When the Sun Bowl kicks off this Friday afternoon in El Paso it’ll have been 34 days since Notre Dame’s last football game. A lot has happened since then. The Irish fired their wide receivers coach, hired a new wideout coach, hired a new strength and conditioning coach, a bunch of transfers committed, current players left, transferred out, or opted out of this Friday’s festivities, National Signing Day happened, and offensive coordinator Gerad Parker took the Troy head coaching job.
Mike Denbrock was also recently hired to replace Parker as offensive coordinator.
Oregon State, well, they lost their head coach and many of their other assistants to a Michigan State raid that occurred while the Irish were finishing up the regular season at Stanford. Obviously, the Beavers will be without a collection of important players in the Sun Bowl, too.
Oregon State (+6.5) vs. Notre Dame
Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl
The Sun Bowl
El Paso, Texas
Date: Friday, December 29, 2023
Time: 2:00 PM ET
TV: CBS
Series: 2-0-0 Oregon State
What can we say about the matchup at this point? We’ll go through the most important aspects and see where that lands us for a prediction in this goofy post-season.
Notre Dame opt outs, transfers, or unavailable due to injury:
QB Sam Hartman
RB Audric Estime
WR Chris Tyree
WR Rico Flores
WR Tobias Merriweather
WR Braylon James
TE Mitchell Evans
TE Holden Staes
TE Kevin Bauman
LT Joe Alt
OC Zeke Correll
RG Rocco Spindler
RT Blake Fisher
RT Michael Carmody
DE NaNa Osafo-Mensah
DE Aiden Gobaira
DT Aiden Keanaaina
LB Marist Liufau
CB Cam Hart
CB Thomas Harper
CB Ryan Barnes
S Ramon Henderson
S Antonio Carter
S Luke Talich
Over a quarter of Notre Dame’s scholarship players won’t be putting their helmets on again for 2023. I’m sure there will be a few more who will come to El Paso banged up and unavailable and/or limited. The list is pretty absurd to look at–featuring 12 starters and a handful of key backups–but the opponent won’t be coming in with a strong hand, either.
Oregon State opt outs, transfers, or unavailable due to injury:
QB D.J. Uiagalelei
QB Aidan Chiles
WR Anthony Gould
TE Jack Velling
TE Jack Overman
LT Josh Gray
RG Heneli Bloomfield
RT Taliese Fuaga
DT Isaac Hodgins
LB Easton Mascarenas-Arnold
LB Calvin Hart
CB Jermod McCoy
S Akili Arnold
K Atticus Sappington
K Josh McCormick
P Josh Green
Uiagalelei, Gould, Velling, Gray, Bloomfield, Fuaga, Mascarenas-Arnold, Hart, McCoy, Arnold, Sappington, and Green were all starters for the Beavers this season. Leading running back Damien Martinez (2nd in the Pac-12 in rushing for 2023 and pretty comfortably Oregon State’s biggest weapon on offense) was reinstated to the team last week after the local DA did not press charges for suspicion of driving under the influence. However, interim head coach Kefense Hynson stated that Martinez is unlikely to play against the Irish due to a lack of practice time and not being physically ready.
Remember these cool Shamrock jerseys from the 2001 Fiesta Bowl?
There may be more personnel losses for the Beavers than listed above, who knows. It’s surprising that there haven’t been more defections in the wake of Jonathan Smith’s departure, plus the whole fact that the Pac-12 just imploded around their program in recent months. Still, Oregon State’s 2024 recruiting class consists of just 13 players and ranks 110th nationally (worst among Power 5 teams right now) with only 1 player in the top 1,300 of the Composite rankings.
Players to Watch
No one really cares about Oregon State as an opponent this weekend, they are just a collection of players in matching uniforms for which we’d like to score more points than on Friday. There will be plenty of new and new-ish faces from Notre Dame that are worth highlighting as we approach the Sun Bowl:
QB Steve Angeli
Could this be it for Angeli’s time at Notre Dame? In some ways, he feels like an extremely old and veteran redshirt freshman backup who has been picking up most of the headlines as a likely transfer. I still contend he’s better off staying another year (especially if it means graduating early) but we’ll see how much his performance impacts any decision this winter.
I would expect Angeli to be solid in this game and not be asked to do too much. If he decides to transfer the question will be where is there playing time available and will this Sun Bowl move the needle enough for another prospective program?
LT Charles Jagusah
Jagusah was our 2nd highest rated recruit from Notre Dame’s 2023 class (just a smidge behind cornerback Christian Gray) but came to campus nursing a surgically repaired knee and not much was heard about him for a while. He was limited during August camp for a bit which was actually positive news on his rehab but with veteran tackles starting no one figured Jagusah would make noise in 2023.
Just a little over a year since he signed, Jagusah will start at LT.
