We are finally entering the home stretch for spring football as the Fighting Irish finished their second-to-last full media viewing practice on Saturday. The team will take the practice field 5 more times overall with another full viewing this upcoming Saturday before the Blue-Gold Game on April 21st. Yes, this means spring practice has been stretched out to almost 2 full months!
Anyway, we have a handful of interesting topics to discuss so let’s get to it.
Quiet Spring for Tailbacks
It’s been a quiet spring for the running backs and Saturday was no exception. In fact, I really don’t have anything performance based to talk about per se, if only to mention that everyone seems to be of the belief that Dexter Williams is the No. 1 running back.
That’s not shocking but I did think Tony Jones was going to be putting up more of a fight after being one of the media darlings last off-season. That’s not to say that Jones hasn’t been practicing well (by all accounts he’s been fine) it’s just without Josh Adams taking up so much attention it’s becoming a lot more apparent where the top athleticism at this position is coming from now.
This has to be the move because Jones’ ceiling just isn’t anywhere near Williams’ and none of the younger players are in that stratosphere, either.
Receiver Fears, Still Alive
During the beginning and middle portion of spring there was a swelling of optimism around the receivers that I think is starting to come back down to earth. For one, sophomore Michael Young was absent on Saturday going through concussion protocol and it was quite noticeable how different the wideout corps looked. Young has been showing promise and is in line to be a starter but it’s not exactly like missing Michael Floyd out there.
Barely 2 weeks ago Brian Kelly said that Miles Boykin was “way ahead” of the likes of Young and Chase Claypool and the “Boykin as the No. 1 receiver” hype train was unleashed. “He could be like Maurice Stovall,” I read in various different forms. Except, Boykin really hasn’t flashed enough in practice to separate himself to this degree. I now have 2 predictions for the world:
1) I bet Boykin finishes no better than 4th in receiving yardage in 2018.
2) Prepare yourselves for a lot of those low-risk but frustrating sideline fades early in the season to Boykin.
Following practice Kelly brought up the scarlet letters (or shall I say words) that is “traits” and “process” for Claypool who is now full-contact from a shoulder injury that kept him out of the Citrus Bowl. This might be Kelly’s new off-season thing to screw down on a talented receiver, although to be fair Claypool has struggled a little bit with consistency. Let’s just make sure we’re not trotting out Freddy Canteen in his place against Michigan because of “traits.”
Offensive Line Shuffled
Since our last update the offensive line finally shuffled in a serious way. After moving Robert Hainsey to left tackle he’s now back at right tackle and Tommy Kraemer is now at left guard. Right now the most-used lineup appears to be Eichenberg (LT), Kraemer (LG), Mustipher (C), Bars (RG), and Hainsey (RT).
Kelly mentioned on Saturday that Josh Lugg has been “hard to keep off the field” and he’s basically the twin to Kraemer at the moment. Kraemer is still getting some work at right tackle, which moves Lugg up to first-team left guard, and when Kraemer stays at left guard Lugg is getting reps at right tackle.
All of this sounds like great news for Liam Eichenberg who may be finally breaking through. Aaron Banks has been receiving decent praise but as the left tackle backup doesn’t appear to be a serious contender to start at the moment. So, unless Hainsey (or Lugg?) are receiving left tackle reps it would seem Eichenberg is a very strong 1A option at this position.
Jay Hayes Moves On
Friday brought some unexpected news as rising grad student Jay Hayes announced he will be graduating in May and transferring for his final year of eligibility. It’s a bit of a sad ending for a player who burned his redshirt late during his freshman year, lashed out on Twitter with rumors of a transfer that off-season, took a sophomore redshirt, then turned things around to be a quality player in 2017.
Hayes was conspicuously absent from the previous 2 media viewing practices prior to this Saturday for the (code-word) “academic” issues while Kelly mentioned after Saturday’s practice the following FULL quote:
“Yeah, I mean Jay understands the standards we have here and he just felt like a change would be better for him and so we granted him a release to anywhere he wants to play. We gave him the opportunity to come back if he could meet the standards we set here, and you know, I don’t know what his thoughts were…can’t read into his mind. But, he’s decided to transfer. He’ll finish his degree this semester so he’ll be a grad transfer, so he’ll be immediately eligible. We love Jay, we wish him the best.”
No surprise that the usual suspects are up in arms about throwing another player under the bus, oh my! I bet Kelly doesn’t even really love Jay! The more important quote came immediately after and is actually worth discussing:
Brian Kelly says, even if Jay Hayes hadn’t opted to transfer, Khalid Kareem earned the starting position at SDE.
— Mike Vorel (@mikevorel) April 7, 2018
I honestly can’t remember another time when Kelly so casually said someone earned a starting job in the spring at a position that was at least somewhat being contested among two or more players. So, you can start to piece together the concern from Jay Hayes’ point of view and maybe why he wasn’t too happy.
Hayes’ loss isn’t great news, at least for depth. Kareem should have a very nice 2018, Ade Ogundeji is showing some promise but is an unknown, and now converted linebacker Jamir Jones is getting reps at strong-side end. Jones weighs 242 pounds (Ogundeji isn’t large at 251, either) so being able to set the edge is officially a concern. Although, let’s hope any deficiency there is made up for by better play-making in the backfield.
