Notre Dame opens up fall camp on August 6th and the day prior we will hear from Brian Kelly as he speaks to the media to officially open preparations for the 2016 football season. Before then, let’s take a meander through the Fighting Irish depth chart and brush up on the situations facing the players on scholarship.
Injuries
Everyone knows how ridiculous the injury situation has been over the last two seasons. We know of only one player who is definitely out for camp in Devin Butler who re-fractured his foot back in mid-June not long after recovering from a broken foot suffered 4 days before the bowl game. Martini (hand), Sanders (hip), and Watkins (arm) are healthy now. The only question was the status of Te’von Coney who had rather serious shoulder surgery after injuring himself in the Fiesta Bowl. Brian Kelly provided an update on Tuesday claiming “no new injuries” and “nobody’s taken a step back
Also, good news for true freshman EE Parker Boudreaux who suffered a bout of viral meningitis in early June but recovered and has been working out with the team in recent weeks.
Offense
We finished spring with a starting offensive line gelling over the last couple weeks of practices. If you’re looking for drama this probably isn’t the place for it. It’s rather likely this unit stays together throughout all of camp. Be prepared for those freshmen tackles to make some noise, though.
Wide receiver has gone through some big changes and is about to experience a huge fall camp. We saw St. Brown slot into the starting position on the outside but he was banged up all spring and that spot doesn’t seem even close to sewn up. Of course, the big news from the last workouts was the emergence of Holmes who moved into the slot and could very well start there with Sanders coming off injury.
We lost Luatua for the spring but now he’s back after choosing not to transfer. In the middle of that decision Matuska was moved to tight end from the defensive line. Lots of bodies!
I hear we have a quarterback competition to sort out?
McKinley is my pick to throw his hat in the ring as a return man–that hasn’t changed since our last depth chart update projecting the 2016 season. He’s far too talented and there’s not enough depth at receiver to make it worth a redshirt for McKinley. Even if Stepherson has a major head start since arriving in January it’s McKinley who has the physical skills to touch the ball as a freshman and might take a while to work himself into the receiver rotation. Return man is a good spot.
Defense
Without Butler at corner things are trending toward the youth and inexperienced. I get the sense that the progress of Watkins and Coleman is really, really important for this fall. Certainly, we’d like to see some depth developed at this position but it’s always seemed so difficult for the Irish–like last year, where you know, Torii Hunter was asked to play some nickel.
The team really needs the defensive line to be Doing Good Things™ in fall camp. Scanning the roster you could say this unit should be one of the biggest strengths. The two-deep has a good amount of experience and Jones/Rochell have the ability to be among the top 5 players on the team. The move of Jay Hayes to weak-side defensive end during the spring will be something to watch. For one, does he stay there (he dropped weight but still weighed 285 in the spring) and is he legit competition to Trumbetti?
Using the spring as our guide two out of the three linebacker spots appear locked up, the exception being the weak-side position. Who will it be? At least 3 players could be in the running if we include Martini sliding over where he played as a freshman. This is surely one of the major battles of fall camp.
Perhaps we see a surprise or two at safety but there are 5 players who received a ton of reps in the spring, including two early enrollees. Then again, a huge question moving forward is where all of the 2016 secondary freshmen are going to begin their careers. Coaches have mentioned a few things back in February in regards to where these kids will start out but months later decisions can change after they’ve seen folks work out with the full squad.
Summary
Our depth chart really should give everyone a visual of how young this team is for 2016 with no seniors in terms of eligibility projected to start on offense. Maybe there’s a miracle and McGlinchey comes back and the entire starting offense returns for 2017?
I’d imagine the youth on offense doesn’t bother most people, especially since it’s really only affecting the receivers hard and the backfield is well stocked. Thanks goodness there is senior leadership on defense. If this side of the ball is to surprise anyone the team will absolutely need great seasons out of the likes of Redfield, Onwualu, and Luke.
In summary, 9 players with senior eligibility (which includes a long-snapper) and 33 players with freshmen eligibility.
Is Sanders wearing #3 or #9? At the Z position you have him with #9, but as returner you have #3.
I think Martini plays a lot at all the LB positions–he’s the Swiss Army knife and they really like him, but he’s not going to start at any of them barring injury.
Not a lot of blue on there at all. This is a young team. Hopefully the easier than normal schedule lets us jell a bit.