With Joe Alt and Blake Fisher opting out for the NFL, suddenly a pair of starting jobs opened up for the Sun Bowl and word out of South Bend is that Jagusah has surged into the lead at left tackle. The hulking 6’7″ 330 pounder having a decent game and locking down this position going into the off-season would be some of the best news for the 2024 team.
RT Aamil Wagner
The Jagusah ascension may be key to Notre Dame’s reluctance to go portal shopping on the offensive line this month and if Aamil Wagner can make a similar strong effort now we’re cooking for next year. Technically, Wagner is inn a battle with redshirt junior Tosh Baker to start this game (technically Baker is listed first with OR designated to Wagner on the official depth chart provided by Notre Dame). However, I would hope that Wagner is able to get most of the snaps as I don’t see a long-term future for Baker (will he even come back in 2024?) and we might as well use this game for future player development.
WR KK Smith
Smith was a late addition to the 2023 recruiting class and for the casual fan might be one of the least talked about new faces who could pop up in this game. He missed the regular season recovering from shoulder surgery but has been cleared to play in the Sun Bowl. As many know, the depth at wide receiver isn’t fantastic at the moment and Smith might be able to see the field with some regularity.
TE Cooper Flanagan
Flanagan’s playing time saw a big spike after the injury to Mitchell Evans and with the departure of Holden Staes to Tennessee he should be an important part of the tight end rotation against Oregon State.
DE Boubacar Traore
I’m not sure we’ll see a ton of Traore depending on how the snaps get divided up on either side of the defensive line. Traore has a thicker 237-pound frame and looks like he could spend some time this Friday playing behind Javontae Jean-Baptiste after the transfer of NaNa Osafo-Mensah.
Can the Sun Bowl be a hint of a 2024 breakout?
Or, maybe we’ll see any of Jordan Botelho/Junior Tuihalamaka/Josh Burnham moving over to the strong-side for some snaps while Traore gets further development at Vyper? On the official game depth chart both Burnham and Traore are listed as backups at each side of the defensive line.
LB Drayk Bowen
This was looking like a huge opportunity for Bowen until Jack Kiser announced he’d be returning for 2024 and JD Bertrand decided not to opt out of the bowl game. Now, it’s a lot less likely he’ll see the field very much but maybe there will be plenty of 2nd half snaps if Notre Dame has a decent lead.
S Adon Shuler
The situation at safety is Xavier Watts playing next to one last go around for DJ Brown. Behind this duo is a ton of inexperience. Actually, it’s all complete inexperience. Keep an eye on Shuler who was an underrated part of the 2023 recruiting class who was slowed coming into the season after shoulder joint surgery. The Irish have Brown listed as a starter but have OR for Shuler which means he’ll likely play quite a bit.
Prediction
Oregon State is bringing a lot of their defensive starters and two-deep to this game which offers some challenges for Notre Dame. However, this wasn’t a fearsome enough Beavers defense for that to be a major concern.
The fact that their coaching staff was gutted leading into the bowl game, their defensive coordinator turned head coach Trent Bray isn’t attending, and they are rolling with an interim coach isn’t a great sign for team cohesion, either.
Even though the Irish have moved on from offensive coordinator Gerad Parker (addition by subtraction some may say!) Notre Dame has to feel good about bringing the core of its 2023 coaching staff to El Paso.
I’m a little worried about Notre Dame’s offensive line (it could potentially be a game wrecking ‘oh my good they aren’t ready to play this many unproven guys at once’ type of situation) but if they hold up and Steve Angeli is competent this should be a comfortable Irish win. With so many pieces gone on offense for the Beavers I would be disappointed if they move the ball with regularity.
I don’t think this will equal the masterpiece 3-0 Sun Bowl in 2008, but it will be very very low scoring. I’m thinking like 20-10 Irish.
I’m a bit worried about the OL situation for this game as well.
I’d expect this to be a frustrating game to watch regardless of the final score.
I think it will be more like watching the first game of a season rather than the finale.
Spring game. But I remember the previous sun bowl like yesterday. I don’t know why, but it felt like an important win for us at the time. 7-5, and the opportunity to be 8-5 versus 7-6 just seemed like the confidence the coach, coaches, team, needed. Fast froward. Here we are. Meaningless bowl game but winning cures. It builds confidence. I would prefer the curing to be organically, but I guess this is the NIL world now. It’s a matter of years before college football is tiers. We will have the “premier” league and the others. Bowls will be gone. And unless there is a salary cap on the NIL, the NFL will suffer.
The 2010 Sun Bowl was incredibly enjoyable and an important sign that ND’s November rebound was not a fluke. That was only our second bowl win since 1994.
