The official University of Notre Dame football depth chart for the 2024 season is soon to be released into the wild as the program travels down to College Station to open another year of fun. This is fun, right? In advance, 18 Stripes will give one more thorough look through the Irish roster and present the shape of the depth chart as we interpret it with August practices rolling along.
Before we look at who is playing, we’ll start with the dreaded injuries.
Injury Report
OUT: RB Gi’Bran Payne, OT Charles Jagusah, DT Gabriel Rubio, LB Kahanu Kia
DOUBTFUL: N/A
PROBABLE: NG Howard Cross
This summer has been another example of how, no matter what, when there are injuries many people will freak out and start questioning everything from the equipment and training intensity to the strength and conditioning coach. No doubt, losing Jagusah was a big blow and is the injury at a spot Notre Dame really couldn’t afford. No debate there.
In recent days, there’s been some speculation about the hamstring of Howard Cross. Is it worse than let on? Or is it simply load management and being smart with one of the best players on the team? We would hope he’ll be ready to play and feel 100% against Texas A&M.
Establishing the Pecking Order
Thoughts on just about every positional unit…
OFFENSE
QB: If there’s an injury to Riley Leonard it should be Steve Angeli running out on the field as the backup. If Leonard is out long-term there’s a decision to be made on whether Angeli holds on to snaps against supposedly “higher ceiling” quarterbacks in Kenny Minchey and CJ Carr.
RB: The top of the running back depth chart is a 1A and 1B rotation by all accounts. Maybe more carries for Price and more overall touches for Love. True freshman Aneyas Williams looks like he’s ascended enough to be in the mix, plus Devyn Ford is now back at running back to add more veteran depth to the mix after spending the spring at safety. If Ford is back in the rotation in the easier games, that probably means a redshirt for true freshman Kedren Young.
WR: Notre Dame came into fall camp with too many slot receivers. They solved that partially by moving 182-pound Jordan Faison (maybe the most slot receiver-y looking of the bunch!) primarily to the outside in support of Kris Mitchell. I’d expect them both to play a lot.
Jayden Harrison came out hot during the spring and then suffered an injury. It feels like he went from “whoa maybe we’ve got something here” back to a decent slot backup with good special teams returning ability this fall. He might be someone we don’t hear from for a game or two only to explode in another game.
Jayden Thomas and Beaux Collins look to have solidified themselves as the boundary receivers. Where is Deion Colzie among this bunch? Potentially behind freshman Micah Gilbert and sharing backup reps so far, it was an interesting decision for him to remain at Notre Dame.
TE: Guess what, Notre Dame is deep at tight end once again. Pre-season All-American Mitchell Evans looks healthy and ready, one of the health issues the team really needed to break their way this August. Behind him, Raridon still offers tantalizing physical skills while the coaching staff appears to be prioritizing the younger Flanagan and Larsen over the oft-injured Bauman and former walk-on Sherwood.
OL: Tosh Baker has made 3 career starts and the last time he started at left tackle was back in 2021 for the Purdue-Wisconsin games in which Notre Dame allowed a combined 10 sacks and things did not go very well, especially the latter game with 3 total rushing yards. The Irish are set to give Aamil Wagner his first career start at right tackle. It’s a less than ideal situation and the backup scenarios are scary. Suddenly, Notre Dame has true freshmen back ups at both tackle spots.
Notre Dame also isn’t super experienced on the interior but maybe this will be a group providing just enough talent and veteran play to stabilize the entire line. Billy Schrauth and Ashton Craig are moving into full-time starting roles and tagged as super promising bigger/better options than their predecessors. Watching Coogan and Spindler fight for playing time, among the guys who do have plenty of experience, feels like a good sign overall.
DEFENSE
DE: Notre Dame should be heading into the season with 5 defensive ends in the rotation right out of the gate. On the strong-side maybe down the line Bryce Young gets in the mix (maybe a 50/50 shot to redshirt) to make it a 6th body. With a shoulder injury and coming in the spring under 200 pounds, it’s probably not in the cards for Loghan Thomas this year. Although he’s up to 224, he’s still 16 pounds lighter than the lightest Vyper on the squad.
