Our long national nightmare of a college football blackout is nearly over, just one short month until fall camps open everywhere across America. For Irish fans we’ve endured a pretty quiet off-season (no jinx) and one bereft of major storylines circling South Bend. Unless, you count Tim Brando telling the world Notre Dame will join the ACC imminently for the 187th time since 2011.
Don’t listen to Tim Brando.
Instead, spend your time discussing the Irish depth chart ahead of the 2017 season with us today.
DEFENSE
Most of our eyes will center around the defensive line where bodies were shuffled during the spring and some injuries cloud the future of the rotation when fall camp opens. Most especially, part-time starter Daniel Cage had surgery for a torn meniscus on June 15th and may not be available to start practices in August. And if the 329-pounder isn’t ready to go right away can he make up enough ground by the Temple game? Cage has missed 5 out of the last 16 games with injury which isn’t terrible, yet the trend line today is that he’s becoming more of a less relied upon backup than a legitimate starter.
The other injury was Elijah Taylor’s lisfranc suffered in late March. When spring ball opened the Irish were briefly working with a backup interior lineup of Taylor and Dew-Treadway while Cage was making his way back from his fall concussion issues. Taylor flashed some potential in the finale against USC so there were some high hopes for a quality 2017 but he’s still really, really unproven.
Neither player will be a starter this year, in my opinion. That’s not too earth shattering on Taylor. I’m just hoping at least one of them can be a quality rotational-type of player.
Moving Bonner inside solidifies the interior somewhat but takes away from the strong-side where Trumbetti was moved during the spring. Trumbetti was so historically bad at being a weak-side end last year given his playing time that moving him was met with plenty of agreement. Yet, at the end of the day you have a physically maxed out 252-pound end with short arms who isn’t good at holding the point of attack, either. I have no idea how he’s supposed to remain on the strong side and in the two deep.
We have two seniors–Cage and Trumbetti–and you can’t guarantee they will be anything close to difference makers.
The two Hayes’ had good springs and should be fairly unchallenged starters–this may be where hope springs eternal. Big jumps from these two players could do wonders. Behind them? Your guess is as good as mine, I’m afraid. The rumors from campus have Hinish and Tagovailoa-Amosa really impressing early in summer workouts which is a good sign. Remember, 18 Stripes gave these recruits 87.0 and 88.0 grades respectively far above their Composite rankings and MTA especially offers flexibility to play a couple positions. Everyone and their mother is projecting the highly rated Ewell to sky-rocket up the depth chart but don’t sleep on his two other classmates.
Both Josh Barajas and Spencer Perry have transferred out of the linebacker unit and it has virtually no impact. Hopefully, one of the starters can make a big jump because if we’re to believe the progress of Jon Jones this at least looks like one of the stronger two deeps at this position in a while.
The situation at corner isn’t very intriguing beyond the health of Crawford and if he can stay healthy once he returns to whatever is considered 100% at this point. If the spring is any indication Watkins and Love have distanced themselves as the top two corners with decent but not great depth if Crawford can’t be relied upon and we don’t assume (as we often do in the pre-season) that the youngsters will continue to get better.
Safety is most definitely intriguing where we could have a battle royale, particularly if Navy transfer Alohi Gilman wins his appeal with the NCAA and is eligible immediately. It was shocking to see Nick Coleman come over from corner and run with the first team all spring and true freshman Isaiah Robertson impressed at his young age, too. Gilman could potentially start over either which sounds amazing.
On the strong side, Jalen Elliott quietly surpassed Studstill during the spring although that’s a battle I’m sure that is far from over. I also don’t think new DC Mike Elko is too caught up in keeping players on either side of the field. Studstill could move back to free safety, Gilman could be at strong, and Robertson certainly has the size to play elsewhere, too.
OFFENSE
The transfers of Tristen Hoge and Parker Boudreaux have shaken up the offensive line outside of the starters. In my mind, Hunter Bivin feels like a good choice to be the “practice” backup center as he’s experienced at all positions and the line is better off allowing younger players key practice time at guard and tackle. In game situations, if Mustipher is injured just move Eichenberg up and slide Kraemer and Bars to the left from the above chart. That’s believed to be the move Harry Heistand will make during the season.
