The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are through 11 practices of fall camp and just a few workouts short of the half-way point before the home opener against Temple on September 2nd. The media were gathered on campus this past Saturday for another brief glimpse of the Irish practice, this time held inside Notre Dame Stadium. Quick reminder that this upcoming Sunday’s practice is open to the public and will be the best look at the team before the season begins.
Now to some depth chart talk and then locker room updates.
DEPTH CHART
Let’s start with safety where we’re really not seeing any breakthroughs or surprises during camp. Former corner Nick Coleman has recovered from an ankle injury that slowed him during the beginning of August and has re-taken his place atop the free safety position. Things have been shuffled a bit in the past (largely due to Coleman’s injury) but more often than not Jalen Elliott has been the top choice at strong safety.
As you’d expect the NCAA still hasn’t made a ruling on safety Alohi Gilman and you get the sense it’s time to move on and plan for game week without him. If he ends up being eligible it’s going to take a few weeks for him to integrated into gameplans.
The biggest news of late is that Brian Kelly has admitted corner Julian Love will play some at safety, possibly in third-down situations. Love has been impressive in his young career but that’s not a great sign for the safeties. The decision to move Love back on occasion largely comes with the staff’s comfort in the development of sophomore Donte Vaughn who could pair with Nick Watkins on third downs and Shaun Crawford at nickel.
Things remain steady at linebacker where the top 5 (Morgan, Martini, Tranquill, Coney, Bilal) are still entrenched. Interestingly, Jamir Jones was the backup Mike this weekend ahead of Jon Jones. This could be a classic case of too big versus too small. Jamir is over 6’3 while Jon is just over 5’11” in stature. At 240 pounds, Jamir is tied for the heaviest linebacker on the roster during an off-season of a trimmed-down unit.
You wouldn’t expect this to make much noise but redshirt freshman D.J. Morgan has been playing at Rover during camp instead of safety. This was a worry when he was recruited at 6’2″ and just 209 pounds he didn’t have the speed to play safety and isn’t big enough to seriously challenge at Rover.
We’ve officially removed Daniel Cage from the depth chart who is technically taking a redshirt and could return for 2018. The starting unit on the defensive line remains unchanged from the spring although there’s been some shuffling below the first-team. Andrew Trumbetti’s ascendant fall has seen him take more reps on the weak-side as Kareem is showing himself worthy enough to grab some playing time. On the interior, Dew-Treadway is hanging in there as a backup as most think the two true freshmen in Hinish and MTA are the 4a and 4b options thereafter. It’ll be interesting to see if things shake up again once Elijah Taylor is fully healthy.
Following the third media viewing Tommy Kraemer remains the starter at right tackle so that competition appears over. For the second straight viewing fellow redshirt freshman Liam Eichenberg was moved over to left tackle likely in an attempt to groom him as McGlinchey’s successor.
This is our first depth chart post since we’ve seen the layout of the backups on the offensive line. Trevor Ruhland has continued to work as the backup center and good on him as he hasn’t looked terrible. Meanwhile, Banks has flipped over to the right side after working on the left during the spring.
The receiver position continues to be extremely fluid beyond St. Brown being the unquestioned #1 wideout. If you trust Brian Kelly’s comments ASU transfer Cam Smith not only looks in line to be someone getting starter reps but he might be the second-best receiver on the team at this moment, at least in terms of consistency, a word we heard constantly during last year’s fall camp.
Count me as someone who won’t really put much stock into how things are playing out during practice for the receivers–when the light come on in September I expect changes. Although, after trying out more size in the slot at times during camp on Saturday we saw a much more traditional or normal set up: the big receivers at “W” the fast guys at “X” and the small guys at “Z.”
This set up may be in part due to tight end Alize Mack missing practice and he’s not expected back until Wednesday which means he will have missed 7 full practices. Mack might end up being the leader in slot snaps during the season (by a fair margin) and I have a difficult time believing Michigan transfer Canteen is truly ahead of the sneaky-good Finke and last year’s 4th-leading pass catcher in Sanders.
The plight of Kevin Stepherson continues as he was yet again barely involved in the brief media window AND getting some reps at corner. Putting him on defense probably says as much about the corner depth as anything because I refuse to believe he’ll really go an entire season in the dog house after a breakout freshman season.
Speaking of tight end you could vote Cole Kmet as having the best camp on the roster against expectations as he’s earned his way to just as many if not more reps than classmate (and early enrollee) Brock Wright.
A few special teams points to finish up. Brian Kelly said after Saturday’s workout that he’d like three different players for the punting, field goal, and kickoff jobs which is another way of saying Justin Yoon won’t be handling kickoffs. We kind of knew this was coming with Yoon’s injury issue and freshman Jonathan Doerer’s big leg.