He’s No. 3 now I forgot to update him at WR.
Figured he had taken over Carlile’s number or something. Cool.
Oh HO! Now look who’s having problems with jersey numbers!
Regarding Martini and starting. I bet he starts against Navy, Army, and MSU. I think he started there over Onwualu for Navy and GT last year. So I agree that I doubt he will be the full time starter but he will likely get starts (not necessarily at SAM). I get that you were talking on a larger scale, but I like MARTINI and want to give him props.
You could probably add Stanford to that list, but yes.
No new news on Blankenship ?
Might have to wait until Kelly’s presser next Friday. Last time he spoke about it Blankenship still had work to do…whatever that means.
Great review, Eric. This is going to be a very interesting season – lots of understudies who will now step into primary roles. Apparently Shaun Crawford has made a big move and might have grabbed the starting corner spot opposite Cole Luke, with Crawford moving inside and Watkins stepping in outside when we go nickel.
Sounds like it’ll be Max and Tranquill at safety with a lot of Studstill rotated in, possibly at either spot. Should be interesting.
I’ve said this before, but I think that in spite of the loss of Jaylon we have a pretty good chance of the linebackers as a group being better. We won’t have the omnipresent eraser there, but we might not need him.
And I know I’ve responded on this before, but I’m assuming by “pretty good” you mean more likely than not, right? I’d say that’s crazy talk. Jaylon may have been the best defensive player in the country last year. Onwualu should be better than last year, but losing one of the best ND defenders of the past 20 years is going to be incredibly difficult to overcome. (And I happen to be on the Morgan-has-a-very-high-ceiling bandwagon)
If we’re putting odds on whether or not the linebackers as a whole are better, I’d maybe give it something a 5% chance. And even that might be generous.
I think it’s much higher than 5% though. For one, the opponents aren’t shaping up to look too difficult to stop. Here are the top 4 linebackers stats from last year:
265 tackles, 21.5 tackles for loss, 6 sacks, 10 pass break ups, and 16 quarterback hurries.
From a statistical perspective completely manageable production to replicate. It’s not like Jaylon is leaving behind all that by himself–on the contrary BVG was criticized for not using him more aggressively.
The bar was pretty low last year which factors into projections for 2016. Can we be worse at Mike and at giving up big plays? If not, I think there’s a decent chance the whole unit is better.
Sure, that statistical production might be manageable, but that’s because teams constantly ran/passed away from Jaylon. When you have a shutdown corner who doesn’t get thrown at, people don’t say that corner is bad because he doesn’t put up a bunch of statistics. Why should it be any different with linebackers?
Also bad opponents doesn’t make the linebackers better, it just makes the opponents worse.
I guess I just don’t see how we end up better when we go from Onwualu, one of the top 2 ND linebackers of the past 20 years, and Joe Schmidt, to Onwualu, a guy who didn’t play much last year, and a guy who hasn’t had much time in college at all (and is coming off an injury). Hopefully they surprise me.
It happens, though. Michael Floyd left and our receiver production was better the next year. Given that Onwualu is the constant, the question here, and I’ve been beating the drum about this for a while, is whether Nyles Morgan and Tevon Coney (or Martini, or Bilal) can give roughly the same overall production as Jaylon Smith and Joe Schmidt. Can Coney give the same production as Smith? Absolutely zero chance. Can he and Morgan together possibly even out the production of Jaylon and Schmidt? I think there’s a pretty decent chance of that.
Is this evidence for the assertion that in football it is better to have 2 really good players rather than one elite and one average/below average player? (I know this is hard to measure exactly.)
Why would this be true? Often we think in terms of having elite players putting us over the edge (hence MikeyB having a hard time believing the lbs can be just as good without a generational talent and this is probably not an uncommon inclination)
This would be a fun 18S article!
I don’t think there’s one answer to the question. Not trying to be evasive, it just depends so much on the context of individual situations. How good is the elite player? How, well, less good is the other guy? In what ways is he less good? Are those ways easier to cover for with the replacement?
Last year there were certain vulnerabilities in the middle that other teams could attack, and even Jaylon couldn’t do anything about it; despite being the “Godbacker,” he couldn’t really be everywhere at once. And him freelancing to cover for others meant his responsibility necessarily suffered – in the short term as he was pulled away from his area, and in the long run as he was more fatigued than necessary.
