This isn’t a list of the best players at Notre Dame. The top 25 rankings from our illustrious writing staff will be coming soon. Today’s list is more of a look at Notre Dame’s weaknesses and which players can step into those areas to make the Irish a lot more well-rounded and competitive. I like to think about it as not so much raising Notre Dame’s ceiling but more so really raising the floor of the team.
Players who just missed the cut:
S DJ Brown
DE Rylie Mills
CB Clarence Lewis
C Zeke Correll
WR Jayden Thomas
Now for our top 5 list:
#5 PK Blake Grupe
Notre Dame’s transfer kicker isn’t in an envious spot. He’s tiny (even for kicker standards), has no history as an Irish recruit, and many people think he already stinks based off a couple kicks in the spring game. Such is life with kickers, where even a 70% success rate can lead to plenty of death stares. For example, departing kicker Jonathan Doerer finished with a 75.4% success rate on field goals and there are probably enough people who think he struggled too often.
Yet, even one field goal miss can turn a season.
Going with no. 99 is certainly a choice.Â
I actually think Grupe will surprise the naysayers, he’s got a nice follow through and more pop on his kicks than his size suggests. But, until we see it consistently the kicking game is a major weakness and opening up in Columbus, even with PAT’s and kickoffs, is going to be a massive spotlight for the Arkansas State transfer.
#4 RB Chris Tyree
Tyree graces our header photo of today’s article and was originally higher in these rankings. He falls back a little bit for mostly positive reasons at the running back spot. One, Tyree looks ready to be the no. 1 running back and a weapon in the passing game. This shouldn’t be a big surprise as we hear good news during August. Tyree has all the tools to be an excellent running back, including his speed.
Outside of the Jadarian Price season-ending injury the news has been good for the running backs with Audric Estime developing and in the mix, plus the shoulder injury recovery for Logan Diggs looking optimistic enough that he could be available way sooner than expected.
Still, Notre Dame needs a huge effort from Tyree and the running backs. We know the offense is going to heavily rely on the ground game in certain parts of the season and being able to rely on 13 to 15 carries per game from Tyree could be great medicine for the offense. He’ll also need to improve his vision, balance, and ability to break tackles in order to better his 3.96 yards per carry average from last year.
#3 QB Tyler Buchner
Buchner could be, and maybe should be, no. 1 on our list. But, that’s not as much fun. There’s a timeline where Buchner is solid-to-good overall in his first year of starting and this is where he brings a lot of importance to the floor of the 2022 Fighting Irish.
If we’re looking at Notre Dame living up to its pre-season ranking well Buchner is going to be pretty damn important. I think he’ll get his and put up some gaudy numbers. If I am Tommy Rees then a 3,000 passing/1,000 rushing season should be a goal. That would put Buchner close to the single-season school record (Brady Quinn, 2005, 4,009 yards) for total yards.
If he can stay healthy, those figures don’t seem crazy. That total yards record has to fall at some point, right? There have been well over 100 players in college history who have thrown for over 4,000 yards and 18 have even surpassed 5,000 yards in one season. Surely, the Irish will get someone to surpass Quinn’s (relatively) modest record soon?
Buchner’s season of importance could come down to turnovers, picking up third downs, and converting in the red zone. Those are three of the most important things that could overshadow a strong season in total yards.
#2 LB Marist Liufau
How good is the Notre Dame linebacker corps? It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot this off-season. Individually, I don’t think Irish fans are ready to rave about anyone to a great degree. The one exception may be redshirt junior Marist Liufau. It feels like he’s this mega veteran ready to come back from injury yet in total Liufau has 22 tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss in his entire career.
He’s still largely unproven as a starting linebacker over the length of a full season.
Tribal arm sleeve is worth 15 extra tackles and 3 sacks.
How do we feel about a starting lineup of Jack Kiser, JD Betrand, and Bo Bauer? That’s…just okay? Big-time recruits Prince Kollie (concussion during fall camp) and Jaylen Sneed would have to really make a big jump late in August to athletically transform this group. A full healthy season from Liufau with his size, range, and havoc rate (from his small sample size) is really needed to keep this defense playing at a high level.
#1 WR Lorenzo Styles
Styles was in contention for the top spot on our list and with the season-ending knee injury to veteran receiver Avery Davis he’s the no-doubt pick as the most important player for Notre Dame. As things stand today, the Irish may have to open up their first snaps in Columbus with Braden Lenzy moved to the slot and Jayden Thomas with no career catches on the outside. There will probably be a copious amount of tight ends playing in the slot (Michael Mayer probably is flexed out 20% more now without Davis on the field) and even more motioning out of the running backs, too. It will force a lot more creativity from Tommy Rees & Co. that’s for sure.
