Notre Dame had 8 players on offense from the 2021 recruiting class take a redshirt during the team’s run to the Fiesta Bowl. One player was starting from day one prior to an injury, another was in the mix until yet another injury, while there was hope a third player would at least see some important snaps when it wasn’t meant to be in the end.
The freshmen not to redshirt included quarterback Tyler Buchner, running back Logan Diggs, running back Audric Estime, receiver Lorenzo Styles, receiver Deion Colzie, tight end Mitchell Evans, and offensive tackle Joe Alt.
Let’s review the guys who didn’t lose a year of eligibility from 2021.
Position – PlayerÂ
Composite Grade
18 Stripes Grade
Tier 3 – 2022 Likely Isn’t the Year
QB Ron Powlus III
0.8126
72
C Pat Coogan
0.8701
79
OT Caleb Johnson
0.8958
87
Should we feel bad for Powlus? Most of the media don’t even count him when discussing the quarterback room which on the one hand is a slap in the face and on the other hand yeah I totally get that approach. He was a late addition to the 2021 class and immediately no one believed he had a real shot at playing for the Irish. In fact, I believe our grade of 72 is the lowest we’ve ever handed out. But, I suppose there are worse things in life than attending Notre Dame on scholarship where your dad works!
You could make the case that Coogan could be placed below in our 2nd tier of players. For that to happen it would likely mean a transfer from backup center Zeke Correll. Once Jarrett Patterson decided to return it likely meant Coogan would have to wait another season to make an impact.
Caleb Johnson just watched his two classmates lock down starting tackle positions for the next 3-4 seasons. We didn’t hear much of anything about Johnson’s progress last year and if I’m honest a transfer would seem to make sense, particularly if he’s strictly only someone limited to playing tackle.
Tier 2 – The Door is Open
WR Jayden Thomas
0.8991
86
TE Cane Berrong
0.9137
85
There were whispers during bowl practice that Thomas was starting to impress the staff. Instead of giving him a quick look in the Fiesta Bowl he remained on the sidelines as the offense ran the other receivers into the ground. Maybe it was too much to ask for Thomas to make an impact at the last moment (presumably with very few reps during the regular season) but the thin depth chart automatically means he’ll get his shot in 2022.
Berrong tore his ACL in mid-October and if he hadn’t with the other injuries to the tight ends he might have picked up a decent amount of playing time for a freshman and perhaps never would’ve taken a redshirt. As it stands, his classmate Mitchell Evans developed faster and is now ahead of Berrong on a deep depth chart. Still, it’s tight end so a lot of them will play and get involved.
Tier 1 – It’s Go Time, Baby
OG Rocco Spindler
0.9714
90
OT Blake Fisher
0.9738
97
PK Josh Bryan
0.8189
89
With hindsight it was a little audacious to expect Rocco Spindler to come in and win a starting guard job in 2021. However, you can’t fault the effort in immediately being in the mix on the two-deep and making it interesting before bowing out and settling into someone who only got some mop-up duty. We’ll see what happens with the health with Josh Lugg who many think will slide inside to guard for his final season. That might be a positional battle Notre Dame hopes Spindler will grab outright.
The future is so bright for Blake Fisher that you’ll blind yourself if you stare at it for more than 5 seconds. The only big question for him this off-season is whether he starts at left tackle (where he won the job out of camp) or if he stays at right tackle where he played in the bowl game.
Most of us were really high on Josh Bryan coming in as a freshman even though with Doerer coming back for a final season we didn’t expect Bryan to participate much in 2021. He ended up finishing the season with only a single garbage time PAT, and that’s it. It was curious to see Doerer fighting through injuries and still Bryan wasn’t utilized for kickoffs at the very least. Now, the program is welcoming in Blake Grupe (64 of 86 field goals made in 4 years at Arkansas State) as a grad transfer in what seems like, from the outside, a vote of no confidence in Bryan. Or, maybe they really want 2 good kickers!?
This seems like pretty far and away the best offensive freshman class we’ve had under BK. Not saying they will end up being the best (hopefully they will), but when is the last time we got this much production from freshman. Pretty bright future.
Yeah, the early emergence of Joe Alt–and to a lesser extent Mitchell Evans–really changes the equation, too. It seems like they’re going to hit on the top-ranked guys to varying degrees and then 2 of the lower-rated guys really made moves in 2021.
What does the OL look like if Fisher never gets hurt? We probably never find out about Alt, or at least not yet. But I wonder just how much better the first half of the season would have been for the offense. Considering how awesome Fisher was in the bowl game, even after the long layoff, he might have really helped avoid a lot of their troubles.
I bet it would’ve been more like Lugg coming back made more sense then this spring headlines: Actually, Joe Alt is going to start at tackle.