Pick Over Rover
The Rover position was supposed to be one of the fun spring story lines and hasn’t delivered much in the way of intrigue. Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah looks the part for a muscle magazine photo shoot but isn’t making much of an impression on the field so far this spring and depth here is pretty troubling.
Asmar Bilal seems to have locked up the Rover position so much so that he spent most of Saturday working inside for more depth there. That gave JOW and Isaiah Robertson tons of reps at Rover and still not a ton of positive takeaways for the media.
Love Coast(ing)
During some assistant coaches interviews late last week Todd Lyght mentioned that Julian Love has been coasting a little bit while Troy Pride and Shaun Crawford were the most consistent corners during spring. This seems to be backed up by what is seen on the field as Love has been okay/good/fine but not the All-American we saw last year.
Prepare yourself for the time-tested upperclassman corner let down season! I’m only half kidding!
How interesting it is that we haven’t heard anything about Love’s traits, though. To be fair, he’s proven to be a far better player than someone like Claypool but it is curious how receivers of all positions tend to get some of the strongest criticism.
Houston, We Have a Position Switch
Current early enrolled freshman Houston Griffith lasted about half of spring at corner. He’s now moved back to safety, a switch that on the surface, wouldn’t be made unless he can be a factor in the back end because the depth at corner isn’t exactly voluminous.
Through a couple of viewing periods he seems to be settling right in and getting a lot of work at free safety.
Clarity at Safety
New safety coach Terry Joseph singled out a pair of players late last week and we can now confirm Alohi Gilman at free safety and Jalen Elliott at strong safety are the front-runners. Behind them are the aforementioned Houston Griffith and Devin Studstill, respectively.
But, what of Nick Coleman the leading safety in snaps last year? The latest development with him is that he’s apparently still working at safety but also receiving a lot of reps at nickel. We continue to see signs that a 4-2-5 with a whole lot of nickel is going to be favored over rotating a couple of Rovers.
I was worried Williams was going to be the Folston/Bryant to Jones’ McDaniel so it’s certainly welcome news that doesn’t seem to be the case. The offense doesn’t have a margin of error to keep skill off the field this season.
Hayes also tweeted a bunch of laughing emoji’s with a “what” when Kelly’s above comments got out so who knows. Maybe he was coasting a bit and they’re like “hey, we got too many numbers anyways, see ya”. Either way would have been preferable to lose a guy further down the roster but oh well, shouldn’t be a loss to really cry about. I would have made the trade to keep Bonner and lose Hayes a few months ago if only one could come back.
Before his injury, I think Folston was the best of the three.
“He could be like Maurice Stovall,”
Is this because they are, in some way, related?
Well, one of the 4 spots resolved itself. 3 to go. I was surprised about Hayes.
There’s gotta be more with the Hayes story. Why would we run off a starter (ok yea right he *wasn’t* the starter. Either way he would have still played a significant amount of snaps. This isnt the QB position.)?
I wonder if the numbers crunch is actually getting to us. Have we actually been this far over this late in the game? I mean it may turn out well since we may finally have a full 85 when the season begins. The problem may have been – a total guess – that Hayes being a 5th year guy was somehow easier to run off and maybe he was giving less effort than normal. That was used as an excuse to tell him “hey maybe you’d be better off elsewhere.”
This could be a sneaky (or not so sneaky) big-loss. As Eric pointed out we are already super thin at the SDE. One injury and we are toast. Unless he had a huge attitude problem that was becoming poisonous in the locker room this could be a serious mistake.
Has anyone else heard anything about the real reason Hayes was run off?
There’s enough info from the beat guys out there. Sounds like it was a complicated situation with many factors chiefly among them he may have quit the team at one point.
Yikes. Quitting on the team (even if somehow coming back) makes it far more understandable then.
As for Griffith moving to FS what does that do for Allen coming in? Or was he going to be more a SS type? Is there any room for him to get on the field as a Freshmen if FS is his position? It would be unfortunate if our two highest rated DB’s turned out to play the same position and we couldn’t get them on the field together asap.
I have the same questions, too.
Allen could play Rover, too.
I would rather have more quality FSs than SSs. If those two are better than anyone else, they will both be on the field.
So if Hayes is being forced out because of a numbers problem, wouldn’t he be making noise about it? I just can’t see a fifth year guy eating that without complaining.
It looks like Eichenberg might be working out after all.
There’s no way it was just numbers that “forced” Hayes out. All the signs point to some sort of attitude/dedication/work ethic problem (or at least a perceived problem for Kelly) at hand. For numbers alone, you don’t push out a guy near the top of the depth chart, even if he wasn’t the full-time starter any longer. That seems like post hoc Kelly spin zoning the situation that they don’t need Hayes since Kareem is better anyways!
Not sure I’m buying that, surely as Eric and others have pointed out, you would definitely want Hayes for experience/depth purposes at his position he would have been useful. But it appears that Hayes was somehow unruly or more trouble/drama than the coaches felt he was worth, from the second hand reports that are out there.
That’s how I was seeing it. You want to field your strongest team. A fifth year senior should be one of your better players, or why let him come back?