Notre Dame held its 5th practice of spring indoors on Saturday with snow showers falling down in late March outside in South Bend. It will be the only workout fully open to the media this off-season and offers the only significant glimpse into the team this spring as they prepare for the 2022 season.
Here are some notes on the early days for the 2022 Fighting Irish:
Quarterback
As expected, Tyler Buchner and Drew Pyne split reps between the first two teams. The presumed leader Buchner looked a bit rusty early on but by all accounts really turned it up over the last half of the practice making several big-time throws. That’s a positive development as it wasn’t the media raving about his athleticism or running ability.
Both made some mistakes, Pyne performed steadily with those assembled giving an edge to Buchner looking better on Saturday. One of the consistent takeaways from the media was that Buchner took more chances throwing into tighter windows and throwing the ball further down field.
Running Back
With rising junior Chris Tyree sidelined with a sprained ankle (will he stay healthy during the season??) it was time for the young running backs to shine. By most accounts, they provided many of the highlight moments of the Saturday workout, too.
Logan Diggs made a couple big plays and Jadarian Price continues to impress with his suddenness and explosive burst. This time, it was Audric Estime who grabbed the majority of the headlines combining his unique combination of size and agility. Let’s hope this continues to be a spicy rotation that is fun into the season.
Wide Receiver/Tight End
This group isn’t deep enough to consistently turn heads during the practice and it wasn’t helped by Joe Wilkins getting shaken up and a scary moment when Lorenzo Styles was hit on an incomplete pass by D.J. Brown.
On the injury front, good news as Avery Davis was out doing warmups and stretching with the team without a knee brace although Deion Colzie was wearing a red no-contact jersey as he recovers from a concussion suffered last week.
The starting group included Wilkins and Styles joined by Braden Lenzy.
There wasn’t much to report at tight end except Michael Mayer remains an elite force and both Bauman and Evans were rotating in with the top unit, as well.
Offensive Line
If we are going to see a switch of the tackles’ positions it doesn’t appear to be happening any time soon. This was the first time the media got to see the offensive line working without Jarrett Patterson (torn pectoral) or Pat Coogan (torn meniscus) which gave us this two-deep:
LT Alt — LG Kristofic — C Correll — RG Lugg — RT Fisher
LT Baker — LG Spindler — C Carmody — RG Murphy — RT Johnson
Second-team right guard is walk-on Quinn Murphy. The team could use early enrolled Joey Tanona at this guard spot and we’ll see if he grabs it with highly touted classmate Billy Schrauth out with a foot injury.
The Saturday report on the line makes a lot of sense: The tackles look ready to be a force while the interior needs plenty of work. It’s not that surprising given the loss of Patterson but not great news if you’re a believer in 6th-year senior Josh Lugg working out at right guard or Zeke Correll becoming a starter-level center in the future.
Defensive Line
Here at this position we had some of the best new information of 2022. With injuries to Jayson Ademilola (shoulder) and Aidan Keanaaina (ACL) it’s forced some moves from the staff. On Saturday, this gave us a two-deep of the following players:
Vyper Foskey — NG Lacey — DT Cross — DE Mills
Vyper Ademilola — NG Rubio — DT Cross — DE Osafo-Mensah
Howard Cross moving to tackle makes sense given his skill set and the current injury situation. He looked to be pulling some double-duty on both units, although Rylie Mills was sharing reps at defensive end and tackle. The early pass-rushing front showed Foskey and Justin Ademilola on the edges with Mills and Cross on the interior.
Also note, rising redshirt freshman Jason Onye was working at nose guard while the early enrolled Tyson Ford was receiving reps at defensive tackle. The latter isn’t too surprising as Ford came in at nearly 270 pounds. Onye working at nose could be a decent long-term project considering he’s up to 289 pounds, even though he was recruited as a defensive end.
Linebacker
Redshirt junior JD Bertrand has been practicing with a cast as he recovers from wrist surgery, although it appears he’s not participating 100% of the time especially in live team work. Your two-deep for practice looked like:
Sniper Kiser — Will Liufau — Mike Bauer
Sniper Botelho — Will Kollie — Mike Tuihalamaka
I read a report that the coaching staff used the term ‘Sniper’ instead of ‘Rover’ which makes me happy. If you remember, this was the term used by Freeman at Cincinnati and is a more preferable name.
Yes, it does appear that Jordan Botelho is no longer a defensive end and his tweener status is going to keep him permanently at linebacker in some capacity. I continue to get Steve Filer vibes about his career so far.
By all accounts, Junior Tuihalamaka looks the part and has a chance to hold up physically as an underclassman at the Mike position. I’m also interested to see the progress of Josh Burnham, another big and rangy linebacker from the 2022 class.
Defensive Back
Cam Hart continues to recover from shoulder surgery which gave us a nickel lineup of Clarence Lewis and Ryan Barnes at outside corner with Tariq Bracy in the slot. Nearly everyone in the media was effusive in their praise of Bracy who might’ve been the most impressive player on the field on Saturday. That’s great news! Also, Barnes’ length (just a tick under 6-2) really stood out among the starters.
