Reviewing the Redshirts is an off-season project meant to resurrect discussion about the 2022 Notre Dame freshmen who retained a year of eligibility and discuss their possible impact in 2023 and beyond. The Fighting Irish were able to redshirt 17 players this past season while 1 player medically retired (Joey Tanona) and another player has transferred already to Syracuse (Jayden Bellamy).
Today we’ll take a look at Notre Dame’s next hopeful to be a young new starter.
OL Billy Schrauth
Hometown: Cambellsport, Wisconsin
Height: 6-4 1/2
Weight: 302
247Sports Composite Ranking: 4-star, No. 7 IOL, No. 2 WI, No. 149 National, 0.9402 score
18 Stripes Grade: 90.1
Murtaugh’s Blurb from the Class Grade:
Does finally signing an offensive lineman from Wisconsin come with a free fullback or something? Schrauth has really good size and filled out nicely over the past couple years of high school. Shows pretty good athleticism and quick feet, driving defenders back with force as much as pure brute strength. Notre Dame has tended to do much better in taking tackle recruits and moving them to guard, whereas Schrauth is much more in the mold of a standard guard prospect. I think he can play guard or center and should have a nice career.
This was one of the more time consuming recruitments for Notre Dame in recent years. One that ebbed and flowed between the Irish, Wisconsin, with a sprinkling of Ohio State being involved too. Going into the fall of 2021 it looked like the Badgers grabbed all of the momentum. However, Notre Dame were persistent and Schrauth committed right before Early National Signing Day.
Although he did redshirt, our 18S recruiting grade for Schrauth will probably end up being way too low.
Need at Position: Very High
Assuming the new offensive line coach keeps Zeke Correll at center, the Irish are in the market for a pair of new starting guards. It’s been a long time since Notre Dame started a really young player at guard (outside of Correll’s brief sojourn at the position) and the odds are fairly high that at least one underclassman is on track to grab one of the spots in 2023.
A lot of people think it’ll be Schrauth.
Expected Spot on the 2023 Depth Chart: Starter
Schrauth came in early to Notre Dame in 2022 but sat out spring practice after recovering from foot surgery. That injury largely kept him away from seeing the field in the fall as the program gave Schrauth a redshirt. However, at some point in 2022 he was healthy enough to start making some noise during practices.
During bowl practice prep, starting defensive lineman Howard Cross was asked about which young offensive lineman stood out and he replied:
“Billy, 100% Billy. You ask anybody on the offensive line who they think is going to be a good player out of this class, it’s Billy. He’s just strong, extremely fast and has hands like I’ve never seen. He knows what he’s doing. The hands that he has is crazy. He’s extremely smart in what he’s doing, too. He’s kind of got that J-Patt [Jarrett Patterson] effect, where if he’s not blocking, he’ll somehow end up blocking you on the other side of the field even though he was not near you five seconds ago. He’s very aware of everything going on. He’s going to be a great player.”
In the world of college football you typically get pretty canned and rehearsed answers from players when talking about other players. The fact that Cross showered this much praise on Schrauth is really eye-opening.
I suspect Schrauth will end up being a starter this fall. The larger question is whether he’ll be slotted into that role from the first practice of spring or if he will have to fight off and beat out other more veteran teammates. If I’m the new offensive line coach, it has to be a great feeling knowing Schrauth could be an anchor at guard for the next 3-4 years.
If Schrauth does end up starting at guard next year it’s going to be because he beat out some other really good players, so whichever way it goes I’m pretty optimistic.
Regarding Matt Luke being linked to the OLC job, that seems like a pretty dynamite hire, but the other thing I found out about Matt Luke trolling through his resume is that his experience at Ole Miss is like an abusive partner.
Luke could have gone a lot of places on scholarship, but when Ole Miss lost scholarships due to sanctions Luke stuck with his commitment to his father’s alma mater despite no longer having a scholarship. He paid while playing at Ole Miss, then struck out into the coaching world. He worked his way back to Ole Miss as co-OC/OLC, and when Freeze was fired he took over as a summer promotion to Head Coach. Ole Miss had another round of sanctions levied against them because of Freeze’s actions.
The new sanctions included a bowl ban for Luke’s first two years, unlimited ability for players to transfer out of the program without penalty, 24 lost scholarships over a period of years, and additional recruiting restrictions. Unsurprisingly, while these sanctions were running Ole Miss was not terribly successful, so after less than three years Ole Miss fired him for poor performance.
The guy went to the mat for Ole Miss twice and they still kicked him out of the building. That’s just a wild relationship to me.