That other player would be Boubacar Traore who looks to have passed Junior Tuihalamaka on the depth chart now. Traore played a shockingly low number of snaps last year (27!) given the promise for him now and should easily surpass 100 snaps or more this fall. Last year, Tuihalamaka played 165 snaps.
LB: As a base nickel 4-2-5 defense for a couple years we’re really not sure the status of the Rover position now that Jack Kiser–long the Swiss Army knife and leader at the position–has moved to inside linebacker. They’ve also moved former Rover speedster Jaylen Sneed to back up Kiser, although it’s likely he’ll still play some at Rover (or whatever’s left of that position!) too. It makes you wonder what the plan is for Jaiden Ausberry–who feels very similar to Traore in athletic/ceiling traits and is similarly coming off a season with a tiny amount of playing time–but the difference is Rover has no real extended snaps available.
Without more media access it’s difficult to figure out what is going on at Mike linebacker and if we’re going to see a lot of Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa right away in College Station or if that will be a more gradual introduction as the season rolls on. It feels like Drayk Bowen has been forgotten a little bit and yet he’s likely to play a massive role in 2024!
CB: Corner is the position I’ve probably worried about the least on the entire roster this year. Still, the depth isn’t great. Although you could argue 99% of any roster across the country lacks quality corner depth and after doing these types of articles for so long it’s important to remember rarely does a 4th corner play much on the outside.
True freshman Karson Hobbs looks like he’s starting his career at nickel. In the brief formations the media have seen it’s expected safety Rod Heard should be playing a lot of nickel in this defense, too.
S: Adon Shuler is following up an impressive spring and cementing himself as the long-term solution at safety once Watts moves on to the NFL. The 4th option seemed a bit up in the air as fall camp opened but former walk-on Luke Talich (who was Doing Good Things™ as a true freshman last year before breaking his collarbone) is next in line for playing time. I’d be surprised if any other safeties play more than 20-30 snaps outside of this two-deep.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Thanks to key transfers, the kicking/punting game looks free from drama with the season approaching. Although, having an Australian punter take his first ever American football reps in front of 100,000+ crazy Texans is going to bring some nervous moments.
Greathouse or Faison, Faison or Greathouse for punt returner? Both are extremely slippery although there’s a big gulf in size which could give Greathouse the edge.
Surely, Jayden Harrison was brought in with the idea he’ll be the starting kick returner. Both Ford and Price picked up plenty of experience in this role last year but they are better served staying healthy for their running back duties.
Notes
Notre Dame has yet to name captains for the 2024 season. All 4 captains from last season (Sam Hartman, Joe Alt, JD Bertrand, and Cam Hart) have moved on from the program.
The Irish are officially, or I guess I should unofficially, at 86 scholarships right now. Will someone be leaving the program in the near future? That seems unlikely. A recent Irish Illustrated podcast hinted that NIL is taking care of someone who might not be on scholarship anymore, or something that affect. The team does have former walk-ons in Jordan Faison, Davis Sherwood, and Luke Talich who could be one of those players affected.
Speaking of Faison, in the NNOB (No Name On Back) files, the sophomore wideout is already on his third number with the Fighting Irish. He wore no. 80 last season, switched to no. 5 during the spring, never wore that number on the field as he stayed with the National Championship winning lacrosse team, and has now switched to no. 6 for the 2024 season.
Great rundown. You don’t have a version of the depth chart with player numbers do you? Otherwise might go recreate one myself. I always feel behind learning new numbers when the season starts.
Seems guys switch numbers more than ever. I’ll need to have a roster printed out for the season opener.
Nothing on DL? Are we expecting a 5 man rotation with Mills and Cross getting the majority of snaps?
5 man, do you mean at DT? Onye, Mukam, and Hinish getting some snaps sounds about right to make 5 DT. Rubio will be back at some point of course making 6.
I think 6 DE’s will play (thinking Young will force himself into the lineup to at least get some snaps).
Seems from practice reports it’s going to be Collins who gets the most snaps of the transfer WRs, which is a bit of a surprise. Reading between the lines it sounds like the coaches are slightly disappointed in Mitchell’s abilities (but pleasantly surprised by Collins). As long as one is a solid starting WR we’ll be fine, in either case.
OL, man, that is not promising. Obviously gotta start Baker at the beginning of the year @A&M but what are the odds that he finishes it starting? He has always looked pretty rough out there.