We know the incoming freshmen linemen will have to grow up quickly and that progress has been altered after Robert Hainsey seriously impressed at tackle in the spring. Where does that leave Lugg, the presumed best lineman (and tackle) in the class?
Tight end Tyler Luatua medically retired which shifts up the two freshmen. We shouldn’t be surprised if both Wright and Kmet see the field in 2017 if the use of multi-tight ends is really a consistent theme for the offense.
However, if there’s a heavy use of tight ends there’s going to be some receivers on the sidelines getting awfully grumpy. I nearly forgot to add both of the grad transfers (Canteen & Cam Smith) and it seems darn near impossible for either to play. Even if things open up with the smoke surrounding Stepherson there’s at least 4 other receivers who have built more trust to see the field before the transfers.
Only three quarterbacks still doesn’t feel great but Ian Book progressed so well in the spring that it should ease many fears for 2017. Fall camp will also be a nice time to get our first look at Avery Davis, somehow one of the more under-the-radar quarterbacks to come in relative to his recruiting cohort and rankings.
Some believe that Tony Jones surpassed Dexter at running back, well we’ll see about that. We should see freshman C.J. Holmes healthy when camp opens and we weren’t expecting Deon McIntosh to be in the mix here but he is after a nice little spring.
Technically, we should put Justin Yoon on the injury report as he spent the spring resting his leg and could possibly go into the season with continued health concerns. The lanky Jonathan Doerer could be in some high pressure situations in a matter of weeks!
Remember last year when we had a quiet summer? Then the end of July came, and it all went downhill from there.
“They see me rolling, they hatin’. Patrolling, trying to catch me riding dirty.”
Don’t like Boykin languishing at the bottom of the chart after the spring he had.
Eh, the chart isn’t very representative for receivers I’d say. Boykin is probably a top 6 wideout right now which should get him solid minutes. You could probably scramble the depth chart there 15 different ways based off what we saw in the spring.
Regarding Trumbetti, help me understand what has happened here. Didn’t he start as a true freshman from the very first game? I remember thinking he was going to be an absolute monster at that rate.
Has he not grown much since then? Is this more a story of severe problems overall on defense in 2014 with general improvement since then?
I don’t think he started that early, no. He seems to be suffering from many different things: bad coaching, not great length, maybe a much lower ceiling than we thought, ruined mental game, etc.
From his UND.com page:
“FRESHMAN SEASON (2014): Played in 12 of the 13 games (missed the game vs. Purdue due to injury) and started in the 31-28 Music City Bowl victory over No. 22 LSU (Dec. 30)”
So while he didn’t “start” per se, he certainly was in the rotation as a true freshman. That plus as his bio page ” Ranked as 85th player nationally by 247Sports, 97th by ESPN and 166th by Scout.com” gave a lot of hope he would at least become a solid starter, if not a potential NFL caliber type of player at that point to get really hopeful.
That’s not happened. Not sure why just hasn’t been a very dynamic player and barely made any plays despite getting a ton of snaps.
I was about as high on him as anyone 🙁
yeah I was high on Trumbetti. Last year it seemed that Kelly said something along the lines that his confidence needed to catch up to his ability. Maybe a change in coaching and system will help him this season. I always drink the kool aid in that a player I was high on will finally get it and ball out no matter what the history says lol.
I would think Smith is the backup at the X, no? I think they probably plan to send him out there to run a few go routes every game. In any case, I can’t imagine a 3-star true freshman would be ahead of him.
Depends on his health and how much he came to play school.
The whole X WR row could have a two deep of players not even included in said row when the season starts. I think during the final spring practices the 1st team guys were St. Brown/Claypool/Finke.
Is this a good place to complain about your google sheet scholarship chart a bit? You have Justin Ademilola listed at MLB and Bauer at Buck, when Justin is a DE and Bo is a MLB.
Slow your roll!
Justin very likely ends up on the line, maybe even DT too. Then again, we were saying the same things about Jamir Jones.
I don’t think anyone can say definitively that Bauer is a MLB right now.
Not too worried about positions for guys who haven’t signed yet, to be honest.
Agreed that it’s not a big deal, but Justin has been working at DE and ran with the ends exclusively at the Opening regional he attended. I can see more wiggle room with Bauer.