Due to the pandemic technically none of the 2020 freshmen exhausted a year of eligibility, although in practice of course many players will not be staying at Notre Dame for the next 5 seasons or maybe even playing college football for that long. At any rate, every 2020 freshmen will be featured today for the offensive side of the ball in a full recap session.
247 Composite grades are followed by our 18 Stripes grades from our 2020 recruiting review.
Quarterback
Drew Pyne
247C: 0.916
18S: 82
Pyne’s Composite ranking suggests he would be a future Notre Dame starter. Our 18 Stripes grade, not so much. Nevertheless, even with the addition of Jack Coan from Wisconsin as a grad transfer, this past year on campus went about as well as Pyne could’ve expected. He saw the team’s 2020 backup get injured, the hot shot recruit behind him had his high school season cancelled due to the pandemic, and Pyne was able to impress on and off the field just enough to put himself in position to battle for a starting spot as a redshirt freshman.
Stock: Up
I would invest heavily in this stock for the next 2 years. After that, it could depreciate rapidly.
Running Back
Chris Tyree
247C: 0.968
18S: 96
At least for his freshman season, the promise was fulfilled for Tyree. He finished 6th among Power 5 true freshmen in rushing yards during 2020 while his rushing average was 3rd best among that group. During a normal year, Tyree would not be on this list and it’s very unlikely he remains on campus for the 2023 season to complete his senior season.
Stock: Up, Slightly
This stock is already highly valued heading into 2021.
Wide Receiver
Jordan Johnson
247C: 0.982
18S: 96
Xavier Watts
247C: 0.888
18S: 91
Watts enrolled early last year but thanks to the pandemic didn’t get more than a single practice. After some modest expectations as The Guy Much Better Than His Rankings it’s been a fairly uneventful career thus far. Coming out of spring practice where he dealt with a thigh injury, he’s headed towards his 2nd fall camp where there’s a lot of work to do for him to come close to starting.
Stock: Down
Everyone will preach patience here. When Jordan was in the class it was easy to point to Watts as the guy who could surprise folks. Now, he’s the top remaining receiver from the class and with that comes even bigger expectations, and frankly, less patience.
Jay BrunelleÂ
247C: 0.862
18S: 85
Brunelle has been one of the more quieter players so far in his career from the 2020 class. Things aren’t going great at receiver right now! It appears that Brunelle spent a decent chunk of spring being injured and in reality we have no idea if he’s someone who could push for playing time as a redshirt freshman or if he’s still really far away.
Stock: Down, Slightly
Most of us thought Brunelle was an impressive athlete capable of playing receiver at Notre Dame. Although, a switch to safety over the next 12-18 months wouldn’t be shocking. He doesn’t appear ready to make an impact in 2021 and his long-term future could be determined by how talented the 2022 recruiting class will be and if that further squeezes things at receiver.
Tight End
Michael Mayer
247C: 0.983
18S: 96
Can you imagine Mayer sticking around for 4 more years?
Stock: Up, Significantly
No joke, all tight end school records are going to be under assault from our Kentucky boy. I think he’ll at least break 2 out of 3 from single-season receptions, yards, or touchdowns.
Kevin Bauman
247C: 0.913
18S: 86
It was a solid spring practice for all of the tight ends and Bauman is a recipient of those good feelings. Still, we don’t know too much about his abilities just yet.
Stock: Steady
Early enrolled freshman Mitchell Evans looked awfully good in the spring game. Add in the veteran George Takacs and it would seem like the battle for the 3rd tight end spot is going to be fierce.
Offensive Line
Tosh Baker
247C: 0.955
18S: 95
What a difference a spring game can make! In this case for Baker, not in a good way. Before the Blue-Gold Game you could make the case Baker was getting overshadowed by true freshman Blake Fisher but they were still in a heat for left tackle reps and superiority. For a highly-touted recruit with tremendous size things really started to look up this spring.
Stock: Up, Slightly
We can probably trust the entirety of spring practice and not just Baker’s struggles in pass protection during the spring game. He was pretty solid in run blocking and is still a safe bet to be squarely in the mix for 2021, if not starting several games or more.
Michael Carmody
247C: 0.935
18S: 87
Offensive line recruiting is at such a high level that Carmody–a top 150 overall recruit–received virtually no buzz heading into spring practice. Coming out of those practices, he’s definitely increased his profile on the team making an impact at tackle.
Stock: Steady
Carmody put in a decent shift at right tackle during the spring game although he’s likely sitting behind classmate Baker now and even further behind a younger Fisher at tackle. Perhaps he will be able to provide some positional flexibility and kick inside to guard like many Irish linemen before him.
Recap
This has all the signs of being a very productive and fruitful offensive class for the Irish. For all the moaning and complaining about freshmen not playing early the program has already hit big on Tyree and Mayer after just 1 year on the field.
With Pyne’s physical limitations and the situation at receiver I’d agree there’s a ceiling on what this class can achieve on offense and that may stifle ideas of something greater beyond Tyree and Mayer. If Pyne could develop into a solid quarterback who is capable of going 14-2 or 13-3 through 2022 that could begin to color things a little differently.
We’ll see if Watts can bring something to the table at receiver or if Brunelle becomes a pleasant surprise and develops into a starter. Either case happening would give this class a really well-rounded set of players at each position–something that doesn’t happen all too often in any recruiting cycle.
With a quality guy like Bauman buried on the TE depth and the troubles with WRs, is ND going to be featuring offensive formations with 3 or 4 TEs out there?
We’re going to cobble together 14-play drives on tight end outs.
hey don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
Isn’t that basically what our offense was last year?
You think we threw a ton of TE outs that sustained most of our drives?
I just meant that our offense last featured 2 and 3 TE regularly and a TE tied for the team lead for receptions, so we don’t have to imagine what a ball control offense that features the TE position would look like.
We don’t have any TE that could stretch the field. Could someone like Eifert even really stretch the field? I guess he could – not so much with speed – but with some speed and sheer size so that you could throw it up to him down the field.
Does Mayer have Eifert’s “speed”?
Not sure, but I bet we’ll find out. Mayer couldn’t stretch the field because Book never really looked comfortable throwing down the middle of the field deep. Not sure if it was vision or not trusting his targets or his arm or didn’t want to risk anything…
But that’s one area even from spring game you can tell Coan is better. He will hang in the pocket and throw deep. I think Mayer could do a lot of damage going up the seam.
..Or maybe they keep having him run the drag routes at like 8 yards depth all season long again.
Eifert’s catch radius was pretty insane. He won a lot of 50/50 balls in all areas of the field. I’m not sure Mayer has shown that kind of skill yet but we’ll see.
I think you could count one a couple of fingers the number of college tight ends who have “field-stretching speed”. The Pitts kid from Florida, certainly, but there’s a reason that he just went fourth overall in the draft. I don’t know if Mayer is as fast as Eifert was in the 40-yard sense, but he’s certainly quick for his size and excellent at creating separation. And once he has the ball in his big mitts, he’s extremely difficult for one or even two defenders to bring down. Will be interesting to see if ND gets him down the seam more this fall.
“If Pyne could develop into a solid quarterback who is capable of going 14-2 or 13-3 through 2022 that could begin to color things a little differently.”
I don’t think Drew Pyne is going to get 10 starts at Notre Dame unless something goes very wrong. He had a lot of buzz in spring practice but looked like who we thought he was in the spring game, and now the talk from the II pod guys (which I have learned to realize is basically reflective of what the coaches are telling them) is that Buchner is going to be getting playing time this year if not start by the end of it.
Sir, this is Notre Dame.