I wrote this post this time last year and back then things looked really promising for Notre Dame. Outside of the Virginia Tech and USC you could make the case that every other 2016 opponent didn’t meet expectations at the quarterback position, or at least most programs dealt with a host of problems and injuries at the position.
Let’s see how things are shaping up for the 2017 opponents just under 9 months from the start of the season.
*All eligibility discussed will be for 2016.
TEMPLE
Not only will the Owls have to rebuild without head coach Matt Rhule who left for Baylor but the school’s all-time leader in total offense and touchdown passes is moving on, as well. Philip Walker’s eligibility has been exhausted and he leaves behind him an impressive 20-7 record over his final two years in Philadelphia.
Redshirt sophomore Frank Nutile has played sparingly over the past 2 years but was a co-backup this past year with redshirt freshman Logan Marchi. The former is much larger than the Marchi which offers an interesting choice for a new coach.
A couple of youngsters might throw their hat in the ring, too. Freshman Anthony Russo (.858) was the second highest recruit for Temple in their 2016 class and current commit Todd Centeio (.847) is the highest commit of their 2017 class. It wouldn’t be too shocking if a new coach made a clean break and started over with young talent.
GEORGIA
The Bulldogs started out with grad transfer Greyson Lambert from Virginia last year but he didn’t last long as their starter–didn’t even make it out of the first game. Barring a huge upset it’ll be the Jacob Eason show (No. 5 overall recruit in 2016) for Georgia in the fall. He mostly struggled as a true freshman (55% completions, 6.5 YPA, 14 TD-8 INT) as the typical explosive Dawgs ground game offered little support this past year.
If Eason is unable to play there aren’t any great options currently on campus. Western Kentucky transfer (and Alabama freshman before that) Parker McLeod hasn’t been a factor since arriving in 2015 while former highly-touted recruit Brice Ramsey has been relegated to a gimmicky punter. Current commit Jake Fromm (.977) from a couple hours south of Athens might immediately become the Bulldogs’ backup quarterback.
BOSTON COLLEGE
Former Kentucky 4-star recruit Patrick Towles just finished up his career with the Eagles totaling 1,859 yards and 14 touchdowns on the year. For the entirety of 2016 BC managed just 3,459 yards, 2nd fewest in the country.
The Eagles have a 2-star commit for 2017 so the new starter likely comes from the current roster unless they pick up another grad transfer. Redshirt sophomore Darius Wade was the backup this past fall and has some starting experience from 2015. Redshirt freshman John Fadule also has some brief starting experience. If it’s not either of these players BC should turn to freshman Anthony Brown who was their second highest recruit from the 2016 cycle.
Troy Flutie was suspended in the beginning of the season following an off-season DUI and is officially listed as a receiver now while becoming the holder on special teams.
MICHIGAN STATE
Malik Zaire has shown interest in transferring to East Lansing which gives a clue that the QB situation for Michigan State isn’t in tremendous shape. Fifth-year senior Tyler O’Connor started the season, briefly lost his job, won it back again, and then lost it again but still played a lot overall. In total, all State quarterbacks threw for just 2,668 yards and 19 touchdowns with 11 interceptions.
It’s always seemed like redshirt junior Damion Terry was supposed to the The Guy but he was dreadful throwing the ball (47.8% accuracy, 5.5 YPA, 1 TD on 46 attempts) and hasn’t developed very much as a passer. Former 3-star recruit and redshirt freshman Brian Lewerke also got some time this past fall and was similarly ineffective.
The Spartans have a low 3-star recruit committed right now which doesn’t offer much hope, either.
MIAMI (OH)
Sophomore Billy Bahl played the bulk of the snaps in 2015 and found himself in an off-season competition with redshirt sophomore Gus Ragland until the latter injured his ACL during the spring. Bahl started 2016 playing reasonably well but went down with a shoulder injury forcing true freshman Noah Wezensky into action for a couple games. The Fort Wayne youngster really struggled (307 yards on 53 attempts!) but things were about to turn around for the Redhawks.
Ragland finally got healthy enough to start Miami’s 6th game……..and won every game to take the team from 0-6 to 6-6 while almost making the MAC Championship Game but lost out on a tie-breaker with Ohio. His production was awfully impressive (8.6 YPA with 15 TD and no picks) which should give Ragland a stranglehold on the job heading into the spring.
NORTH CAROLINA
Another school that Zaire was interested in as redshirt junior Mitch Trubisky has turned one year of starting into the top quarterback on Mel Kiper’s recent Big Board. The Mentor, Ohio native had a couple dud performances this past fall but dominated in many others to complete almost 3,500 passing yards, 33 total touchdowns, and just 5 interceptions.
Redshirt freshman Nathan Elliott (.842) was a lightly recruited player who backed up Trubisky in 2016. The Heels also have a couple freshmen who took a redshirt in Chazz Surratt (.894) and Logan Byrd (.877) which could offer a really intriguing spring and fall camp.
