Michigan State is back on the schedule, it’s a big recruiting weekend, and we’ve got a not-so-rare nowadays home night game. We’re blessed in so many ways, not the least of which that there is plenty of quality action throughout the afternoon to pass the time as we wait for the Irish vs. Spartans.
Now for some depth chart updates…
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past week you may not know about the season-ending injury to Shaun Crawford. Roughly 55 weeks after having season-ending knee surgery, Crawford goes down with an Achilles injury for 2016.
That loss opens up a spot on the two-deep at corner which goes to true freshman Donte Vaughn. That makes a top four at corner of Luke, Coleman, Love, and Vaughn. As far as we know Love will remain at corner, although who becomes the backup at this position is unknown.
Earlier in the week the injury update from Brian Kelly on Nick Watkins didn’t sound too positive although yesterday he seemed much more upbeat. Watkins is practicing and is 2 weeks away from an exam on his broken arm for bone growth. Kelly mentioned a possible redshirt and then about getting Watkins ready to play a few weeks down the road.
The experiment with Greer Martini as a starter appears over for the time being. He’s effectively flip-flopped positions on the depth chart with Coney while the latter has become the full-time starter on the weak-side. Against Nevada, Coney played 47 snaps while Martini played only 4 more snaps than Asmar Bilal.
Things remain quiet on the offensive side of the ball since the quarterback controversy has been settled. The Irish will be getting Torii Hunter back after missing the Nevada game with a concussion, though. Besides that things are taking hold as the offense begins sorting out who the best players will be for 2016.
Remember last year when the healthy return of Durham Smythe was somehow supposed to change our production in the red zone? We’ll wait another couple games but it’s looking like the tight end situation isn’t all that rosy anymore. A full 111 snaps for Smythe and just one catch. Maybe even more shocking, just 44 snaps and zero catches for Nic Weishar in 2016. Anyone think a good hard look on the coaching from Scott Booker is necessary?
I read the tight end situation differently – Smythe is not being used the way Jones would have been, or the way Niklas and Eifert were. In fact, the tight end position as a whole has only seen two targets so far, both to Smythe.* Smythe seems to be much more of a blocking tight end this season, while St. Brown has taken over as the big target both in the red zone and in the soft spots in zone coverage over the middle. We’ve spread it around pretty well too, with 12 different players receiving targets (not counting Kizer on the trick play from Hunter), so there are smaller pieces of the pie for everyone.
* In my grand personal tradition of overthinking… I’m not positive on this one, but I think both of Smythe’s targets were courtesy of Zaire. It could be that given their abilities, the play calling was different for Zaire, with more consideration for a safety valve for him and more effort to get vertical when Kizer was in.
Against a defense like MSU where our smaller wide receivers are going to be dealing with a lot of jamming and clutch-and-grab defense off the line of scrimmage having a couple bigger bodies who can catch the ball over the middle of the field could pay outsized dividends this week and we don’t look particularly ready to go there.
Spreading it around is great, but I definitely don’t trust freshmen to get off the line against MSU, and this will be a different type of test for Sanders and ESB as well.
ESB is the only one they’ll really be able to jam – as the split end (I can’t keep the letter designations straight) he has to be set at the line before the snap. Hunter and Sanders will be able to move around, though, and I would be willing to bet that Sanders especially will be in motion a lot. I understand your point about the receivers, but on the flip side, State’s linebackers are by far the most proven defensive commodity so we might not want to focus on attacking them with Smythe and Weishar. They’re also aggressive, which we will
perhapsdefinitely use to get Sanders the ball on screens.It’s an interesting match-up – each side has clear strengths to use and weaknesses to be exploited. Let the chess match begin.
You mean the Special Teams Coordinator who has overseen a dramatic turnaround in a return game that was one of the most pathetic in the nation for years running?
Booker has had such a strange tenure. All of the successes under his charge have seemingly been completely overlooked or written off as just players being great (Eifert, Niklas, Brindza, Yoon, Sanders, Koyack to some degree). But he, for some reason, wears all of his units’ failures (FC Goodman, holder-gate 2014, his injured TE lineup last year).
I’m not really sure what to make of him, to be honest. His two units have had opposite production over the years. He seems to be a fine-but-not-great recruiter. Just seems like he gets more questioning than any other coach despite a fair amount of obvious success stories under his watch.
