Five Wide Fullbacks marks its return as the football team enters a much-needed period of rest over the bye week. In this edition, we will discuss coaching grades for the Irish staff, the best and worst surprises from the current roster, a look ahead to the 2025 schedule, plus you know there will be a uniform question snuck in there, too.
1) Which player through the first part of this season has been the biggest surprise for Notre Dame?
There are a handful of really good candidates, especially looking over expectations that were set prior to fall camp. Transfer nickelback Jordan Clark has looked quite good so far and I didn’t believe in the hype ever since he was (more or less) handed the job back in the spring. Leonard Moore being tabbed by those within the program (although we haven’t seen a ton on the field yet) as a future All-American was not on anyone’s radar. I’d throw safety Kennedy Urlacher in there as another guy whose stock seems to be rising quickly.
But the answer here HAS to be Anthonie Knapp, right?
What a great story in 2024.Â
This is one of the more insane rises to starting competence from an unheralded recruit that I can ever remember in South Bend. I really didn’t even think Knapp was going to be a starter down the road looking at this past recruiting class. When he was first mentioned as a choice at left tackle I thought someone in the media got their player numbers mixed up. Add in a biblical amount of injuries along the offensive line and Knapp’s rise from the mix and it’s kind of mind boggling. He’s looked pretty good for a true freshman starting from day one.
2) Which player has been the biggest disappointment so far in 2024?
We can zero in on the transfer market where there’s been a lot of hit and miss this year. So far, Mitch Jeter, Beaux Collins, and Jordan Clark have been very good pick ups. Jayden Harrison has been fine, Rod Heard maybe a little underwhelming but adding decent play, and Tyler Buchner has been signaling in those signs just fine.
The easy answer here is Riley Leonard because of the importance of the quarterback position. How about these other options?
James Rendell – Taking a chance on someone who had never played American football in their life isn’t looking like a smart decision. There was speculation that Rendell could have more years of eligibility after this season and I’m not sure he’d be winning a job if any competition comes in next year. Although to be fair, he does look to be getting a little more comfortable on the field.
RJ Oben – There’s still time left to turn things around but to this point Oben has been a complete whiff in the portal. Does anyone have a PFF grade available for him? He’s been really invisible and doesn’t look athletic enough (no TFL’s through 5 games) to be a starter when his known weakness coming in was as a rush defender. This is a weird one because he was generally well regarded at Duke.
Kris Mitchell – This one hurts a little bit more because there was a brief window of hype and promise for Mitchell in the off-season and during camp. We have to grade on a curve due to the poor passing game, of course. Still, Mitchell has 3 catches for 37 yards in games that Notre Dame has won this year. He did bring in 3 balls for 32 yards against NIU.
To pick one it has to be Oben, especially with the injuries along the defensive line.
3) Time for some (almost) mid-season coaching grades! Which Irish assistants are hot or not, and what kind of grade does Marcus Freeman get through 2024 so far? What odds are there of a major coaching staff shake up this off-season?
I’ll list the coaching staff as they appear on the website. I went into this full of brimstone and fire although looking it over again things don’t seem nearly as poor as I thought. We’re getting further and further away from that NIU loss. To be clear, I’m going off this year only.
Marcus Freeman, Head Coach: D+
And we’re off with a hot take. You can’t lose to NIU (currently 93rd in FEI) and get a quality grade, I’m sorry. That game was full of such negligence that I can’t put anything higher on the report card right now. Things have been trending up nicely since then, so let’s consider that Freeman has the chance to hand in some extra homework the rest of the season and seriously improve this grade.
Al Golden, Defensive Coordinator: A
Look at me, a true Golden believe now. Once upon a time I was a skeptic. No longer! The NIU loss had some poor moments for the defense but they have been so banged up and still playing at a high level anyway. Great job overall by Big Al.
Mike Denbrock, Offensive Coordinator: B
Some of the offensive stats and advanced stats are shockingly impressive in 2024. But yes, NIU also lingers as a complete stink bomb. I really thought the people believing Denbrock was going to take this offense to the moon were misplaced and now he’s had to deal with a pretty crappy injury situation on offense. He’s doing a decent job with everything but it’s not that memorable all the same.
