Notre Dame has finished up 12 sets of fall camp practices following a full media viewing workout inside the stadium on Saturday. As we head towards the home stretch of camp before the opener at Louisville here’s the top story lines surrounding the Irish football team.
The Receiving Corps is Thinned Out
Bad injury news struck again as Michael Young reportedly broke his collarbone and joins tight end Cole Kmet with the same injury. It’s a big blow to two out of the top 4 projected pass catchers heading into the season. To begin the season we should see a ton of passes to be thrown towards Claypool and Finke, even more than expected. Not the worse thing in the world, particularly as Claypool had one of his best performances to date on Saturday.
This does open up the question as to who will start the season at the outside “X” position left vacant by Young. By all accounts, Lawrence Keys has been the fourth best receiver during camp but at a hair over 5’10” he’s unlikely to see a bunch of time anywhere but the slot.
Normally in these situations, the offense could rely more on two tight end sets but with Kmet’s injury that seems less than likely.
Still Waiting for a Running Back Breakout
In my last practice report I briefly mentioned that Jafar Armstrong wasn’t taking off as the unquestioned starter at running back in a way that was obvious to the media. In fact, through 12 practices it seems like Armstrong is the 1B option to Tony Jones as much as the other way around.
Sometimes the reports are coded and other times not. This group just does not exude much confidence in their ability to be explosive which doesn’t come as too much of a surprise knowing what we did about the group heading into camp. This offense could really, really use 2020 recruit Chris Tyree in the mix right now. Can he reclassify in the next couple weeks?
This is where the receiver injuries hurt a lot more. We are expecting a ton of throws this fall and early in the season I’m not sure the running backs are ready to see an increase in touches before Kmet and Young return. This isn’t the first time Tony Jones has received a lot of praise during practices, I’m still not sure I’m ready for him to carry the ball 15 times in Athens and expect a top offensive performance.
Jurkovec’s Development is Humming Along
It’s been several practices in a row–plus plenty of praise from Brian Kelly–all pointing toward the good news that Phil Jurkovec is now officially comfortable enough to be a quality backup level quarterback. The wobbly passes are severely reduced, accuracy is improved, and his deep passes still look awfully nice.
It would be unwise to even think about a quarterback controversy at this point. However, as much as Ian Book has the starting job locked down we can say Jurkovec has reduced the gap to a considerable degree. That gap may still be quite large yet Jurkovec has to be gaining a ton of confidence while knowing he can stay patient this year and keep developing in this backup role.
This might be the biggest story line for the offense during camp.
We May Have a Starting Lineup at Linebacker
While rotation continues to define the linebacker corps during practice it’s been a while since Drew White and Asmar Bilal weren’t opening workouts as the starters at the inside positions. It’s probably to the point now where it would be a late surprise if White (Mike), Bilal (Buck), and Owusu-Koramoah (Rover) weren’t trotting out against Louisville together.
The biggest question from here on out is how much rotation there will be used during games. Both Jack Lamb and Shayne Simon seem like they are in the mix. Backup Rover Paul Moala is too although he just had thumb surgery and according to Brian Kelly will be back early this upcoming week.
Crawford & Hamilton Could be the Duo We Need
While we’ve been watching Kyle Hamilton turn into a stud during practice I’m dreaming of a situation where Shaun Crawford can stay healthy all season, return for a 6th year in 2020, and pair up with Hamilton to start at safety. I’m already chalking this up as one of the biggest needs for a year from now.
This does point out by the way that while Gilman and Elliott give the Irish their best pair of safety starters in a long time the depth being built by Hamilton and Crawford makes this position as strong for 2019 as I can remember over the last 30 years or longer. One of the interesting bits from the off-season Notre Dame Hall of Fame Pyramid was how few safeties made the list. It’s possible the top 3 for this fall will all be on the Pyramid when there Irish careers are over, so that’s pretty cool.
By the way, Hamilton was “only” the 60th best prospect for 2019 according to the 247 Sports Composite. Right now, how many of the players above him would you bet he’ll have a better career than? You could talk me into as many as 50 as the early returns on Hamilton have the fingerprints of a future Jim Thorpe Award winner.
So half the starting receiver corps will be out for an indefinite time, and we have a weak appearing running game. Thus it’s all going to be on Book’s shoulders. Not to be a pessimist, but this bodes ill for Book given Kelly’s record with his QBs.
And the Jurkovec noises are starting already. Leading the team to an undefeated season last year may do Book no great good. I can see it coming.
I don’t think the lack of a clear top end running back means that the running game as a whole will be “weak”. I think there’s a pretty high probability that it will be “fine” or perhaps even “reliable” if the o-line shapes up the way they are reporting to be. I think there’s a big difference there, even if it’s disappointing that it is unlikely to be great or explosive or anything at that level. That still puts a lot of Book’s shoulders, but in today’s college football, if your quarterback isn’t great, your team probably isn’t anyway.
these aren’t season ending injuries and ND doesn’t need them for louisville or New mexico. Conceivably, barring unforeseen changes in injury timeline, one of the two (Kmet or Young) should be ready for Georgia. From a silver lining perspective, this should give Lensy and Keys valuable experience. Also, Kmet’s ‘back-up’ was the number 1 ranked TE in his cohort- not a bad consolation.