We’re going to need a lot of this in 2022.
That kind of stuff can only go so far, though. There will be times when Mayer is going to be schemed out, or nicked up, or off the field and someone like Lorenzo Styles is going to have to step up and carry the offense. My talk of a 4,000+ yard Buchner season will come to a screeching halt if Styles doesn’t have a true breakout season.
What would be a breakout season?
Something like 60 receptions is a good start. That would be the most since Chase Claypool in 2019 for Notre Dame. Styles has big-play ability and really good speed but his average may be lower just because this offense is likely to force-feed him the ball on a ton of shorter routes, screens, and things of that nature. Can he get up to 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns?
Great article. I was a little surprised at #1, I would have gone with Braden Lenzy as the candidate from the WR core. I agree with the logic on why Styles is obviously important, but I feel the risk is mitigated because we also know he’s going to be a great player. His floor is very high, and only being struck down by a random injury (which could happen to literally anyone at any time) is about the only thing to stop him from being solid at worst.
That’s why I think Lenzy is more important, the variance of what his season could be is huge. Too often he’s been a non-factor or invisible, but if he has that patented Asmir Bilal senior boost out of the blue, Lenzy has the speed to be a huge difference maker. Or even as a diversion on fake jet sweeps for Buchner/Tyree to benefit from drawing the defense the wrong way.
Also agree with the analysis that Buchner is truly #1, but where is the fun in that.
Punter bro must not have gotten a vote
1) Kicker
2) Punter
3) Long snapper
4) Backup long snapper
If the list of the five most important players had some mixture of this list, it would not have surprised me:
Braden Lenzy
Joe Wilkins
Lorenzo Styles
Deion Colzie
Jayden Thomas / Tobias Merriweather
My biggest worry going into the season is the receiver room. I won’t be surprised when 80% of our short yardage situations have 13 personnel formations.
I probably would have gone with Correll at center over Gruppe. How the o-line gels and plays this year will have a major impact on the floor of the offense. When we get into the shoot out style games with USC and UNC plus Ohio St and Clemson, we will need that o-line to hold up.
Cautiously optimistic about RB because I’m drinking the Harry Hiestand Kool-Aid. I think Tyree and his running style will benefit hugely from an O-Line that can push the LoS and get to the second level, but also confident that a good O-line can make an average back look pretty good (looking at your, Deon McIntosh)
Our O-line push was so bad last year. I was watching the Coan-finger-dislocation-TD-pass highlight from last year where Coan gets his finger dislocated on pressure the previous play, then on the TD play Toledo (Toledo!) gets pressure on a four man rush with Kyren held in to block and has to step up just to hit Mayer down the seam.
Pessimistic on LIafau. Maybe it’s Avery Davis recency bias, but I feel like some people are just injury prone and Marist is one of them. And yes, my worst fear is that TB is also one, after last year’s hamstring and this year’s Blue/Gold game.
I’m kinda iffy on the run game, but we’ll see. Tyree breaking tackles, we know strength hasn’t been his strength. Diggs is too patient and even on the podcasts they’ve been saying in practice that Estime has a tendency to try and cut to the outside. I don’t really think he’s the true power back, “blast it up the middle” type that many just see his body type and think that he is.
Do have high hopes that Buchner and the motioning and jet sweep threat will keep defenses on their toes. But I get the feeling it’s going to be a lot more feast or famine, not the traditional 3 yards and a cloud of dust to wear ’em down. At least against the best four teams on the schedule.
ND being stuck with punting or going for it on the opponents 42 will have ND fans dander up at some point. “Griping about Gruppe” will be a thing.
Reports are Tyree looks stronger, we can hope. We’re going to need to move the ball some on the ground Sept. 3.
Buchner, 2800 yds. passing 18 TDs 700 rushing 12 TDs. I’m hoping that the threat of him running opens up other things more so than he runs a bunch. He is going to be a dangerous rushing threat deep in the red zone.
I’m not worried about the LBs. They’re a solid group.
All the WRs need to step up. There can’t be disappointments in that group.
That Quinn record shocked me for 3 reasons:
1. It was my freshman year
2. That was 17 years ago
3. It was an 11 game season, plus bowl game, one less than subsequent seasons (I wonder if Clausen breaks it in 09 if they’d accepted a bowl bid… just checked and it would have required a 400 yard day so maybe!)
Not only that, Darius Walker had 1,196 yards on the ground that year!
That offense was really, really good.
I would be absolutely blown away by a 3,000/1,000 season from Buchner.
