Fall camp is just around the corner. With Notre Dame’s 2024 season lasting all the way until January 20th it’s been the shortest off-season in program history. That’s if you don’t count the 2nd “season” when the school played Michigan a couple times randomly in March 1888 just 5 months after playing the first football game in school history.

There’s a lot to look forward to as the Irish get back to the field for practice with an intense opener down at Miami looming large with a front-loaded schedule. Today, we’ll walk through all the storylines swirling around the Notre Dame offense.

Coordinator: Mike Denbrock, 2nd Season

Few play-callers will be carrying as much confidence with their recent history like Mike Denbrock who enters his 2nd season as the offensive coordinator from his 3rd stint with the program. Last season saw one incredibly bad low point (a season-low 14 points against Northern Illinois) mixed in with a very impressive adjustment to the sometimes pass-challenged situation leading to a very solid 9th in FEI offense at the end of it all.

Denbrock will face some familiar issues in 2025 (building wide receiver talent and depth) and immediately has to zero in on a quarterback competition from the first cleat hitting the practice fields.

Returning Starters: 7/11

This is a few more returners than last year which on the surface is a net positive for offensive growth. Although, as we’ll get to below the injuries up front will really color some of the success this team could have if some guys can’t get healthy and practicing with the team sooner rather than later. Say a quick prayer if you’re into that for good fortunate in the health department.

Craig is back as starter after going down early in 2024.

The “true” new starting jobs for 2025 include quarterback, boundary receiver, tight end, and center. And center really doesn’t count since Ashton Craig won the job last year before missing the final 13 games (good lord they played so many games last year!) and only saw the field through the Purdue game.

Injuries

OL Charles Jagusah
OL Guerby Lambert
OL Chris Terek
TE Cooper Flanagan

Things are less than ideal at offensive line with the recent broken arm injury to Jagusah combined with Lambert coming off shoulder surgery this off-season. The line should be getting the aforementioned starting center Ashton Craig back into the lineup for fall camp, plus one would hope the injuries for Anthonie Knapp are fully behind him, too.

Terek was dealing with foot and shoulder issues this spring and needs a clean bill of health in a bad way.

All signs point to Flanagan taking the year off to rehab his Achilles. We should also note that Micah Gilbert broke his hand during the spring and should be healthy now while the same should be true for transfer Will Pauling who had foot surgery and didn’t participate in the team workouts months ago.

Camp Questions

#1 Carr vs. Minchey

And we’re off! The first authentic and true quarterback competition in a hot minute is set to begin as redshirt sophomore Kenny Minchey and redshirt freshman CJ Carr face the most important 2 weeks of their lives (on the football field) with the consequences potentially steering Notre Dame in a different direction for the Early Freeman Era that is set to transition to a new phase.

The spotlight will be on no. 8 this August.

I’m typically prone to pick the older option in these competitions but the odds from nearly everyone around the program have Carr as the clubhouse leader going into camp. Will they split no. 1 reps evenly each practice? Will they alternate working with the no. 1 offense exclusively each practice with the other working with the backups? Will they stretch the competition out to the standard 2 weeks before prep for Miami begins in earnest? Are we sure to get even less media access to avoid parsing every little detail about the quarterbacks throughout August?

#2 Offensive Line Gel

The Irish offensive line has the potential to be extremely good in 2025. Yet, they’ve experienced a lot of turnover from the ranks through transfers, are dealing with some injuries, and need to get 3 returning starters fully back up to speed after dealing with their own injuries in 2024. How everyone will come together is going to be extremely important with an inexperienced quarterback.

Back in the spring we discussed shuffling positions among the OL but the Jagusah injury probably concretely puts an end to any of those plans, if they were even present. Going into August we expect Knapp (LT), Schrauth (LG), Craig (C), and Wagner (RT) to remain in place with an enormous positional battle over the vacant right guard spot. The winner during camp at right guard has a great shot at keeping the position deep into 2025 this fall.

#3 Boundary Receiver

This is one of the new starting positions opening up as former Clemson transfer Beaux Collins saw the bulk of the 2024 snaps with the Irish at the boundary and finished with the 2nd most receiving yards (while leading that category for most of the season before Greathouse went off in the last couple games).

The competition for this job could be fierce, but only if a young player or two walks into the first practice of fall camp and makes a statement. The biggest favorite for the boundary we’ll discuss below.

New Faces to Watch

WR Will Pauling

Notre Dame appears to have a glut of slot receiver-types and Pauling as a 190-pound transfer from Wisconsin might not be on the radar for most fans, especially after missing spring with a troubling foot injury. The offense also seems intent on keeping the ascending Jaden Greathouse in the slot which could limit the opportunities for anyone else. Still, Pauling has some proven abilities (116 catches at Wisconsin of all places in less than 2 full seasons is pretty damn good) and might jump out as a top 5 receiver on this team early in camp.