Running backs are somewhat concerning, I guess. I’ll hold my judgement until I see real-time experience.
In general if I told you a team with a veteran line, an accurate QB, stud safeties and a d-line book-ended by NFL talent, I think you would expect this team to be competitive for the playoff.
I think an underappreciated storyline is that it seems like nobody from the 2018 class is really breaking out? That class is huge, and it seems like just from a numbers standpoint (if nothing else) there should be some players there… but so far, not really, beyond Jarrett Patterson? Weird. I guess they’ll kind of need one of the WRs to be the first breakout. Kind of a bummer Kevin Austin is in the doghouse, as he at least looks pretty talented.
The numbers pretty much dictate that whether it’s Keys or Lenzy or Tommy Tremble as second tight end, some of those guys are going to have to get snaps and opportunities. I def think you’re onto something that Austin would have been that breakout good starter/playmaker but he apparently isn’t following the rules or traits or whatever.
Kyren Williams isn’t an ’18 (though he was a 19 EE) I still kinda hope he could add a new dimension catching balls or getting him into space. Who knows if he’ll be a really high-end talent but to me he seems a better bet than other younger guys.
From thinking a little more…Depending on how lenient you are with the word “breakout”, I believe in the Ademilola’s to be good rotational players and add a bit this year. And maybe Griffith can step up. I also believe Moala will be a better player than expected, though it looks like Wu is dominating the rover spot so much there’s no need to take him off the field.
That’s fair. Ademilola (DT) is an important piece, especially since they’ve started rotating DTs more, and he looked pretty good as a freshman. Ademilola (DE) I don’t think counts, though; his primary value this year will probably taking enough snaps so that Jamir Jones can redshirt (and likely start next year).
I agree that Keys or Tremble are going to *have* to play, and Keys has clearly established himself as the most praised of the four true soph WRs (in part because of whatever has gotten Austin in trouble), but none of the reports on them or any of the other guys have been over-the-top positive, which is often the case with ND beat reporters. Simon got some of that initially (ie this time last year), but he seems to have fallen out of favor.
I think you’re undervaluing Justin Ademilola substantially. The staff certainly thinks higher of him, at least, and I’ve seen some rumors that he could be used in the NASCAR pass rush package at strongside end with Kareem lined up inside next to Okwara. Whether that constitutes a “breakout,” eh, but he’s definitely not just a placeholder.
Practice reports on Keys going back to the spring have also been consistently positive, it was just that he was stuck behind Finke. Even Prister, who is probably about as pessimistic a cover of the team as you’ll find, said then that he’s probably the hardest cover on the team because of his short-area quickness. The staff also is supposedly looking at jet sweeps and other stuff for him to get him in space and see what he can do. Again, not sure that really qualifies as a breakout player, but part of the reason he (and others) aren’t breaking out is that the guys ahead of them are too good. That’s not a problem we’re used to having.
I’m pretty skeptical about Keys for one major reason: he weighs 173 pounds. The odds he stays healthy until Young gets back while playing a lot of snaps seems pretty low.
It’s a bummer Kevin Austin got the double secret probation.
I do think that there will be *some* breakout sophomore, just because there are so many of them – maybe (hopefully!) one of the cornerbacks. The practice reports just haven’t been super positive, is what I am saying.
Yeah, the Keys hype has “CJ Sanders breakout season is here” written all over it.
I’m really curious as to how many snaps Jalen Elliott is going to play this year. He was obviously very solid last year, and he led the team in interceptions. But 3 of those 4 interceptions came against Ball State and Navy, and he wasn’t making a ton of “wow” plays in the other games. Of course, when you’re the free safety, it’s probably even more important that other teams aren’t making “wow” plays against you, and he gave up very few of those last year.
But man, people love Hamilton. He sounds like a guy who is going to have to be on the field ASAP. Is it possible he starts taking a ton of playing time from Elliott early on if Elliott isn’t making game-changing plays?
Is there any chance we could get him on the field for 10 snaps per game at WR until Austin/Young are available? His high school film shows a guy who could go up and bring down a jump ball over just about anybody.
I forget if it was Hansen or Sampson (someone like that) but they were talking earlier about the staff at least batting around the idea of using Hamilton as a red zone WR. Who knows how serious it got, but at this point with Young presumably unavailable for Georgia and Kmet very questionable for it, they really should strongly consider it IMO. What’s there to lose?
As far as safety snaps, you’d think they’ll stick to the vet knows the defenses and coverages more so they’ll use him more. But who knows. I’m not going to bet against Hamilton right now with the way he’s blowing away everyone that sees him as super-exceeding already lofty expectations. But to me I’d be fine if he’s just in the nickel sets mainly early in the year and then go from there.
I just listened to the II podcast. There was a similar question about Hamilton vs. Elliott…… the consensus was Hamilton will get zero of Elliott’s PT.
Prior to the last week I’d not heard much Drew White hype. Admittedly it could have been out there and I missed it, but I’m hoping a kinda-low 3 star guy, .845 composite, beating out four stars Simon (.957) and Bauer (.902) says a lot of positive things about the extra year of development on campus White has on those guys.