Marty Biagi, Special Teams Coordinator: C-
I feel like this should be lower. Special teams have been far from crisp and a handful of mistakes have been costly. The jettisoning of McFerson for Rendell has looked quite poor. Kick return is below average and coming off a lost fumble. I do like integrating walk-on Max Hurleman on punt return and I think the addition of Mitch Jeter is going to pay dividends down the road.
Mike Brown, Wide Receiver: C+
The passing game has cratered and I can’t put that all at the feet of Mike Brown. I look at this a lot like the hype surrounding Denbrock’s return. People should’ve been a little more reserved believing this wide receiver room was suddenly going to be awesome. Brown isn’t killing it in recruiting and the straight answer is this is an incredibly blah season for the receivers right now. If Notre Dame moved on from Brown after 2024 I don’t think anyone will be upset.
Max Bullough, Linebacker: B
I thought there would be more growing pains than there have been, so kudos to Bullough for getting the likes of Bowen, KVA, and Ausberry to play significant minutes at a more than competent level. Now we have Jack Kiser with an injury and apparently Jaylen Sneed is mad he’s not playing more. This could be a tough few games to keep things going at a high level.
Gino Guidugli, Quarterback: C
It’s been 18 games and Guidugli has dealt with a pair of veteran quarterbacks who haven’t exactly looked improved in their time at Notre Dame. That’s a bit curious. It’s such a big picture with quarterbacks and of course it’s not all his fault. He seems to be doing a really good job developing the younger quarterbacks which is pretty important for the future. This position just needs more production and until that happens the grade can’t be higher.
Deland McCullough, Running Back: B+
I was a lot more worried about the running backs this year than just about anyone. Excited, yes. I just thought this was going to be a big step up in every way for Love and Price with growing pains along the way. They’ve been more or less excellent this season and handled the workload really well. Love in particular is zeroing in on a 1,000 yard rushing season at over 6 yards per carry and more than a touchdown per game. Impressive stuff.
Mike Mickens, Defensive Back: A+
Hands down the best assistant right now. This is Mickens’ 5th season at Notre Dame and he’s still just 37 years old. At this point, I’d feel guilty if he didn’t move on to something bigger and better after 2024. He deserves the next step up.
Joe Rudolph, Offensive Line: A
This poor guy has probably dealt with more injuries and personnel issues than any other Irish assistant in many, many years. Given that, the line has been playing surprisingly well. Heading into this weekend they are 9th nationally in rushing yards per carry–and 5th best among Power programs. Leonard has only been sacked 5 times in 4.5 games worth of snaps, that’s quite remarkable! Rudolph is earning his money in 2024.
Al Washington, Defensive Line: B-
I struggled with this grade more than any other and I’m glad it’s last on the list. I originally put a “C” here but then reconsidered. Losing Gabriel Rubio for the early part of the season was a tough blow to this unit. Being without Jordan Botelho for the remaining 9+ games of the season makes this an even tougher job, plus Josh Burnham has been banged up.
The answer to question #2 resides in this position group, though. Plus, this was supposed to be a huge final season for the Cross/Mills duo and instead it’s only been solid to good so far.
4) How about a quick look ahead to next year’s schedule as we’ve seen opponents take the field in 2024? Is there a game that jumps out to you in importance more now than a couple months ago?
This is difficult without knowing the order of all the games yet. I’m assuming we’ll sign some sort of extension with Stanford as the 12th game which would make the 2025 schedule more than half full with main and secondary rivals: USC, Navy, Purdue, Boston College, Miami, and Pitt. The turnaround from visiting Arkansas to hosting Boise State is a refreshing change of pace badly needed for this type of schedule.
The opener against Texas A&M is fine then there’s more ACC fluff with Syracuse and NC State.
A visit to Miami (perhaps in late November?) could be a potential big game. The Hurricanes look like they are on the rise, although how much of that is attributed to Cam Ward at quarterback and what will they look like offensively in 2025?
5) Which team across the country has updated their uniforms the best so far in 2024?
I can’t remember if I caught this in the off-season or in the lead up to the season. I have to talk about Virginia Tech. Last year, they had these super wide orange collars that stretched onto the back of their jersey with another wide white stripe that was draped over the shoulder. I didn’t hate it. The picture below I put in because they so often were not wearing white pants at home anymore.
2023 uniforms.
2024 uniforms.
