With the college football season just around the corner (Austin Peay at Western Kentucky opens up the FBS season this Saturday at Noon eastern followed by the Ireland game between Nebraska and Northwestern at 12:30 and a night cap at 10:30 eastern with Clark Lea’s ‘Dores visiting Hawaii) the return of Five Wide Fullbacks is focused on the 2022 football season. Today we’ll discuss Notre Dame adapting to NIL rules, a Heisman preview, redshirt candidates for the Irish, new head coaches, and the future of a 12-team playoff.
1) The 18 Stripes House of Betting has an over/under of Notre Dame 2022 freshmen burning a year of eligibility at 7.5 players. Where are you taking the bet on redshirts this fall?
We can comfortably place the following players in the lock category to play all season:
RB Gi’Bran Payne
WR Tobias Merriweather
TE Eli Raridon
CB Jaden Mickey
P/K Bryce McFerson
Perhaps you wouldn’t put Payne in that category but the depth is far too thin at running back for him not to get reps in more than 4 games. Someone is going to get dinged up and he’ll be thrust into action a decent amount.
Are there 3 more players to take us through the over? In decreasing likelihood we have:
LB Jaylen Sneed
LB Junior Tuihalamaka
TE Holden Staes
CB Benjamin Morrison
QB Steve Angeli
Sneed and Junior feel like guys who are going to have fewer than 50 snaps apiece on defense but play a key role on special teams. The same goes for Staes, he may be used sparingly at tight end but needed on special teams. Lately, Morrison has been making a push at corner but I would imagine they will ultimately save his redshirt.
I’m including Angeli just in case of injury or something really goes wrong and Pyne is struggling immensely.
I think I’ll take the under!
2) Who is your Heisman darkhorse, Heisman flop, and Heisman favorite?
Darkhorse: I’ll take Brennan Armstrong at +8000 way, way down the field. Somehow only turning 23 in October and not 27 years old, Armstrong is a massive injury risk due to his usage rate and history. This dude threw 500 passes and ran the 98 times in just 11 games last year. He was only 172 yards behind Bryce Young for the most total yards in the Power 5, despite playing 4 fewer games. He has a new head coach in Tony Elliott with an offensive background, it’s worth a darkhorse bet.
The top returning QBs ♨️ pic.twitter.com/EGiBkd2hdD
— PFF College (@PFF_College) August 23, 2022
Flop: Why is DJ Uiagaleilei featuring the 6th best odds nationally at +2500?? I think the odds are much better that Cade Klubnik is getting some reps this season than DJU is in the Heisman conversation. And if Klubnik is being used at all, DJU isn’t winning anything.
Favorite: Unfortunately for Notre Dame, it has to be C.J. Stroud. He’s the Vegas favorite and people are going to try all season not to give it to Bryce Young again. The big issue with Stroud is votes being stolen by teammate receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
3) Which head coach at a new school for 2022 will have the best year and the worst?
We have 29 new head coach’s at schools this year. My math work says that is 23.3% of FBS schools. This could be the place and time to start roasting Brian Kelly! But, I won’t do that.
Worst Year: Don Brown, UMass
He’s pulling a Randy Edsall! You don’t ever pull a Randy Edsall and return to a school you coached at previously. Think of all the parallels with UConn and UMass, too. This is a classic situation of a coordinator in the later stages of his career grabbing the bag (UMass dished out a 5-year, $4 million deal) and not having the energy to reverse an untenable situation which is the Minutemen not being remotely competitive. UMass is going to pay about $400,000 to Brown for every win (because he’s going to go 2-10 annually).
Best Year: Joe Moorhead, Akron
Let me be clear, grading on a curve for ‘best’ I love this hire for Akron. This program has been all sorts of terrible with one winning season since 2005 and only 8 NFL picks…since 1998. Can you imagine rooting for a program where once every 3 recruiting cycles just one player gets drafted? Moorhead was an assistant and later OC with Akron for 5 seasons and that’s where his stock started to rise. If anyone can dig the Zips out of their hole, it’ll be him.
4) Notre Dame doesn’t appear to be jumping in with both feet when it comes to NIL and recruiting. Would a poor first season for Marcus Freeman change that approach and how bad would it have to get to reassess the situation?
It’s funny, I was thinking about this and I could actually see more pressure from fans, alumni, and maybe even with some inside the administration to push forward with more NIL bags ‘o gold if the Irish finish with 11 wins or more but don’t win a National Championship. In other words, getting close but needing just that extra push. In that instance, I could maybe see a handful of decisions made to reel in some big fish to keep the momentum rolling.
If it’s a really tough year, though? I don’t see Notre Dame wavering to be honest. They’ll take the long game with Freeman betting on his development over multiple years and simply hope for something with more teeth from the NCAA or Congress to stop, essentially, up front payments to recruits before they sign Letters of Intent with programs.
5) Lost in the shuffle of conference expansion and media rights deals this off-season was more affirmation from college leaders that a 12-team playoff is coming sometime soon. What is the best layout?