I think he’s solid as a coach and recruiter. I give him a lot of credit for getting us back into Georgia, even if we haven’t won that many battles – just getting in the door and consistently being mentioned down there takes a ton of work. The kids seem to connect with him. I think he catches a lot of heat on special teams coaching for things that aren’t his fault – like the lack of a dynamic return man, or the fact that the spread punting formation has changed the return game dramatically. On the other hand, there are things on special teams that never seem to get better; just watch PunterBro twitch if you ask him about our stalk blocking.
I think he’s a decent coach, and he busts his tail on the recruiting trail. I can live with that.
I think Booker’s ST has been fine. But his TE coaching has lacked. He seems to be decent at coaching up their blocking, but underwhelming in the receiving world. He took over as TE coach in 2012 according to his ND bio.
Players under him:
Eifert was already a stud by then. SB helped him learn to block, but his production decreased from 2011 to 2012. There may be other reasons for this, but outside of teaching Eifert to block, he didn’t help him increase production.
Niklas had 37 career catches for 573 yards and 6 TD (basically in one season). He did a good job with Niklas, no arguing that. But Niklas was overrated in the draft because he was an absolute physical freak, which may have also contributed to his success at ND. Now that he is in the NFL and relatively physically average, he is not a good TE.
Koyack was a 5 star recruit, certainly didn’t help him live up to that reputation.
Smythe was a high 3/low 4 star recruit, seems to be performing about to expectations. Weishar was a higher recruit, hasn’t done much at all. Jones was showing potential at the end of the season. (These guys may live up to what you expect out of their rankings individually, but not up to expectations for even a mediocre starting TE)
Here are the receiving stats for our TEs from 2004-2015.
2004 (Fasano, Collins, Freeman, Carlson): 44/515/4
2005 (Fasano, Carlson): 54/632/3
2006 (Carlson, Freeman): 56/732/6
2007 (Carlson – team leader in receptions and yards, Yeatman, Ragone): 47/416/3
2008 (Rudolph): 29/340/2
2009 (Rudolph, Ragone): 39/424/3
2010 (Eifert, Rudolph, Ragone): 58/712/5
2011 (Eifert, Ragone, Welch, Koyack): 66/826/5
2012 (Eifert, Niklas, Koyack): 58/799/5 – Booker first season
2013 (Niklas, Koyack): 42/669/8
2014 (Koyack, Smythe): 31/324/2
2015 (Jones, Weishar, Smythe, Hounshell): 20/233/1
2 things stand out to me. 1) Every year Booker has been TE coach, the TE production has gone down, and it was a huge drop once Niklas left. 2) The past 2 years resemble the dark days of ND football, with 2015 being far and away the worst maybe ever.
If I were a TE, I would not be particularly interested in ND right now. Niklas is really the only feather in Booker’s cap.
As for recruiting GA.
TJ Jones/Stephon Tuitt (before Booker). With Booker we have landed Rochell (committed in June 2012, Booker and 12 wins helped keep him with us, but probably wasn’t a major factor), and… Tyler Newsome.
So yeah, color me unimpressed by Booker.
Return improvement is like 98% on C.J. Sanders and Sanders alone.
Not sure any kicker/punters are his fault/praise either way.
Niklas was fine, Koyack basically never developed. If we for some reason give Booker a pass this year I’m not sure what’s left.
I think the lack of tight end production has more to do with having better receivers over all than anything else. There are only so many passes in a game and the group of receivers we’ve had has improved every year. More runs (ie. fewer passes) plays a role, too, I suspect (though I did not go back and check any stats so I could be completely wrong on all this).
The goal is to get the ball to the fastest, most elusive player you can. Our running backs and receivers are much more elusive than our tight ends. It seems like, with Kizer, ND has a score first, worry about moving the chains second, sort of attitude. It looks to me like they’re just targeting the most athletic guys as much as possible. I don’t see that as a lack of coaching.
I wonder how many teams have a tight ends coach that has put one, let alone two, tight ends in the NFL in the past couple of years. The difference is athleticism. These guys just aren’t as athletic as Eifert and Nicklaus. That’s why they don’t get as many targets. So if they don’t have that kind of athleticism, wouldn’t you best be preparing them for the NFL by ensuring they are fundamentally sound? Great blocking is what will get these guys to the NFL Booker is doing just fine. Kids will want to play tight end for ND because they keep getting drafted.
Is that a prediction Smythe will get drafted?
Looking through my blue/gold glasses, the number of names in blue bodes well for the future.
No Eric it isn’t a prediction. I’m saying the kid doesn’t have the athleticism to be a hybrid receiver/tight end. Therefore, the best way for Booker to help him get to the NFL is by developing his blocking skills and molding him into a more traditional tight end.
I see. Well, it’s still legal to catch passes too in that case.