For context, that would be about 500 yards shy in each category of Lamar Jackson’s numbers when he won the Heisman. It would be almost exactly equal to Vince Young’s 2005 national title season.
Here’s hoping.
At first, I thought you meant Jackson won the Heisman with 500 rushing and 2,500 passing and I was very confused.
Yeah I had to do a double take on that one. Factoring in the possibility of injury, I think odds are much better he throws for under 2k than over 3k this season.
In any case like the article says he’s the real #1. As much of a skeptic as I am, particularly for this season, if he gets seriously hurt or is a dud a 10+ win season is basically immediately out of the question. Not sure that’s the case even for Styles.
If he stays healthy what numbers do you foresee?
If I had to put money on it, I actually think somewhere around 850 rushing yards is where Buchner will end up.
Based on a 13-game season, Buchner would need to average 242.69 passing yards per game to eclipse 4,000 total yards.
I go back and forth on that figure. It’s basically the exact same as Coan last year. Roughly 10 more yards per game than 2019-20 Book. Just a tick below Kizer in 2015. Well below Golson 2014 or Rees 2011.
But yeah, health is obviously important.
I think about 2,000 passing, 800 rushing would be a very successful season for him as a first-time starter with a razor-thin WR crew. That would be slightly better than Wimbush’s 2017.
Talking about Buchner equaling or surpassing 2005 Brady Quinn is pretty nutty right now, to be frank.
Not sure if that’s the right framing. Hell, 2019 Ian Book had 3,500 total yards and was in the neighborhood. The 2021 ND QBs combined for almost 3,700 passing yards, they were right there too.
I would take your outlook (~2k passing, 800 rushing) as a good baseline to hedge against injury, but I don’t find it so unbelievable that a running QB can/should be in the 3,500-4,000 yard mark for a year, health permitting.
And shoot, if Buchner stays healthy, he’s going to probably be close to at least 3k passing yards on his own. Add in his running and then he’s creeping up to 4k total yards like 2005 Quinn, albeit in a very different manner.
FWIW, I don’t think 2005 Brady Quinn is a good framing either, but it’s the record Eric referenced as being a good goal for Buchner to break. Buchner and Quinn are about as different as two QBs can get.
But that is the record. Don’t think it means Buchner >>> Quinn in any way if he surpasses it, though.
It is difficult to compare a pocket-passer to a dual-threat.
We are closely aligned on this one, Hooks.
I’d be surprised if Buchner did get 4,000 yards but like I said it’s an okay goal. He’s bigger, faster Book with a much better arm. Doesn’t seem crazy to me that he could have a little better total yardage.
2,000 passing yards for Buchner would be really, really bad. Unless we’re factoring in him missing games. He was nearly at that average in like 7 offensive series’ against Va Tech last year. An entire season of that little of passing yards would be terrible.
“Really, really bad” seems like an overstatement. Wimbush — a dual threat QB who is much more similar to Buchner than Quinn — had 1,870 passing and 804 rushing in 2017, his first year as a starter. He missed one game that year, against UNC. We won 10 games and, with the exception of Miami, looked very good doing it.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but what I’m hearing is that it would be a good and realistic goal for Buchner, as a first-time starter, to put up the best single-season performance by an ND QB in almost 20 years. That strikes me as unrealistic.
Wimbush was the worst passing ND quarterback this century, no? Pyne might be starting by week 3 if that’s the passing baseline. I think he’s way more talented as a passer and would be very surprised with 150 yards per game through the air. The only way it happens if we’re running the ball 45-50 times per game.
No, like I said Buchner has the ability to put up some big numbers but other factors mentioned in the article could be determining how “good” he will be this year.
The game has changed, too. Quinn’s record was almost 20 years ago. Like I said, at some point we’ll get someone to break it (dual-threat guy seems likely) but I wouldn’t just say that QB is automatically better.
That’s all fair, but I am going to remain skeptical on Buchner until I see it. The vibes for what Buchner is like from camp most remind me compared to any other ND QB this century of… pre-2017 Brendan Wimbush! Not perfectly analogous, and I fully expect him to be a better passer than Wimbush, but you don’t exactly hear people saying this guy is going to be an day 1 or 2 NFL draft pick one day.
I’ll be very disappointed and surprised if by mid season Buchner’s passing is reminding me of Brandon Wimbush at all.
Even if it does, that may not be his fault. Xavier Watts is now practicing at WR, and Colzie and Thomas are reportedly banged up.
Passing requires receivers too.
Ugh. Watts moving sucks. He probably would be the most ready to play, but I feel like he was probably the last person they wanted to move.