Well, 14 months ago I laid out my plan for the the future 12-team playoff:
- 6 highest ranked conference champions get auto-bids
- 6 other ranked teams get in
- No limits on teams from a conference
- 4 highest ranked conference champions get 1st round bye
- 1st round higher ranked team hosts game on campus
- Quarterfinals and semi-finals at bowls, championship game at neutral site
I still like it! The only issue long-term would be the sport really moving toward centers of power in the Big Ten and SEC. If that trend continues I would revisit giving 6 conference champions an auto-bid. That would be way too many and would open the door to something like No. 23 ranked San Diego State getting in when they win a hollowed out Pac-12 in 2034.
With last year’s article we looked at how this would potentially play out for 2020 and here’s a sample from 2021:
2021 FIRST ROUND – December 25th
#12 Pittsburgh at #5 Georgia
#11 Utah at #6 Notre Dame
#10 Michigan State at #7 Ohio State
#9 Oklahoma State at #8 Ole Miss
2021 QUARTERFINALS – January 1st
#8 Ole Miss vs. #1 Alabama [Peach Bowl]
#7 Ohio State vs. #2 Michigan [Rose Bowl]
#6 Notre Dame vs. #3 Cincinnati [Fiesta Bowl]
#5 Georgia vs. #4 Baylor [Sugar Bowl]
2021 SEMIFINALS – January 8th
#7 Ohio State vs. #1 Alabama [Cotton Bowl]
#6 Notre Dame vs. #5 Georgia [Orange Bowl]
2021 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP – January 17th
#2 Georgia vs. #1 Alabama [Indianapolis, IN]
Christmas Day first round, let’s go!!
Georgia falling out of the first round bye would’ve made Alabama happy. The SEC Championship Game would’ve had more meaning! Michigan State getting another crack at Ohio State a month after being demolished isn’t so great. Then we could’ve had re-matches of Notre Dame-Cincinnati and Ohio State-Michigan which is awfully spicy but not the greatest advertisement to protect the regular season.
The nature of a 12 team playoff pretty much guarantees some rematches if you want top ten teams playing a top ten schedule.
This is especially true with the power 2 super conferences. The #1 and #2 team from the conference play in the conference championship game, then got to the playoffs and inevitably end up meeting there, possibly with the #3 team from the same conference somewhere in the mix as well. I think all power teams should go back to independence.
More independents and get rid of the conference title games, which only exist to make more money for the schools. There’s no real competitive justification for them, or at least there wasn’t before conferences expanded beyond 12, which again was just to make more money.
Interesting on #1. The 7.5 is a good line. I’d take the over, the 5 listed by E are shoo-ins. And I think Junior, Staes and Morrison will get playing time too. Leaning over.
Payne hasn’t played a full season since he was a sophomore due to injuries in high school. I love his ceiling, but he’s only guaranteed to burn the RS if there’re quite a few missed games by the backs ahead of him. I’m just a bit dubious that he’s ready to take some of the load against Marshall and if he doesn’t play in the few early season wins… he’s not as sure a thing as Merriweather.
That’s a good point, it could very well unfold like that. I tend to think since there isn’t a bellcow pure RB1 that they will be more inclined to split it deeper than a normal year. If they’re looking to limit Tyree/Diggs snaps in games where they are up, that’s where I think Payne sees some action in situations where they need a little more wiggle than a 225 pound back that is the only other choice.
Merriweather will be more needed and play more snaps than Payne, no doubt. But I don’t see why they should bother with redshirting Payne, probably isn’t going to stay 5 years anyways. If he is good enough to help, if only to lessen the load on the others, that’s good enough for a small role to me and appearing in most of the games (if only for a bit in a non-featured role).
Yeah, I agree with this. In the number of hopefully blowout wins that we have we should be preserving Tyree and Diggs. So it’s not unreasonable that Estime and Payne would be largely splitting the carries in those games, especially in the second half.
I could see him appearing in maybe 6 games and averaging 5 carries a game.
From what I could tell from notes on what’s been going on, I think Estime is really like 1B at running back and not Diggs. Apparently Estime is pretty shifty too and not a one-trick pony.
Diggs was only recently cleared for contact, you’re right that Estime has had a huge preseason role. Estime is going to be a factor on Saturdays, but I assume once Diggs is healthy and up to speed he will easily be jumping him in the pecking order.
Estime is shifty, but what’s his pass catch ability? And he’s being talked up like a Derrick Henry clone at this point, which if he’s something close, great. But we’ll see. To me, the door is wide open even as a #4RB for Payne to see the field for half (or more) of the games this season.
From what I’ve seen and heard AE’s good in the pass game.
What have you seen to suggest that? He had 1 reception for -7 yards in the spring game and has 0 career actual game receptions.
I think McCullough has indicated that he’s the real deal on everything – including catching. We’ll have to see if he lives up to what seems to be a lot of hype.
High school tape and practice reports.
24 team playoff would make a stupid idea even dumber. The only reason to expand the playoffs is to generate an even bigger money grab. I like it being the 4 best, which usually means 3 or less are actually competitive with a real shot. Usually it’s only 2.
I don’t support a 24 team playoff but the other reason to expand playoffs is for their to be more fun and competitive games.
