It hardly seems like enough time has passed for football to start again, but here we are. There are so many questions for a Notre Dame lineup that will feature some new faces and some old faces in new and/or bigger roles. At the same time there’s an unmistakable buzz coming out of training camp reports, even from some of the more usually dour sources, that a standard amount of preseason optimism has come to the forefront despite the preponderance of neophytes in the two-deep. You can only throw around so many statements like “SEC size,” “fastest Notre Dame team I’ve seen,” “deepest linebacker group I’ve covered” without ginning up a fair amount of fervor.
Nonetheless, the questions about this team are fairly well established and fairly reasonable to ask. I’m fairly confident that this will be a good year, based on the floor the program has set over the last four seasons. Will it be a great year? I don’t know. Will it be a very good year? I don’t know. Will it be an exceptional year? Probably not, but I wouldn’t rule it out! The apparent broad variance in potential season outcomes makes the prediction business a tricky but perhaps more entertaining exercise.
So, have at it. Click here to start the survey. Enjoy!
I’m super excited for the season! When does your analysis of the results of this survey come out? I’m very curious what everyone else is thinking.
Going to shoot for later next week, depending on how quickly the responses come in. Hang in there!
Great stuff.
How about a Kyren Williams helmet pops off: O/U 7.5
Heh… Hopefully he has a tighter chin strap this year.
Voted for Liufau a little too early 🙁
I think (my brain is too age-addled at this point, lol) I picked him for the sacks leader. Dammit all.
As much as I’m loath to quote the guy… Driskell tweeted that Liufau has a foot injury. At least raises the possibility that he could be back this year versus an ACL or Achilles. Let’s hope.
Where the team goes from here, I don’t know. I think the depth chart was going to be White/Bauer at Mike and Liufau/Bertrand at Will. I don’t think they would move Kiser inside. Simon will undoubtedly move into the two deep, but I think it might end up being more of a three-man rotation inside between White, Bauer, and Bertrand. But who knows.
I definitely picked him as the sacks leader. Huge loss. Sampson tweeted it is likely to put him out for the year. Though it is the one position where we seem to be loaded with talent. Bertrand has flashed big time and looks like he will get a shot now.
That’s a bummer. I voted him as defensive MVP. Hamilton will be the best player, but I don’t see him getting the same stats as someone in the front 7.
It sucks a lot, Liufau was a perfect fit for Freeman’s scheme. But, as you said, a LB or DL is the “best” place for this worst case scenario to happen, if it had to happen. They’re deep enough to handle this, but Liufau would have been one of the most fun players to watch this season for how flashy he can be.
247 updated their reporting to say it’s a “leg/ankle” injury. Combined with the projected recovery timeline and uncertainty over whether he’ll miss the season, I would guess it’s a broken ankle.
Yeowch.
14.5 mentions of Jack Coan’s lacrosse background
I don’t know if this line could have been set high enough for me to go under.
I could’ve made a three-way prop with Buchner’s lacrosse background and former commitment to Michigan Lax. The stuff of announcer dreams!
I think you missed out on an opportunity for prop bets about the NBC announcing crew including Drew Brees. I’m not sure what prop bet could’ve been made, but I will miss Dungy fawning over Tremble every other play.
Ha, good point. We had one last year for how much people would miss Flutie. Didn’t even think about Brees this time around; not sure if that says good things or bad things about him.
Over/under on the number of times we see Drew helicoptering into the endzone from the ’99 game: 4234