But, o-line aside this is on paper the best ND team since… 2015 maybe if Leonard is as good as he has looked pre-injury? I’m excited to see what they can do, even if the o-line is probably keeping this team out of the possibility of being truly top-tier this year.
Agreed. Collins seems to have really impressed athletically (he was on Feldman’s Freaks List).
I would definitely bet against Baker starting for long. I’m not even convinced he’ll be out there at A&M even if he’s the most likely candidate (I’d only put the odds like 70%). We need someone like Knapp to turn into the next Joe Alt (I wouldn’t bet on it though) for us to reach our potential – which I agree is super high.
It figures that on our best team in a long time the one weakness that could be exploited will be our LT – the one position we’ve basically have at least NFL draft picks if not 1st rounders at for as long as I can remember.
I’m thinking Gray is going to be the opposite starter with Mickey a close 3rd.
Well then…
https://x.com/jacksoble56/status/1824120751764422995
May I interest anyone in a combined 6 starts from the Irish OL heading to College Station?
is it surprising or is it confounding?
I don’t know what to think tbh.
Do we want to see the 2 deep ?
I thiiiink I feel good about it. Assuming we have faith in the coaching staff make sound decisions then this to me is a confident inducing move. Most coaches tend to be conservative in nature going with the safe option which we would think would be the experienced individuals in Coogan/Spindler/Baker.
I thought they were too slow to make moves to the interior OL last year and it cost them. It was clear from the NC State game the interior was a problem so them making this move right now tells me that Freeman is practicing what he’s been preaching, we want to compete everyday and the best person is going to play no matter experience/age/class.
I admit this could be perceived as rose colored glasses/coping.
If Pendleton really will start I feel good about that because he really had to beat out two starters from last year.
Knapp starting is not the same since while he might be the best option there doesn’t seem to be much competition for that spot. Obviously it seems like Knapp is a great athlete and so how some significant upside but I’d feel better about him being named starter if there was more competition or he beat out a former starter.
That’s a fair critique. I guess I feel ok with Knapp beating out Baker. I’m assuming that this was decided on by Rudolph, Denbrock, Freeman plus their team of analysts.
I don’t discredit anyone for feeling nervous or cautious. I guess I’m just feeling confident in this move and this staff as a whole.
Yea, my problem isn’t so much with the decision – it may very well be that Knapp is the best of what we got. But the question is how good is our best at LT (with Knapp)? And it’s really hard to tell because he only beat out someone who could never win a job himself despite being a 5th year senior.
But with Pendleton it’s easy to tell that our best at LG will be pretty good since he beat out two former starters.
And now we get a new OT battle next year.
Yea, or it could be that Jagusah would be the starter of LT next year (assuming health) and that Knapp (among others of course) would battle at some other position. I thought I remember reading somewhere that Knapp’s long-term position might be at guard.
I suppose either way more competition somewhere will make the line much better next year with these young guys getting experience. It’ll be a good problem to have next year and the really athletic guys who will be freshmen next year won’t be forced onto the field.
Yeah. I would assume Jag will be back at LT, since he seemed as locked in as anyone. But I’ve also heard Wagner could be a good guard. So could be a decent shake up if Knapp turns into a great tackle.
I’m pretty sure everyone has more eligibility. Someone like Spindler would probably leave with a degree, but we could have like 7 guys who have started games competing for spots.
Yea maybe Coogan would leave too in that case so at least 6 starters competing for 5 spots. Or really like 3 or 4 guys competing for 2 or 3 spots (C and RG wouldn’t be up for grabs).
Does Craig have 3 more years left too? So we could have this line for another 2 years after this?
Yeah they should. By my (i.e 18S’s) calculations:
Craig, Schrauth, and Wagner have eligibility through the 2026 season.
Pendelton and Knapp have eligibility through 2027.
Jagusah, with an injury year could potentially have eligibility through 2028.
Coogan and Spindler, could either play through 2025, or be gone.
2025/2026 should be very good years on the OL. Even if someone goes pro after ’25, there are still great options for ’26.
Unfortunately, it’s 2024. But hey, Deuce! check out these OL’s you could have in ’26 after Carr is a first round pick after ’25.