So if only the top three teams ever win it the only thing expansion does is:
I don’t think we’ll see only ever see the top three win, but even if we did expansion is nothing but good.
I think it does a 4th which I mentioned – namely give us more fun/competitive games to watch!
But maybe that’s what you mean by #2 (or include within that).
20+ team playoff would be the football equivalent of March Madness. It would be amazing.
My preference would be getting some byes and double byes in there. Let’s get 1-4 a double bye, 5-8 a single bye, then let 9-whoever fight it out. But the more ranked on ranked matchups, especially with real stakes, would be glorious.
Yea, from a “let’s get as many great games as possible” perspective, it would be as good as it gets I would think.
Those byes you mention would probably be necessary to get those games since #1-4 playing against those bottom teams would not likely be good games, but 5-20 against each other would create a ton of great games.
Do you think this would ever be feasible when other things are taken into account?
I doubt it. I think they’d really have to start from scratch. The FCS does something similar, so it’s clearly possible, and the money would be mind boggling, but CFB is so big and has so much inertia, I just don’t see it happening.
So i just worked out a few brackets with 4 double and 4 single byes. The most efficient ends up being 16 teams total. The bottom 8, probably unseeded, play and the 4 winners play 5-8. Those winners play 1-4 in the quarter finals. Five weeks total, 1-4 max 3 games, 5-8, max 4, unseeded max 5.
Expanding to 24 teams would add a 6th week to the tournament without making the bracket crazy. A 20 team bracket won’t work with 4 double and 4 single byes. It would have to have more or fewer byes or triple byes…that one was kind of insane.
Please submit this to the NCAA IMMEDIATELY and CC all university presidents and ADs.
I think 8 teams is the most I’d like to see. I agree that more than that is pointless if finding the best team is the goal. I don’t want teams 1-4 getting byes. I think that only gives them a better chance of not getting upset.
Five wide fullbacks Staying under 85, as always, was no problem.
(6’3 and really a tight end, but you take what you can get these days…Also only a sophomore, so he’s in for three more years, no?)
I think this was the scholarship essentially that Avery Davis had. They put him on medical scholarship leaving a football scholarship open. So it’s not like we were short on guys before that.
On #4, I’m not really sure I understand what the hold-up is for ND. Is it fear that athletic donations will dry up and that will harm the non-revenue sports? If that’s the case, my view is, like, tough cookies guys. Football drives the bus for the athletic department, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise (and, obviously, football players are more important to the university than other students including other athletes, whether or not they want to admit it).
I just don’t see the glory and/or benefit (assume they think there’s one or the other? Otherwise, what explains the approach?) in half-assing NIL. Once you’re in, you might as well go for it.
(And, just to be clear as a follow-up edit: I don’t know if it would be a good idea for ND to be a full-on high bidder on recruits like A&M, because then you’re setting yourself up for guys who don’t fit. But, I see no reason that ND shouldn’t just offer to match any recruit’s best offer elsewhere as a matter of course so that money is not an issue.)
Yea I thought it was more about what the rules will be and fear surrounding new rules being implemented in the next couple of years and then having to change (or perhaps being punished for breaking the rules).
If that’s the formal justification, that’s pretty lame/strikes me as a facial explanation for something else going on (likely fear of donations drying up). If everybody is doing bidding, they’re not going to punish everyone. Just do whatever Ohio State and Alabama are doing and we’ll be fine.
I get the feeling that ND is pretty close to all in on NIL. The issue is that ND is all in and also following the rules. To be clear, remember, no one actually employed at ND is supposed to be talking about $ deals or NIL opportunities in terms of making those things happen. ND can help connect the dots between player and an NIL deal in a fairly indirect way but I am fairly certain that this is not what is happening other places.
Other schools are in no uncertain terms directly communicating with recruits about how much $ they will get if they come to their school. Or they are directly linking them with a collective from that school and making sure there are conversations about guaranteed payments, etc.
That is against the rules of NIL and since Notre Dame won’t do it then they are behind what other schools can do. This is the part that I don’t see ND changing so long as this is the rule, but it means that they will simply not be able to “offer” as much in the way of guaranteed NIL money and that is clearly hurting them.
Is it against the rules for Freeman to say something like – “our guys are getting some good money. If you have more questions about $$$ call my friend Brady”?
I don’t believe that it is, but that has severe limitations. Brady’s FUND is for ND student athletes (must be enrolled) and requires that athlete to actually do something for a non-profit in exchange for this NIL deal.
That is completely different from Nick Saban handing the phone to a recruit and the guy on the other end says “We have a $2 million deal for you with our collective as soon as you sign your LOI. There are no strings attached, just come here and play football. We’ll even have a down payment of $25,000 for you when you take your official visit in October”.
Good news, we flipped Armel Mukam from Stanford, and one of the big advantages that he has for us compared to other defensive ends is that he’s pretty likely to come to Notre Dame and play, so that should be beneficial.
Going from the #9 player on the 247 composite to #1013 is basically like-for-like, no?
On August 27th, Nebraska and Northwestern play in Dublin in a game that features more interceptions than touchdowns. On August 28th, Ireland recalls its ambassador to the United States in protest.