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 a lower recruited prospect from Indiana that could be on track to surprise a lot of people.

OL Ashton Craig

Hometown: Lawrenceburg, Indiana
Height: 6-4 1/4
Weight: 293

247Sports Composite Ranking: 3-star, No. 39 OT, No. 12 IN, No. 521 National, 0.8830 score

18 Stripes Grade: 85.7

Murtaugh’s Blurb from the Class Grade:

Sneaky good athlete! Plays with a physicality and edge way beyond his size. Looks to have added some positive weight later in his high school career so he won’t be too behind the curve physically at Notre Dame. I want to see more of his frame after working with Balis and whether he’s for sure a center or if he can play guard, too. There’s something about his DNA as a player that makes me feel he’ll overachieve with the Irish.

We didn’t get too ahead of ourselves but Craig received fairly high marks from our 18 Stripes staff in our evaluation process. He was offered in June 2021 after a strong camp performance on campus and committed only 4 days later without a ton of fanfare.

Craig isn’t generally talked about a whole lot from a unit that traditionally has plenty of blue-chip linemen. That may be about to change, soon.

Need at Position: Medium-to-High

Notre Dame has been searching for a quality and trusted backup center ever since the dance between Jarrett Patterson and Zeke Correll played out with the former ultimately settling in at left guard. Now, Correll enters his 5th season with the Irish, including 21 starts under his belt AND technically he’s still eligible for another season in 2024 due to the Covid year.

If Correll were to get hurt, would Craig be the next man in?

Expected Spot on the 2023 Depth Chart: 2nd String

From the very brief snippets we heard and saw this past season, Craig has been developing really well and seemingly has the backup center spot locked down. Although, as a true freshman, I don’t believe he would’ve subbed in for Correll for any amount of time. Instead, Hiestand likely would’ve moved Jarrett Patterson back to center until Correll returned.

From 2023 onward, Craig should really start grabbing more attention during practices as Notre Dame looks to a long-term solution after Correll leaves. I would doubt Correll would actually come back for 2024, but you never know. So far it looks like Craig is going to eventually move into a starting role and prove that his rankings come out of high school were far too low. He was an All-American Bowl participant and normally players will get a nice bump from such an an honor. It’s likely everyone thought he’d be a center and didn’t bother digging in deeper for an evaluation. Bias against centers!