True freshman Michael Young has flashed a little bit at receiver but with 11 scholarships at the position it’s proving difficult to grab serious practice snaps. However, everyone has been impressed with his athleticism and speed. Following Saturday’s practice he looks to be in line as the backup kickoff returner.
Using Saturday’s kickoff teams as our guide both Cole Kmet and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah will not be taking a redshirt for the 2017 season.
NEW LOCKER ROOM
If you’ve been paying attention you have probably already seen that Notre Dame unveiled their new renovated locker room in concert with the $400 million Crossroads Project.
In continuing with the theme that virtually nothing in the stadium has been left untouched the Irish locker room layout has been slightly tweaked but the ceilings, walls, lockers, showers, and bathrooms have been seriously changed. There’s also a brand new recruiting lounge attached to the locker room which offers a bright new space for visiting players and their families to hang out on game days.
You can see the players viewing their new duds HERE.Â
On Friday evening the beat reporters and other guests were given a tour of the Crossroads project which has provided additional details.
Of course, there’s a sneak peek at the video board in action. A small bar in the South building called “Harper’s” is almost finished. We knew the Notre Dame tunnel was being re-bricked with the traditional campus brick but they’ve also added raised lettering for the “Here come the Irish” slogan. They’ve also added plaques in honor of Notre Dame’s Heisman winners a little further back in the tunnel, too. Last but not least the flag pole has been relocated from the northeast corner of the stadium to the southeast corner.
I don’t know what’s going on with Stepherson but it needs to be fixed. He is to explosive to be taking reps with the third team offense. Trumbetti is supposedly having a good camp but I will believe that when I see it. I thought he would be much better than what he has shown so far. He played well as a freshman but hasn’t done jack since.Tillery is another player that needs to step it up. Someone on the defensive line needs to step up in a major way this season. Might be Bonner.
Morgan at mike is going to be a freaking monster this season. Book it. The same for Crawford if he can stay healthy. Crawford is so instinctive out there and he is physical. In my opinion he is our most talented DB. Safety worries me a lot. The kid from Navy would make me feel a little better about the position if he is cleared to play. I feel very confident that he will get to play this 2017 season.
Stepherson has the talent, but if he isn’t cooperating or putting in 100% then I am fine with the next man in at WR. I read somewhere that he ran the wrong routes a lot last year. The more I read about Cam Smith, the more I believe they can take their time getting Stepherson to come around.
The DL might just be OK if D. Hayes and Tillery emerge as stars that the rest of the group can get a solid rotation going and fill the required roles. I don’t think they have anywhere to go but up!
Stepherson’s practice habits have been, charitably, inconsistent. He worked really hard in the S&C program, so it’s not as if he doesn’t care, but for some reason practice just hasn’t been his thing. His focus wavers often, he’s not always where he’s supposed to be, he doesn’t always remember what he’s supposed to be doing, etc.
Once he shows that he has matured enough to be more attentive to the “boring” stuff, as it were, he’ll get out of the doghouse.
Nervously somewhat optimistic since nothing bad, bad has happened (key injury, off-field troubles, etc). I think I’m with Eric that we’ll believe WR positions when the games start. I’m not too worried, the group in general has talent, size or speed that they’ll need, just a matter of how they decide to use it. Other than ESB I wouldn’t even mind if they rotated receivers every possession if needed until that shakes out.
The lockeroom looks awesome. I paid the extra $75 to take a tour of the room+stadium on Friday when I came up to ND for the V-Tech game last year (highly recommended, btw, they let us roam the field pretty freely afterwards and the whole thing lasted well over an hour). Anyways, they were mentioning how the very next day demolition was beginning for the renovations. The old locker-room looked dated and kind of run down, actually. Big improvement there.
Tirico in
Hicks out
and there is much rejoicing
This year will be a testament to Doug Flutie’s awfulness: he will be working with the best play-by-play guy in the business, and the booth will still be bad.
^^^ My thoughts too.
Is there still a public version of the depth chart on Google Drive? i seem to have lost the old link.
https://docs.google.com/a/e2ccb.org/spreadsheets/d/1IdHU3CYiFN-Rb8YRz0RL5ddDsdQPBe15AcqCf6QnRS0/htmlview#gid=0
Posted from my phone hopefully that link works, let me know.
Kick is up, and it’s GOOD!
It worked, thank you! It didn’t give me the option to save a copy though. So, whenever you post an edit i’ll check to see if the old link gets updated. If it doesn’t i’ll let you know.