Recap
If recruiting rankings are your thing then there’s only one scary quarterback in the first half of the season in Athens. Even then, we have a continuing history of Nick Saban disciples bombing on the offensive side of the ball and Georgia could be losing both Nick Chubb and Sony Michel at running back.
Larry Fedora has a history of developing quarterbacks so we can reasonably assume he’ll have someone quality ready to go by the time they face the Irish. Likewise, it looks like Chuck Martin may have found himself a quality starter who could allow him to take the next step in the MAC.
Michigan State is a little more difficult to predict but I’d error on the side of caution that they’ll have a couple of their guys who haven’t shown much really turn it on next fall. I’m expecting Temple and Boston College to really struggle on offense–the Irish defense should really put the screws in on those teams. I said should!
@Our pass rush will make things miserable for these guys.@
I’ll show myself out.
“These guys” meaning our secondary
UGA and Michigan State are really intriguing in a “not as good you’d think” way. Sparty really struggled but in a way that I’d consider even worse than ND, since it happened with a pretty veteran team. Unless Malik goes there QB looks like a struggle, four of five OL were seniors (and they weren’t very good), and three of their top four receivers are gone. I like Dantonio a lot but this next year will be a huge challenge.
Georgia had an even worse O-Line that put Lambert and mostly Eason in a lot of bad situations they weren’t ready for. They almost have to improve next year, but there’s a long way to go from 93rd in Offensive S&P+ to decency. Frankly I don’t think Jim Chaney is a very good OC, although Isaiah McKenzie scares the hell out of me.
And while I wouldn’t doubt Larry Fedora at this point, the Heels also lose three seniors on the OL and four of their top five receivers (5 of 6 if Elijah Hood goes pro). So reason for optimism with the defense and some “(Insert new DC here) has totally fixed things!” headlines early, especially against the pass, with the huge way too early question marks being the DL/pass rush.
How did Mich. st get so bad so quickly? Did Narduzzi make all the difference? It’s not like recruiting was ever amazing there – so they were always taking 3 stars and developing them into a solid team.
You’re right that the recruiting hasn’t substantially changed, but this year’s senior class didn’t really produce for them and we’ve seen how big an impact even one year of misses/under development / more attrition than usual can make a dent.
Last year’s MSU team had some really bad flaws that this year have really doomed them. The rushing offense has been bad a couple years straight, but last year Cook saved them on passing downs, this year O’Connor has been below replacement level. Turnover luck last season was great and they were 4th nationally in margin, lose a senior QB and some balls don’t bounce your way and in 2016 they were 99th.
Hard to say if Narduzzi is really the cause or not, but the DL thinned out very quickly and the secondary didn’t have that 1st round corner emerging out of nowhere that Sparty had excelled at producing. Overall they just got a bit worse everywhere, had some bad luck, and probably weren’t as good last year as the playoff appearance would seem.
It is really amazing that MSU was never able to turn their great run (11 wins 5 out of 6 years), into better recruiting. It isn’t like they are some upstart from a bad recruiting area. They are a historically good team that spent much of that time recruiting against Brady Hoke.
I watched Eason a number of times this year, and despite the generally not-great output from the Bulldogs, I think the dude is a player. Looks like Matt Stafford 2.0.
Worth noting that while he could well end up the top QB on everybody’s draft board, Trubisky hasn’t actually declared yet. Huge boost for Carolina if he returns.
Kizer declared. Not surprising – though the espn article notes that Kiper and McShay thought he should come back for another year.
https://twitter.com/DKizer_14/status/808372932791726082/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Keith Arnold reported the draft advisory board gave him a 1st round grade. Kiper and McShay aren’t wrong that Kizer would have benefited from more development in college, but if the money’s there I can’t fault a guy for going to get it and trying to develop as a pro.
Big picture his long-term career MAY be better served to stay in school, but tomorrow holds no guarantees. Seeing Zaire go down early in a season on a routine play and never really be the same is the obvious example of why getting paid ASAP is smart in the football world.
Kizer’s not a perfect prospect or QB, but I think he gets henpecked a lot for issues that aren’t his fault or things he can’t control. He’s got a heck of a lot going for him right now, and upwards of 8-figures coming his way, and I hope he does well. Now, it’s Wimbush time.
I agree about short term/long term implications.
Just makes it all the more amazing that we had a 1st round pick and Zaire and we weren’t sure who should start the season.
Agreed. In hindsight, Kelly should have named Kizer starter before Texas, with all the information seemingly point that way in the first place. I can see the WHY he didn’t want to relegate Zaire to backup duty, and also I do believe his statement that the 2 QB’s were in the top 5 of his best playmakers on offense. Sucks to have an overload there when you only need one, but also speaks to the young WR’s who had a drop-off from before. I personally under-estimated the on and off field losses of Fuller, Brown, Robinson, even Carlisle.