Jackson Arnold just committed to OU – https://twitter.com/_jacksonarnold_/status/1485673689530183682?s=21
Seemed like he was our best shot at a top-100 QB.
Did we have a shot at him in your opinion?
well 247 had him as “warm” for us (I’m sure for other schools too) before the commit.
My opinion is only informed by what is available on one of the pay sites but as of a month ago it seemed like he was going to be the guy.
Are you saying we don’t have much of a shot with Moore or Vizzina?
From my message board-trained eye but no inside information beyond that, it seems like Vizzina would have to have Alabama not want him through this process (they haven’t offered him yet, going after somebody else so far) *and* choose us over Clemson, and Moore also seems unlikely at this point.
Hopefully one of them takes but there doesn’t seem to be a ton of optimism. Maybe that changes if Harbaugh leaves UM and Moore isn’t enthused about his replacement, but we might be at that level of hoping at this point.
Michigan is the lead for Moore at this point? Interesting that he seems mostly interested in midwest schools.
Would be a huge bummer not to get a top 100 QB this cycle and would be a huge strike even against Freeman if we didn’t get one the 2024 cycle.
I’d say it’s more likely than not in the next 2 cycles that Notre Dame will get a big QB commit. Missing on one, who never even visited or really showed too much interest outside a bit of flirtation isn’t really a huge red flag or miss in my eyes.
247 had a recent article on Moore, he said that his recent focus was on his successful state championship HS season and he’s very early in his process and going to be diving more into it now this spring/summer. I wouldn’t pencil him into Michigan, haven’t seen any info that would suggest that, though obviously they will be a major factor and hurdle to overcome. I wouldn’t say Moore to ND is likely, but it’s pretty early to concede defeat as well.
There’s also Nicolas Iamaleava from California, a top-20 who ND has been putting time in too (and USC already has Nelson in their class). The hit rate on big game hunting isn’t high, but Notre Dame is at least working on a lot more elite QB’s now then they have been in the past.
Yea, it seems Moore is pretty open at this point. Seems we haven’t offered Lamaleava yet though (not sure what the hold up would be exactly).
The other QB we offered is 11th (181 national) Avery Johnson. I think he was pretty high on us early on but was obviously not our top choice. It’ll be interesting to see how he reacts to that if we come back to him strongly when/if we are out of it with our top choices.
247 saying Iamaleava got an offer in person when he visited ND in September 2021. He also listed Notre Dame is his final 12 (lol) on Christmas, fwiw.
O my bad, I read their website wrong about it. Yes, he is offered. Right now Bama, Oregon, and UCLA are listed as “warm.” Which of course is only a slight indication of how things were leaning at some for him.
Yes Iamaleava noted how casual Rees was in telling him he had an offer.
Fair enough, though I think the main disappointment was that Arnold was putting out vibes about a month ago that ND was his favorite and then he took one visit to OU and immediately committed.
I do think it’s reasonable to set the bar for acceptable-to-good QB recruiting as at least one top-100 QB every 2 years, and if we miss out on one in this class Tommy Rees’s QB recruiting record is Definitively Bad.
Hmm, maybe BK 2.0’s decision to squander any sort of passing game was a mistake.
I agree on the bar to set, Rees needs a good QB recruit in 2023 to stay on schedule, since the plan should be for this player to start in 2024 (since Buchner either is great by 2023 and leaves, or Wimbush’s his way out by then if he isn’t it the answer).
I don’t really agree the recruiting record is bad so much as it just needs to be kicked up a bit. Between Jurkovec and Buchner they had a good plan the last 5 years, but the plan didn’t exactly work and they do need to recruit a higher quantity of quality QB’s.
But I don’t see how anyone can look at 2023 progress and not be encouraged. Between Moore, Arnold, Vizzina and Iamaleava, Notre Dame has been way more involved in early stage recruiting for elite QB’s this cycle than probably 2019-22 combined. Got to turn the early work into getting one signed, but given Freeman’s great results on top-100 players in 2022+23 on defense, it’s only a matter of time before he’s doing that on offense too, IMO.
Hope you’re right! We’re certainly seemingly more “in on” more high-level QBs than any year since I started paying closer attention…
But also we probably should be naturally this year anyways, no? We’re a team who has gone to the playoff 2x in the last 4 years and these 2023 QBs would be entering as true freshmen during, as you say, the likely last year (one way or another) of an incumbent starter. If we can’t get a top-100 QB under those circumstances, I think it’s fair to view Rees’ recruiting as a significant problem (since you mentioned Jurk, as a reminder he wasn’t responsible for his commitment, so his sole top-100 guy is Buchner. Which may be enough for now, hopefully, but really not great overall).
