We are playing football this weekend. The latest forecasts are holding steady with 10 to 15 mph of wind and the rain will be around 2-3 inches over the day.
As the season rolls on things remain boring on offense for this depth chart. Quite literally no major changes at any position. There are only a couple positions to even mention first being right guard where Colin McGovern has been battling an ankle injury. That limited him to just 13 snaps against Syracuse. Interestingly, the Irish did not turn to Tristen Hoge but instead it was Hunter Bivin who took all of the remaining 61 snaps.
You may have heard this week that redshirt junior Mike McGlinchey plans on returning for his 5th season. With the play of the aforementioned McGovern and Bivin (both eligible to return for 5th years) the entire two-deep at this position looks likely to return for 2016. Also, in his meeting with the press on Thursday evening Kelly gave a lot of praise to true freshman Liam Eichenberg. With the depth both Eichenberg and his fellow blue-chip classmate Tommy Kraemer might be waiting until 2018 to get their careers started.
Running back Tarean Folston is “probable” for this weekend with an ankle injury that kept him out of the Syracuse game. He’s still listed as the backup but now with the “or” designation in front of sophomore Dexter Williams. For his part, Williams is coming off 25 snaps and a career-high 80 rushing yards last weekend.
Things are definitely interesting at corner where Troy Pride went from a redshirt to a mind-boggling 60 snaps against Syracuse. Against the Orange, senior Cole Luke spent the majority of his time as the nickel corner–we’ll see if that continues against NC State. If it does expect the trio of Pride, Vaughn, and Love to work at outside corner.
Devin Studstill missed the second half of last week with a targeting penalty but will be available to start on Saturday against NC State. It’s amazing how Nicco Fertitta went from the “hey you need special teams players too” guy to someone playing 71 snaps against Syracuse. Give it up for the 2016 Notre Dame defense, everybody!
At this point, Notre Dame isn’t really following any strict depth chart up front on the defensive line. The trio of Trumbetti and the Hayes’ all shared reps equally against Syracuse. Now, Julian Okwara has moved over to the strong-side but he continues to play minimal snaps. They’ve also moved Kareem inside on the interior where he too is playing very little. Further, Bonner sees a fair amount of his snaps on the interior, too.
At linebacker Onwualu and Morgan remain the primary starters but for the first time Asmar Bilal played a lot against Syracuse totaling a career-high 34 snaps. That might be scheme-specific for an offense like Syracuse so we’ll see if his progress continues this weekend against a different team.