WR Malachi Fields

The Irish are hoping to hit at the boundary receiver position with a transfer from an ACC school again. This time it’s Fields who didn’t enroll for spring practice but is coming off an impressive back-to-back 800+yard campaigns with Virginia. Looking over the entire roster, I think the case could be made that Fields becoming a top player on this team would be the most important transfer development of fall camp. With him at a high level, the offense is really starting to look extremely well-rounded. If he’s not that guy, it could leave a big hole in the passing game.

TE James Flanigan

Eli Raridon looks set to be the unquestioned starter at tight end but the Cooper Flanagan injury knocks the depth a bit. Dr. Kevin Bauman is back for his 12th season, Ty Washington will be incorporated as a transfer from Arkansas, and Jack Larsen rises up after one year on campus. The incoming freshman Flanigan didn’t enroll early but has the size (6’6″ 237 pounds) and talent as a pass catcher to jump up the depth chart early in his career.

Tight End U rolls on. 

OL Will Black

Notre Dame’s top signing from the 2025 class was another player not enrolled for spring. A few months ago I wouldn’t have predicted he’d be much of a factor this year. Now, with the injuries to Jagusah and Lambert? The door might be open. Black was recruited very much as a tackle prospect and at 6’7″ might not be a contender for the interior…if it was 1997. Nowadays, if he proves to be one of the best 5 lineman could he win the right guard job?

5 Quick Thoughts

1) If there’s a player who needs a strong camp to lead to a quick start in 2025 it’s Jordan Faison. His ankle injury in the A&M opener last year completely derailed his season (16 regular season receptions only!) and the Irish head to camp with him being an undersized de facto starter at the field receiver position and the offense desperately needs quality veteran playmaking ASAP.

2) Ja’Juan Seider is the new coach on this side of the ball and gets to deal with the headache of (tongue firmly in cheek here) of shuffling 6 different running backs led by Heisman candidate Jeremiyah Love.

3) It’ll be interesting to see how OC Mike Denbrock, quarterbacks coach Gino Guidugli, and the aforementioned Seider concoct a tweaked offense around more pro-style quarterbacks in Minchey and Carr. The running backs accounted for 62.1% of the carries last year and that number should be going way, way up in 2025. NDNation, rejoice!

Guess who’s getting the ball more (but maybe not so much in fall camp)!

4) There has been some talk of BYU transfer Jake Retzlaff coming to Notre Dame after allegations of rape at his previous school, something that would seem incredibly unlikely. I can’t imagine why anyone would think that’s a good idea to bring in a likely 3rd stringer for depth. Plus, we’ll see if Tyler Buchner makes the switch back to quarterback in 2025 after playing receiver and holder last year.

5) If we’re going off what happened during the spring the right guard battle will be between Sullivan Absher and Joe Otting. Both have spent time repping at center, although Otting has been consistently working much more at the position.

Redshirt Watch

I was curious to see how these predictions fared from last year and it was a super heavy redshirt season. Cam Williams, Micah Gilbert, and Aneyas Williams were in the burned redshirt category prediction but only the latter actually did–and had a pretty big role, too.

CJ Carr, Kedren Young, Jack Larsen, and Guerby Lambert were the borderline guys and everyone took a redshirt.

Logan Soldate, Peter Jones, Anthonie Knapp, and Styles Prescod were all thought to be redshirts with Knapp most definitely not taking that avenue in 2024 with an absurd 15 starts before injury.

Burn It: TE James Flanigan, OL Will Black

I wouldn’t bet money either of these will actually play more than 4 regular season games, though.

Borderline: WR Jerome Bettis, OL Owen Strebig

It’s tempting to put Burress here instead of Bettis–the former looked a little more polished and ready during the spring–except there could be a major need at the boundary receiver position if there’s so much as one injury. Strebig is a big youngin’ (6’8″ 294 pounds) who might be a quality depth piece, even on special teams.

Keep It: QB Blake Hebert, RB Nolan James, WR Elijah Burress, WR Scrap Richardson, OL Cam Herron, OL Matty Augustine

With the caveat that I missed badly with Knapp last year (who didn’t though?) I don’t think any of these players will be seeing the field that much in 2025. Maybe if things don’t go so well at field receiver and Burress takes another leap from the spring. Maybe!

Freshmen Numbers

QB Blake Hebert #12
RB Nolan James #23
WR Elijah Burress #17
WR Jerome Bettis, Jr. #15
WR Scrap Richardson #81
TE James Flanigan #88
OL Cam Herron #57
OL Will Black #65
OL Owen Strebig #78
OL Matty Augustine #58

BLUE denotes early enrolled freshmen.