don’t want to anoint Gilman as a difference maker before he plays an actual game, but considering that he was one for Navy as a freshman and sure looks like he could be based on what I’ve seen from him in practice at Notre Dame, he’s a pretty safe bet to make an impact.
He’s a classic example of a prospect that slipped through the cracks for various reasons (location, played at different high schools, etc.), but I did want to note that he checks all the boxes as a lower ranked recruit that played on both sides of the ball and was also a three sport athlete (basketball and track in addition to football) in high school.
Those athletes that don’t specialize playing only football or only one position beat the odds more often to become multi-year starters as I mentioned in the piece I wrote yesterday on 3-star athletes that rise above their ranking.
3. I mentioned 2019 left tackle commit Andrew Kristofic in that piece as someone who fits the profile as a current 3-star recruit that plays basketball and on both sides of the ball that could end up being much better than how he is projected now. There are some other Notre Dame targets that I feel similar about.
Kyren Williams is one of them who I have ranked as a 4-star prospect, but he's ranked as a 3-star by a couple of places. The Irish staff see him as a running back, but he plays many different roles for his high school team and he is ranked as an Athlete, Running Back, and Wide Receiver.
Tristan Sinclair and Spencer Lytle are two potential Rover candidates that also play multiple positions that fit there too. They are high ceiling prospects that could be home runs at the next level once they have the time to focus and develop at the right position.
There is no doubt that it’s better to land as many top-50 recruits as possible, but there also should be a desire to find more Julian Love types too. Notre Dame has done a good job of offering a number of guys who could be that and these three stand out to me as having that kind of potential.
4. By the time this college football season kicks off, it sounds like a several states will have legalized gambling on sports. I think I’m in the majority in that feel pretty great about that. That gives me a perfect excuse to drop these season win totals that were just released today by BetOnline:
I’m not going to encourage anyone to do anything with their money. How they choose to spend it is completely in their own control.
However, the over on Notre Dame 8½ looks pretty spicy to me. The over at Washington 8½ with a senior quarterback returning isn’t all that unattractive either.
The one that stands out that looks like it should be wrong is LSU at 6½. It might seem crazy because of the talent they have every year, but they have a big question mark at quarterback and if you look at their schedule, it doesn’t seem like a foregone conclusion that they will have their standard 9 wins or more type of season. At first sight it looks great, but not nearly as much after digging into it.
As Travis Haney mentioned in his follow up to tweeting out those totals, LSU will have another new coach if they win 6 or 7. This is me saying I think there is a reasonable chance that they could be looking for a new coach. I wouldn't stay away from that number either way.
5. I almost did a spit take when I looked at this Heisman trophy candidates list for 2018 from NFL.com’s Chase Goodbread.
Clemson’s Kelly Bryant at 5 and Michigan’s Shea Patterson at 3 on this list are interesting to say the least. I could argue against some other names on the list, but I think it’s more a product of not having any true favorites returning this season.
Bryant is an open competition for his job. I’m not sure if he’s going to win it or if he might split duties this season with true freshman Trevor Lawrence.
It’s clearly Patterson’s gig at Michigan, but to have him all the way up near the top of the list? I don’t see it and this has nothing to do with any bias against Michigan.
Last year Patterson had a wealth of talent at receiver and a scheme that had Ole Miss sling the ball around 54.59% of the time. Even with some playmakers on the outside for the Wolverines, it would be unwise to expect him to put up the same type of numbers he had at Ole Miss.
Last year Michigan only threw the ball on 41.87% of their offensive plays. Jim Harrbaugh's second year at Stanford they threw the ball 38.6% of the time. Even when he had Andrew Luck, his offense threw the ball only 42.5% of plays. His highest number of passing play percentage at Michigan is 46.86% in his first season.
So unless Harbaugh completely changes his personality (not happening) and the identity he preaches to his team, Patterson is not going to be chucking the football all over the yard like he did at Ole Miss.
He may be very good and make a lot of plays, but Michigan would pretty much have to run the table for him to be a true contender because his numbers won’t be enough. That would mean Michigan winning at Notre Dame, at Michigan State, and at Ohio State this fall.
Sooooo, good luck with that. I don’t see it happening, but I guess this is the time of year for the hype train to start building. They’ll all get off at the next stop if Notre Dame beats them in week one.
6. The top-5 of our Charlie Weis list is dropping tomorrow and when it does, you’ll see that 9 of the top 15 players all came from the 2003 recruiting class. If there was one thing Tyrone Willingham did right while at Notre Dame, it was signing that class.
It’s unfortunate because that’s the kind of class that should have been the foundation for a championship team.
It had the elite quarterback (Brady Quinn). It had two outstanding defensive linemen (Victor Abiamiri and Trevor Laws). It had playmakers in the secondary (Tommy Zbikowski and Chinedum Ndukwe). It had a stud left tackle (Ryan Harris) and great center (John Sullivan). It had a really good in-line tight end (John Carlson) and a legitimate number one wide receiver (Jeff Samardzija).
In terms of top end talent, it might be the best single recruiting class Notre Dame has put together in the last 25 years.
I don’t need to tell anyone why those players didn’t win a championship. The classes before and after them didn’t supply them with enough help to do so (thanks, Ty). If they could have had a few more elite players or even a number of above average ones to provide better depth, it could have been a much different story.
This isn’t me throwing another log on the Willingham dumpster fire. (It’s easy to forget that Weis’ first two full recruiting classes in ‘06 and ‘07 were highly ranked, but filled with only a few great players and a whole lot of below average.) This is just me remembering fondly how fun it was to watch those players who arrived at Notre Dame in ‘03 and thinking that they deserved a better fate than two back to back losses in BCS bowl games.