Yeah, he is probably the best choice in terms of being able to maybe help this year. I could see him being able to by the third game of the year play 10-15 snaps a game but it sucks because long-term this hurts at safety.
Next year we could lose DJ Brown, Griffith, and Brandon Joseph at Safety so Watts would potentially be in line to start or at least be a major part of the rotation next year at DB, but now that appears out of the question.
We hopefully are super confident in Henderson and Walters to continue to progress and then hope that a current freshman or Peyton Bowen (if we hold on to him) will be ready to contribute at Safety next year.
I think they had asked him before spring practice to move to WR but he didn’t want to. Maybe now he sees that he’s isn’t making headway for PT at safety and can see how he could easily get significant snaps this year at WR if he is competent.
I think that this has to be it, but as I mentioned below I just don’t like the choice long-term.
Especially since next year we should have Jaden Greathouse and Rico Flores who will both be ready to contribute even slightly at WR if needed.
I’m getting old and can’t remember pre-2017 Wimbush stuff! I went back and re-read some stuff though.
I get the comparison skill-set wise. But, Buchner played a ton more as a true freshman (Wimbush took a handful of snaps) while Buchner is starting in his second year whereas Wimbush didn’t play at all taking a redshirt in 2016.
The 2017 spring news for Wimbush was pretty good, but it seemed heavily invested in his recruiting rankings and athleticism. Then, he was very quickly proven to be not that good within a couple games of starting.
Buchner is so more advanced at a younger age, we’ll see if it translates to the field.
Wimbush also beat out SO Book (who was not good at all by 2017). Buchner beat out Pyne, who has experience and has been about replacement level (or as I call it, Rees level).
I don’t find Buchner/Wimbush passing comparisons to be that apt at all. Wimbush had a lot of limitations (the infamous passing windows drill) and couldn’t complete basic college passes with consistency like the quick hitters on RPO. Buchner already proved he could do that in a game vs UNC last year.
I’d put Jurkovec as a much similar type of profile to Buchner if the mission had to be to make a comparison. There were some questions early about their mechanics on both and if they had the right touch. And Buchner is a better runner.
I’d also point to Jurkovec’s first year at BC (2558 yards, 61% in 10 games) as a good goal for Buchner, though Jurkovec only threw 7 INT and Buchner likely will have more.
Wimbush was a career 50.5% passer! Buchner in a small sample and true freshman is clearly more advanced than Wimbush already. By an easy margin.
I think this is a fair analysis and a good comparison.
I think the Jurk comparison is pretty good, but I’m just talking in terms of overall vibes. The Jurk vibes once he was on campus were always even more negative than anything pre-2017 Wimbush (which, ppl forget, everyone acted like he would be a star) or now for Buchner.
Just to be totally clear I don’t expect Buchner to be as bad of a passer as Wimbush was (though also he probably won’t be at his level as a runner, though closer there at least). I just think that there is an underlying assumption for some that the passing game will be good this year, and I’m pretty skeptical of that.
I get the skepticism for the passing game, especially in the big picture without many WR options.
It does depend how much of a step forward Buchner’s made in the off-season. I think he’ll be decent, possibly pretty good. That could be projecting too much, but I suppose we will all find out pretty soon.
I actually think the Wimbush vibes were better than the Buchner vibes (though I highly doubt anyone suggested he would pass for 3k yards if they had seen any of his practices).
No one had ever really seen anything of him in a game and there was no real QB competition, so it was just like here is this top 100 recruit with tons of athleticism. Let’s goooo.
Buchner on the other hand has 3 picks and was in a QB competition with Pyne. So despite the suggestion that BQs record should be a goal, I think overall expectations aren’t as high as it might seem.
The BQ record being a goal is more of a reflection of the times and the lack of ND QB success than saying he’s going to have an amazing year.
Here are some P5 4,000 yd passers since BQ (passing yds only):
Will Rogers, Brennan Armstrong, Sam Hartman, Davis Webb, Sean Mannion, Nick Florence.
The list is also littered with great QBs, but you don’t have to be amazing to have a great season. The WR situation probably makes 3k a pretty big reach though.
Absent injury, he of course should be over 2k and then 3k+ is in play. Still, even with a promise of full health if you gave me a choice of 3k+ or under 2750 I’d take the under 2750 for Buchner. I just don’t see too many 250+ yard passing games in his future for this year, particularly with the receiver situation we have.
That’s totally fair. For a full season I’d say something like this for a window:
2,500-2,800 passing
600-850 rushing
That seems more realistic as a goal, i.e., what Buchner could achieve if he plays well and doesn’t get injured.
Yeah, that’s the sweet spot for reasonable expectations during a mostly healthy/11- or 12-start season I think.