Well, this year the program switched back to their 1990’s era uniforms and I love it. Virginia Tech doesn’t usually come to mind when you think about uniforms but for me these just scream classic college football–and firing up NCAA Football on Playstation in the early 2000’s. Bringing back the orange TV numbers is an awesome touch. That’s one of my favorite uniform quirks in the country.
Some really interesting things to ponder here E. The 2025 schedule looks much more interesting and difficult. The coaching grades by seasons end may find a handful of them getting passes due to injury. Rudolph and Washington are in that group already and have big jobs ahead getting very young supposedly talented players ready for 2025. Obviously Guidugly and Brown have their work cut out for them too. Freeman will most likely be looking for a new DB coach this off season.
So, adding it all up, a tougher schedule, replacing your best position coach, replacing a few important position groups with young inexperienced talent, needing an upgrade at another and being in a “prove it” position for 25′ , especially if we a lose a couple more this year, could leave MF in a very vulnerable position for 2026.
Hopefully we can keep Mickens by promoting him in some meaningful way (co-defensive coordinator or something like that).
I’m extremely curious as to what Al Golden’s long-term goal is. He’s only 55. Does he want to try being a P5 head coach again? Is he loving being a DC and doing less recruiting work? Does he want to get back to the NFL?
Regardless, if he’s planning to be here for 2025, it would make a ton of sense for him to want to promote Mickens to Co-DC. Doing anything you can to keep your top assistant happy has to be a major priority. (I’m not sure how big his ego is, so maybe being Co-DC simply would be a nonstarter for him though)
If Golden walks this offseason, things get a bit more murky. Does Freeman think Mickens is ready to run a defense on his own? Denbrock should be able to fully handle the offense, so Freeman can give him a ton of help (and maybe even call plays?). It’s going to be really nerve-wracking to see how this all plays out this offseason.
Pretty good summary. I thought you were a little tough on the punter — his punts never seemed to hurt the game outcomes and he does seem to be showing improvement. But I also thought you were a little easy on Buchner — I think there’s a clear correlation between Buchner’s presence and the uninspired QB play at ND
Yeah, for a punter who has zero touchbacks, 45% inside the 20, and a low average due in part to short fields he’s getting a lot of flack over the 2 or 3 shanks he’s had.
His punts in the first game statistically weren’t that bad but they looked really weak on the eye test
5 games in his stats are still good…there have only been 45 return yards on those punts. Dude deserves praise for very good performance
His performance has not hurt ND. It has not been good. Many of his punts have not traveled far enough in the air to be returned. He was better last game. Beginners jitters maybe.
The eye test everyone seems to be using to say Rendell hasn’t performed well is objectively wrong. On 22 punts this year the opponents starting field position, including any return, is just behind the 27. On 10 of those punts the opponent started between the 35 and 47 those punts were kicked from an average of ND’s own 20. On 8 of those 22 punts the opponents field position was between the 5 and the 16. The dude would probably be one of the top punters in college football if this wasn’t his first season ever doing it.
It’s not. Rendell is 95th in punting average. 87th in net punting average. His long is 96th. Punting is tricky numbers like that don’t give you the fully story, but those are pretty abysmal. For comparison, certified Punt God Tory Taylor was #3 in average and #2 in net. Araiza was #1 and #7 in those in his last year. He does have 10 inside the 20, which is high up the list and helps explain some of those shorter kicks, but he has not been some prodigy like we were sold on.
Lesson is to never listen to Notre Dame beat writers
The number i gave show the actual situations he was in, and the situation he gave to the ND defense. Not sure which beat writers you mean since i used raw data.
Further, 5 of his punts came from the opponent side of the field and 3 more between the ND 45 and 49….that’s where the low average is coming from
Another big positive surprise for me: Tuihalamaka. I wasn’t sure he was ever going to see the field again and even though he’s playing so much because of injuries, he’s been a pleasant surprise.
Also will mention Wagner, but more as a question. Haven’t heard his name much, but that’s usually good for OL. He was a pretty big question mark going into fall camp. Seems like he’s probably been playing better than expected, but I’m curious if anyone has more insight on how well he has actually been playing.
And another horrific call by ACC officials to cost UNLV a win in overtime over Syracuse. Why the hell are we still tied to this garbage conference?