He has a lot to work on. He can either stay in school to work on it and not get paid, or he can go to the NFL and get paid to do nothing but work on those things. He’s a smart guy so I don’t have any doubt he’ll finish his degree (though @THANKS, DESHONE, WAY TO RUIN OUR APR FOR NEXT YEAR…WHAT IF WE NEED IT TO GET INTO A BOWL GAME AT 5-7?@).
Hopefully he’s drafted by a team that has an established QB that’s maybe a bit long in the tooth but will play 2-3 more years (hi there, Patriots!) and he can develop. If that’s how it works out, anything he missed out on by being pick #28 instead of pick #5 will come back to him when he’s not a physical and emotional wreck from having played for Cleveland or Jacksonville or some other crappy team.
Yep. Even considering the things he couldn’t control (QB competition, turnover at the skill positions, underwhelming line play), I have to admit to being disappointed by Kizer this year. Back in the bright days of early September, I thought he’d have a Heisman dark horse kind of year and the offense would be able to outscore enough people for it to be a good season.
That said, he gave us some fun memories with Will Fuller and deserves to get paid. Looking forward to the Wimbush era. Hopefully Kizer goes the Aaron Rodgers route and develops into a stud.
Meh. He and Zaire both are scared of the competition from incoming graduate transfer Romas Teese.
Add this on to the proverbial banner of doom, as if the starting QB bolting for the NFL isn’t bad enough news for the afternoon…
“Pete Thamel: Source: Notre Dame assistant Mike Sanford expected to be the next coach at Western Kentucky.”
Yep, mark 12/12 as the day the offseason really officially started.
I was fine with this until I realized I was mixing up Sanford and Denbrock. I wonder how this will affect the recruitment of Avery Davis and/or Phil Jurkovec.
In other news, Mike Elko is being considered for DC. I checked back to 18S’s DC list and he’s on there which I had forgotten about: https://18stripes.com/defensive-coordinator-candidates-for-notre-dame/
I don’t know his impact on recruiting, but it wouldn’t matter anyway if we have a poor season and Kelly is fired (i.e. Sanford would be gone too in that case). If Kelly has a very good year (10+ wins), and Wimbush plays decently, then Jurkovec would probably still feel good about coming. It’s never a good thing when an asst. coach is the main reason a player commits – asst coaches move around all the time. My point then is it would make sense that while Jurkovec might really like Sanford, it probably is not a deal-breaker. Other issues will determine whether he sticks it out (maybe even through a coaching change) or not.
Even when Jurkovec committed, there was a pretty slim chance Sanford would be coaching at ND by the time he got here, and almost certainly not past his freshman season. So as far as that commitment goes, at least Sanford is leaving early, giving us plenty of time to make up for it.
I don’t know. I won’t miss the whole “who is calling plays and who should be calling plays” soap opera. Keeping Jurkovec concerns me the most but I like the Elko news more than I dislike the Sanford news.
I figured the only way Sanford was going to stay was if he got to call plays anyway–otherwise, he was ripe for poaching by Bama, with their new OC vacancy.
On the other hand, if Elko’s coming in, Sanford or Denbrock or Elston had to go. 3 Mike’s on staff is workable, but 4? Mass chaos.
Bama is going to hire from their gigantic internal staff for their OC (maybe Sark?), but Sanford making a lateral move would have been a bad look for sure.
The whole 3-headed playcalling thing has never made sense to me and hopefully is a thing of the past.
It would have been “lateral” except he’d be calling plays, not…whatever this was. As to Bama hiring within, the reports I’ve seen indicated that Sark was not considered an option to replace Kiffin, but we’ll see how it goes I guess.
The amount of Pac12 coaching talent Bama has stocked piled in their analyst program over the past few years is ridiculous.
The four mikes thing is a point that should not be overlooked.
All the Mikes reminds me of the Falcons roster:
-Matt Ryan (QB)
-Matt Schaub (QB)
-Matt Simms (QB)
-Matt LaFleur (QB Coach)
-Matt Bosher (P)
-Matt Bryant (K)
He was an interesting, progressive hire… and then BK never let him call plays 🙁
I hope he does well. We need coaches who coached at and apparently like ND to be successful in hopes they might one day come home (/single tear shed about Urban Meyer).
Diaco’s fizzling, but maybe Chuck Martin can ride Miami’s hot finish to a good 2017 and a Power 5 job. Are there any recent alums out there as assistants? All I could find was Rees with the Chargers.
Mo Crum Jr has kicked around a bit. Did GA stints at KU under Weis and at ND. Wikipedia says he is a secondary coach at Larry Legend’s alma mater.
I believe Steve Belles is a reasonably successful HS coach in AZ (maybe). I think he might have coached Cole Luke’s team (he coached someone we recruited, can’t remember who exactly).
In general it seems like ND is doing better on TV lately. Darius Walker, Quinn, and Aaron Taylor are all becoming established announcers/commentators (the latter two in particular).
Sad news. Former ND TE Konrad Reuland passed at age 29. RIP