Let’s think of it in terms of grades. Which pair would be more efficient – an 85 and an 80, or a 95 and a 60? You’d probably get more spectacular plays out of the 95/60 pairing, but more dependability out of the 85/80 pairing. It’s not crazy.
Now, again, the real question is whether we’ll have an 85/80 pairing yet. We can’t know, of course, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to imagine it.
I would be inclined to think so. It’s a big field, and the players on the other team are faster than ever these days. One player even slightly out of position or unable to make a tackle or whatever spells disaster. At least having a bunch of guys in position and doing their jobs keeps the damage to a minimum (even if they aren’t making as many ELITE plays).
Let’s put it this way, there’s a reason Calvin Johnson never won a Super Bowl.
Because Ndukwe rung his bell in college and he never quite recovered? 😛
so all of the articles and comments last season by writers on the old site about Joe Schmidt actually being good were just a lie? I don’t understand that at all. Personally I didn’t think he was anything special, but after every game we were told to stop complaining aboutJoe Schmidt because he was actually good. It’s very weird to see that now he’s going to be replaced by a player with no experience and that’s going to drastically improve the linebackers.
All I’m saying is the Ewing Theory possibilities are pretty strong for us at linebacker. We had a great player who wasn’t statistically dominant at the position while lining up next to a poor LB with 14 injuries.
Maybe it’s less than a 50% chance but these aren’t insurmountable odds to find ourselves with a better unit in 2016.
Another element to consider is that football isn’t played in a vacuum and players aren’t developed in a vacuum. It’s not as simple as Player A having this physical skills and Player B having those and you add them together, and there’s your linebacker unit.
With injuries and youth last year, there was simply not much depth nor experienced talent at certain spots among the two-deep, much less the three-deep. Granted, they don’t return a ton of experience, but for the first time in awhile they are heading into camp with a couple classes back-to-back containing multiple talented linebackers. On paper, this will be the deepest and most athletic group ND’s had at the position in awhile, if inexperienced and with no Jaylon Smith in sight.
The competition at the LB spots – not only for starters but for back-ups and situational roles – has been pretty week over the last couple years. There simply haven’t been enough healthy and athletic players to throw into the mix for drive improvement. Competition driving improvement and development is a very basic fundamental of coaching a football team.
We’re heading into camp with a deep group of talented athletes who have now had a chance to make the physical gains and immersion into the playbook and the college game in general. If the coaches are willing to play it this way (like they didn’t at MIKE last year) there should be some accountability and motivation at every LB position this season.
That alone can drive some improvements of the group as a whole. You don’t and can’t replace Jaylon. But he’s not the first talented player to move on only to be followed by a unit without the individual talents, but which was more talented and deeper as a whole and actually outperformed the prior group.
Last season Clemson replaced much of their offensive line and their defense. Those were their big question marks. Both units outperformed their star-studded predecessors last season. It’s one example, but still…
Jaylon was outstanding. But I can’t recall a back-to-back group at ND that a couple years in would still contain the likes of Morgan, Martini, Barajas, Bilal and Coney. Add the experience and athleticism of Onwualu and you have more pieces to work with than you’ve had in awhile.
I hope you’re right Brendan. This defense scares me a little bit. Great article Eric.
We could have the ’85 Bears defense and I’d be scared if BVG was still the coach.
There are some interesting comments at 247 from Evan Sharpley about defensive scheme, let’s call them adjustments, that BVG and Lyght are making with the secondary. The Cliff Notes is that they’re changing the safeties’ responsibilities dramatically, shifting the free safety from a read-and-react role to more of a centerfielder and the strong safety to more of a hybrid player. You know, kind of like what the strengths of Redfield and Tranquill are. Hmm…
I won’t get into too much detail because it’s a VIP post, but if you have a membership there it’s worth a read. It’s in a post from Sharpley about Devin Studstill where he veers off into this discussion. Will it work? Who knows? But it sounds promising. Larz, who has not always been satisfied with VanGorder’s approach, likes the sound of it.
Speaking of, I once saw Larz roll his eyes when Sheldon Day dropped into coverage, which is the Canadian equivalent of Elvis shooting his TV. Dude was ticked.
Better late than never! If the defense somehow plays above expectations this will be a really fun season.
Our First Spam!!! And only on a 3 year old post!