I think people are too quick to dismiss non-playoff bowls as “meaningless.” They’re generally not the season-culminating events they used to be, but I bet the second-string guys playing in them don’t think they’re “meaningless.”
The 2017 Citrus Bowl is a good example. Book came in as the backup and it set up his career as a three-year starting QB. It was also confirmation that ND could go toe-to-toe with any SEC team not named Alabama.
ND has a lot of positive momentum right now. Let’s finish it off with a 10th win.
You are talking my talk, Ancient! As I may have posted before, thanks to our Premium subscriptions on this incredible site (plus one could mention the multiple other sources analyzing the ND football team) we get to know our second stringers and future starters, and it’s a good chance to see them suit up and play in a beautiful setting.
My, how college football has changed. We have no way of predicting or estimating what team we’ll see on the field Friday. Yes, Kyle, it’s like a spring game in that sense for sure.
Still, it is an important gauge of ND’s recruiting ability: how deep are we really? And of our coaching ability: how well will this team play together? How hard will they play?
It’s an important win for us. A loss would be…
It seems via reports, Baker may have grabbed the RT spot for now. I know Wagner’s athleticism is raved about but, at 285-290 he’s not big enough. Not every player can put on 35-40 lbs. and maintain their athleticism. He and Baker seem to have opposing strengths. Baker is enormous but needs to move his feet better and Wagner needs to bulk up. It remains to be seen how this plays out but, I wouldn’t write anyone off just yet. From the start I’ve felt finding a good starting OT in the portal to be a long shot. I feel as it stands right now the Oline being a cohesive unit by next fall is the key to a big year. A half way decent showing vs. a competent OSU defense will make me happy for now.
Already more comments than I was expecting. A big win for the bowl games.
Question about the coaching situation that doesn’t make sense to me.
Trent Bray is both the current DC and the future HC, but just isn’t coaching in this game? What, he asked for Christmas week off? Or is he just staying as the DC while Kefense is randomly the interim coach?
This just got brought up in our Slack. I don’t really know!
He should probably be DC at least. But maybe he’s on campus recruiting or something?
I imagine that with all the changes there, Bray wanted to concentrate on securing verbal commitments, assessing prospects to replace losses, hiring new coaches, and obtaining transfer prospects while pitching the advantages of playing there in the midst of the new scheduling changes. With all the losses on the two deep on offense, it was probably more important for their new OC Coordinator to spend the most time scheming with his new first teamers. Protecting against poaching not only the 2024 prospects but potential 2025 prospects is important.
Makes sense and is a better time spent than going to the Tony the Tiger cereal bowl. I think it’s now official that bowl games don’t matter if an active coach isn’t participating to focus on next year.
The bowl games have just become quickly something very uninteresting except to the most devoted followers of a team.
And I think this is a strong argument in favor of even continuing to expand the playoffs because only playoff post-season games will be worth watching (teams with a full complement of players, their coaches from that year, etc.).
Bowls are now filled with 3rd stringers at a lot of positions for many teams if not backups. I wonder if ND is actually among the teams with the LEAST number of players opting out/transfer portal.
TV ratings say otherwise
EM and others may have their individual reasons for “opting out” of watching bowl games. No worries. You can’t stop players and coaches leaving nowadays or rectifying that with an expanded playoff system.
Perhaps we can mentally revert to the bowl era where there were no post-bowl rankings nor polls since those are now less relevant or reflective of achievement during the regular season.
In that vein, do the conference’s team rankings for bowl priority have competitive relevance for the bowls?
Are you actually watching them? A lot of these games have been very entertaining. Kansas-UNLV last night sure was. And the Tulane-SC Cotton Bowl last year is probably my favorite non-ND bowl of all time.
I don’t want to turn this into a whole playoff fight, but consider what made the bowls “uninteresting” in the first place, and then ask yourself if more of that is really the solution.
This post-season has clearly crossed a line into something we’ve never seen before. I don’t get how anyone can argue it isn’t this way right now.
1) I know Twitter is dying but engagement during bowl season on my timeline has been shockingly absent. You’re not seeing national media covering games that much anymore.
2) Our Slack channel has featured a tiny amount of bowl game talk. There was a fun Kansas-UNLV game yesterday, it wasn’t discussed on our Slack. I checked and over the last 4 days on our channel any non-ND bowl game talk was limited to the following: The EMU sucker punch, Rodemaker opting out for FSU, and the Pop Tarts Bowl trophy.
I think bowl season has really morphed into a sport that is only for the segment of fans who find joy in the weirder aspects of college football. The weirdness is the point. The more obscure the game the better. There’s a badge of honor to watching football games and plucking out interesting things–most of the time things not happening on the field of play.