Freshman Jaden Mickey’s twitchy explosiveness and footwork are already sticking out among the defensive backs.
It sounds like all 6 safeties got plenty of work on Saturday, although Northwestern transfer Brandon Joseph and Ramon Henderson were receiving more of the 1st-team reps. As mentioned, D.J. Brown probably didn’t help his stock with a borderline dirty hit on Styles during practice and it’ll be interesting to see if someone like Henderson (or Xavier Watts) ascends to a starting role (assuming Joseph ultimately takes one of the spot) over the more experienced Brown or Houston Griffith.
Special Teams
The placekicking competition is in full swing as redshirt freshman Josh Bryan and grad transfer Blake Grupe traded places throughout practice. Both kickers ended up making 6 out of their 7 attempts, so we’re winning the National Championship.
I was pleasantly surprised Estime was running with the 1’s so much. Tyree was out, but like mentioned, he’s often dinged up. Estime might have a bigger role than I’ve anticipated if he keeps it going.
Patterson being out really stinks for the line not being able to gel. Doesn’t look like Spindler is making a move into the starting lineup, would have been nice for the interior to start getting time to grow chemistry and they won’t. Probably will be a factor early in the season and get better as time goes on.
Everyone raving about Bracy was a very good thing. Seems like Mickey and Barnes did well at times too. That’s a great development. Glad to hear Brown is playing hard but sounded like he majorly crossed the line drilling Styles on a pass that wasn’t close to being caught. Have to imagine the coaches were peeved about that afterwards, can’t be having that.
DJ Brown and Houston Griffith are really just in the way until proven otherwise. Hoping that younger safeties with higher ceilings will push them aside sooner rather than later.
ND has just not had good luck with 5 star/top 100 RBs for as long as I can remember. They either seem like they’re going to sign with us and then bail (i.e. Shipley), or they get here and end up being at least a bit of a disappointment (i.e. James Aldridge, Robert Hughes, Jonas Gray, Cierre Wood, Greg Bryant). I’m just going to mentally prepare myself now for Tyree to be hurt all spring, slip down the depth chart, and transfer before the summer.
I don’t think he’ll slip down the depth chart no matter how many injuries. He’s already shown enough that when healthy he’ll be pretty darn good. So whenever healthy he’ll easily be in the top 2 of the depth chart.
He averaged 4.0 yards per carry last year. I know he’s got enormous upside and the line was brutal for half the season, but that’s not very good. He only had one carry over 12 yards last year.
I don’t think yards/carry is a great way to evaluate RBs behind the o-line last year (especially the first half of the season, where almost all Tyree’s carries came). Wasn’t Kyren in the 3’s for yards/carry for a while? That..probably wasn’t his fault. Even in his UNC highlight run he had to stiff arm a guy in the backfield.
That said, I think you are onto something. I agree with IC that Tyree isn’t going to officially move down the printed depth chart, but everyone realizes Tyree is not a guy you want to give 15+ carries to every week. (He probably wouldn’t hold up and be healthy enough for it). So use him more as a weapon, screens, some carries and work in RB2 and RB3 a lot more than if you had a bellcow like Kyren who could handle a traditional RB1 role.
There’s also the matter that the QB this year will be a huge part of the run game as well, meaning Notre Dame doesn’t need Tyree to get a huge number of touches.
Right. My main point was that when healthy Tyree has already shown he should be on the field (in whatever creative way necessary). And so there should be no concern that he’s going to transfer (MikeyB’s concern) because, through being set back by injuries, he will be seen as not worth putting on the field.
He may be set back by injuries (I hope not though!) but it won’t affect his position on the team when healthy and so won’t be a reason to transfer.
We’ll see. I think he sees himself as a true lead back, able to handle 20 touches per game. I could definitely see him leaving town if he’s going to be a change of pace type of guy.
Well that’s different from your original comment which had to do with him slipping down because of injuries.
I also don’t think Hooks description = change of pace guy. It’s more like Tyree has a specific set of skills and is highly explosive and so must be used but just used in the right way. He *is* going to be force fed those 15 touches a game – just not as a straight up RB.
Absolutely, all of that. Tyree is one of the few explosive athletes on offense. They will find the way to incorporate him plenty, if he can stay on the field. Of all the worries about the offense, I see absolutely no reason to invent a thought about Tyree leaving before the 2022 season.
Exactly Hooks.
Sure, but again, he only had 1 carry over 13 yards last year. The kick return TD was beautiful. When he gets going in the open field, he looks incredible. But until the production actually happens, the explosiveness is mostly theoretical at this point.
Of course it is. That’s why Hooks said you can’t judge a RB (Williams included) by what happened last year because the OL was so bad.
Tyree was also not going to be the focal point last year as a soph with someone like Williams ahead of him.
Exactly. That’s why they’ll need to be creative with him this year as more of a focal point (a key component) of the offense.
And to repeat Hooks here there is:
A cool article about Hamilton and the value of safeties: https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/3/28/22996666/kyle-hamilton-nfl-draft-top-pick-safety-value
Hamilton scouting report dropping in the AM.
So you also write for the Ringer under an alias?