Rees is listed as secondary recruiter for Jurkovec, behind Sanford who had left well before Jurkovec enrolled. Why or how could you not give credit to Rees for Jurkovec? It’s only fair to acknowledge Rees is as responsible as anyone for helping to recruit him or at least hold serve to keep him..
https://247sports.com/Player/Phil-Jurkovec-86287/high-school-155850/
I don’t know the timeline exactly but I wouldn’t give Rees much credit IF he became the main recruiter of Jurkovec long after he was already committed.
Keeping a guy in the fold does not deserve as much credit as getting them there I would think.
Nor would a secondary recruiting get as much credit as the primary recruiter, no?
Sure, it’s clearly not as the same as being primary recruiter throughout the whole process (which Rees clearly wasn’t). But at the same time, I don’t think one should completely eliminate Rees from the Jurkovec equation either, because Rees was a part in getting him over the line and signing with Notre Dame.
We can qualify this case accurately as a collaborative effort with Sanford, Long and BK, but Rees deserves a piece of recognition for Jurkovec when looking at QB recruiting.
Jurkovec committed to ND in May 2016. Tommy Rees joined the coaching staff in January 2017. There’s a big difference in recruiting between “he helped him commit” and “the new position coach was sufficiently OK that the otherwise solid commitment didn’t decommit.” Rees deserves the latter amount of credit, which isn’t that much really.
Ah yes, because elite QB’s often stick with their verbal commitments after seeing a 4-8 season and watching the entire staff get wiped out.
I did recognize that Rees wasn’t the primary, but this very overly downplays the contribution.
Didn’t mean that to sound so hostile, and really the whole Jurkovec experience at Notre Dame probably is a net negative/red flag for Rees as a talent developer…But it still is in his 247 profile as a recruiting win, and deservedly so.
He was afraid of the competition with Powlus
With Powlus, my understanding is that family members of staff get their schooling paid for (scholarship). Powlus wanted to be part of the football team. All the rules governing scholarships for athletes by the NCAA basically made his scholarship a football scholarship. I’m pretty sure all of us were a bit surprised on signing day when it was announced he was a signed scholarship athlete for the football team. Kind of wish he would have taken his talents to Northern Illinois or the Sunbelt or somewhere else. However I guess he made the 40 year decision.
I don’t think Montgomery Van Gorder counted against our scholarship limit though, right?
Did it matter if his scholarship counted or not?
We were giving walk-on players full scholarships for the rest of their career and still not getting near any trouble of breaching the 85-man limit.
Not belittling the walk on guys, just saying that our HS recruiting was not at the point where we needed to worry about the upper limit.
And yet, we are still doing that with scholarships, just look at our special teams.
Of course, that’s a bit tongue in cheek. It’s not because we don’t have people, like 10 years ago, things just seem a lot more flexible. Maybe because we are recruiting better on D, some of the older/lesser players are seeing the writing on the wall (Offord, Wallace, etc).
Powlus was still a low 3-star though, MVG wasn’t ranked at all. So there is at least a bit of a different level there. Not sure if it was committable but Powlus did have an offer from an SEC school (Kentucky). Y’all are acting like he’s just some guy off the street with a famous name. The name doesn’t hurt, but he is at least a low-end viable D1 QB on his own.
There’s some value to have that as a 4th string who you know isn’t going to transfer and be above walk-on quality QB. Just to have a real QB who can play in the even of disaster (i.e. if Pyne would have gotten hurt at one point wasn’t Buchner injured and Coan at least hobbled if not unavailable himself? It could happen..).
As mentioned, it’s not like ND ever gets to 85+ anyways before the start of a year, even with bigger recruiting classes. Powlus might just be a practice player, but to keep as a 4th scholarship QB, that’s probably worth one of the 85 to me with enough value (scout team in practice, camp arm, extreme emergency depth). Who else are you going to give it to a 17th OL or a DB not in the two-deep? Might as well take an extra QB.
In a perfectly efficient vacuum, sure, he’s unnecessary — but we don’t live in that kind of world. I don’t mind him being there, even if it is a bit nepotistic since that is the reason he is on scholarship. But it’s not really blocking anything, just another arm to have around.
I was actually agreeing with you. We gave Powlus a Football scholarship that actually counts against our 85 limit, while I think MVG did not. Because our staff actually believes/believed he is a viable DI QB.
Fair enough, wasn’t trying to jump on your back, just adding to the discourse
Hooks spot on. One less worry as far as the portal. Same with our new kicker and punter, insurance policies at the very least.
As they always say, you can never have too many kickers, long snappers, or legacy scout team quarterbacks on scholarship.
To be fair(?), this year appears to show that the math for that basically works so long as you only have like 5 WRs
As I say, YCNHTMKLSLSTQ.
This is catchy!