Basically, bowl season is now the Sickos Committee silly little gooses club. Not surprisingly, their Twitter account is pretty much the only one covering the Tulane-Virginia Tech bowl game that’s on right now. A lot of people on break probably have it on in the background at home right now so I’m sure they’ll pull 2 million viewers and call it a success for TV ratings.
But 2023 bowl season definitely seems way different to the past as little as 3 or 4 years ago, even 1 post-season ago.
Eric,
Good facts to consider.
I guess I have even a very old timers older dumb question — when and why the heck did so many bowl games become a thing? I distinctly recall back in the 50’s (when we weren’t allowed to play any) that there were just the product bowls (Rose, Orange, Cotton, Sugar) and a few others Peach, Tangerine?? So wha’ happen?
$$$$$$
But on a more comprehensive note, here is a good, concise article about it:
https://sportsnaut.com/college-football-bowl-games-why-so-many/
Some of the article’s highlights:
As you mentioned: 1970 – 11 bowl games,
25 in 2000. Then a quicker jump up to 41 by 2015. Fun fact: even at 42 bowl games this year, there are 100 bowls that have already gone defunct.
Reasons:
Mostly ESPN TV money. Tons of people watch the bowl games.
Coaches also like them because it allows for extra practice. And smaller school coaches use them as a resume builder.
Wow, and thank you. Ask and you shall receive. I guess I knew something was going on way back when we wound up playing LSU in a very cold Shreveport, LA? And Boston College in Memphis, which was… really cold!?
But being over here, my situational awareness on all these bowls (with I gotta admit really awful names, I don’t even know half the products) left me ignorant, thanks for the quick elucidation, juicebox!
Not everything is binary. Oregon State is in a pretty unique and terrible situation right now. Just because it’s more important for their new HC to hold the program together doesn’t mean that this game doesn’t matter. I bet if they win, they’ll think it matters.
Also, teams have been playing without a HC in bowl games for a long time. We did against Oregon State in 2004, and Miami did when we played them in the Sun Bowl in 2010. That isn’t new.
It is really odd to see ostensible college football fans competing to express how much they don’t like and don’t care about college football games.
Or ones trying desperately to assign meaning to games that are meaningless.
Fans of [thing] find [thing] meaningful, film at 11.
You are always free to watch EPL or F1 or whatever it is you find meaningful.
Don’t put words in people’s mouths. You have been doing it all year and it is truly obnoxious. At no point did I say I didn’t like or care about this game. I said it was meaningless.
Meaningless does not mean worthless or unentertaining.
You are always free to open your eyes and see how the world actually functions these days. Or you are free to go hang on NDN. I imagine they all share your thoughts on bowl games, the playoffs, Tommy Rees, etc.
I love ND bowl games, just like I love the BG game. I also care a lot whether we win or lose, whether it matters or not. I will even gladly watch any non-ND bowl game, although sadly I don’t have the time I used to during bowl season. Just like I will watch pre-season for basically any sport that I find on TV.
So yeah, I am definitely an ostensible fan for getting excited to watch a glorified practice. But, I would be a true fan if I whined more about the way things are and insulted anyone who doesn’t think CFB should revert to the ways of the 50s.
I think calling games that ND students will be playing in “meaningless” is pretty obnoxious.
I am sorry that are unable to determine 1. what constitutes meaning in CFB and 2. the difference between meaning and worth.
I find your deliberate misinterpretation and misstatement of people’s arguments on this site obnoxious. If you stop doing that. I will stop calling these really important bowl games meaningless.
I don’t think I’m misrepresenting anything. How about we just ignore each other?
Happily. Please don’t comment on any of my posts. And I won’t comment on any of yours.
^This take sucks
Well technically aren’t they all meaningless? Why not just get the top four teams at the beginning of the season and have them start the playoff right then.
Oh oh, Publius,
Here we had the two parties to a meaningless dispute (whoops, damn there I did it myself yuck) agreeing in a good reasonably positive 18S way to abandon their spat. And you start it up again, tsk tsk.
I love your NDN all caps mockery burst. I have not gone back to NDN for years and years thanks to us, it would be pretty awful if they actually still talk like that.
Anyway, juicebox and Ancient CS, be at peace my sons. Let’s all look forward to cheering on whatever worthy young ND students put on the blue and gold and play to win.
Bill C, please
I’M OPTING OUT OF THE WATCHING THE MEANINGLESS GAME IN MEXICO THAT SWARBRICK PUT US IN OUT OF SPITE SO I CAN MAKE THE 5PM SEATING FOR DINNER
my god imagine gruden and skip holtz prowling the sidelines in el paso
-noted NDNation opinion-haver
Anyway, a propos of the actual game — I confess great anxiety concerning our brand new O-line. That could make Angeli’s debut frustrating and uncomfortable?
FYI you can also stream the game on Paramount+
That’s how I’ll have to watch while at work