IT’S GAME WEEK.

Notre Dame opens up the 2022 season this Saturday night in Columbus against the Ohio State Buckeyes. If you’re reading this I’m sure you are well aware. It’ll be the first visit to Ohio Stadium since 1995 and the first matchup against Ohio State since the Fiesta Bowl concluding the 2015 season.

The Irish will come into the weekend fairly healthy, but with a few recent injuries that could be a problem.

WR Avery Davis – Tore his ACL after just coming back this off-season from tearing his other ACL. Heartbreak. It’s a big loss in the slot for Notre Dame. He’s already said he will not come back in 2023, has technically medically retired, and been removed from our depth chart. With this loss, Notre Dame dropped down to 84 scholarship and recently awarded true sophomore walk-on tight end/fullback Davis Sherwood with that extra scholarship.

LG Jarrett Patterson – Suffered a foot injury about 10 days ago and seems closer to questionable than probable for the Ohio State game. The beat media seem to think he’ll play. Or, at least try to play.

CB Cam Hart – Another possible hamstring tweak has popped up over the last week. We don’t think it’s serious, but let’s hope Hart is 100% fine in the Columbus humidity on Saturday night.

Other injuries:

Price, Evans, and Keanaaina are all out long-term. It’s unlikely we see them at all in 2022.

Wideout Joe Wilkins looks to be rounding into form and ready to play on Saturday. There’s been positive buzz about Logan Diggs suiting up, although with a shoulder injury who knows if that means more than a few carries against the Buckeyes.

QUARTERBACK

Well, the Tyler Buchner era is set to begin. He’ll be able to ease into the starting quarterback role after this much-anticipated opener at Ohio State which offers the chance to really impress or disappoint Irish fans who undoubtedly will be measured in their reactions. This Saturday has big time “Heisman or ready the transfer paperwork!” type of energy for the excited among us.

It’s been months and months with no one in the beat media pushing back on the notion that Drew Pyne will likely transfer after this season, pending he graduates early. At the same time, if we had to pick between Pyne barely seeing the field or playing in as many as 2 or 3 full games I think many expect to see him get in there with how much Buchner runs the ball.

It’s not exactly being screamed out to the masses but listen closely and folks watching things continue to be very impressed with the progress of Steve “Peanut Butter” Angeli.

RUNNING BACK

The hype for Audric Estime continues to build. On a recent Irish Illustrated podcast they mentioned cavalierly that Estime would lead the team in carries against Ohio State. That’s partly due to the shoulder of Diggs and the belief that Tyree will be used a lot in the slot as a pass catcher. Still, it’s been a big fall camp for the sophomore from New York State.

That begs the question whether Tyree will really be running back 1A in terms of rushing yards or whether, as seen in our pre-season prediction survey, he is the type of player to be offensive MVP and/or lead the team in touchdowns from scrimmage.

WIDE RECEIVER

It should be fascinating to see how Notre Dame’s receivers are used, especially early in the season. Now more than ever, receivers are not sticking to assigned roles and positions. Ideally, the Irish would like Lorenzo Styles as the no. 1 X receiver but he should be used a lot in the slot with the injury to Avery Davis. In fact, with the expectation that Michael Mayer and Chris Tyree will be fixtures in the slot I’m not sure we’ll see much of anyone else in the slot from the receivers except Styles.

I suspect we’ll see a lot of Styles and Braden Lenzy on the outside with a tight end/running back in the slot early against Ohio State before sprinkling in Jayden Thomas, Tobias Merriweather, and Joe Wilkins (if the veteran is healthy enough).

TIGHT END

With the addition of Sherwood the tight ends now have the same amount of scholarship athletes than the receivers if you remove Xavier Watts cross-training between wideout and safety. By most measures, Kevin Bauman has held down the backup spot behind the All-American Mayer although true freshmen Eli Raridon and Holden Staes appear to have jumped the older Cane Berrong.

How much any of the backups play against Ohio State remains to be seen but there should be plenty of blocking opportunities.

OFFENSIVE LINE

We likely won’t know the status of Patterson until right before kickoff on Saturday. If he can’t play or ends up being taken out due to the pain or ineffectiveness we should see veteran Andrew Kristofic slide back into what was once his job in 2021. If you had told me months ago that Notre Dame would be opening against Ohio State with Zeke Correll back at center flanked by Kristofic and Josh Lugg, I’d be pretty worried.

Notre Dame might be forced to work on the perimeter for most of their yards against Ohio State.

DEFENSIVE LINE

How many linemen are the Irish prepared to play against Ohio State? It’s probably either 9 or 10 max, but not more. The depth at the pass-rushing weak-side “Vyper” spot is 3-deep and healthy although worries are starting to develop about the situation for 2023. On the interior we will see the debut of Harvard transfer Chris Smith who has shown tremendous strength at the nose.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the snap counts for the strong-side end position. Rylie Mills should be getting most of the work but in pass-rushing situations he could be a fixture on the inside. We also know in the past Justin Ademilola teams up with Isaiah Foskey as the edge rushers in passing sets.

LINEBACKER

There’s been a lot of speculation about what is going on with the Notre Dame linebackers. Is Marist Liufau fully healthy? Is he healthy and not really a full-time starter? Have they been playing coy with Liufau’s role?

There was a lot of consternation with JD Bertrand’s play towards the end of 2021 as he was battling through injuries. We’ll project he’ll start at Mike linebacker, share a decent amount of time there with Bo Bauer, and also share reps with Liufau. So, expect a lot of Bertrand.

At some point maybe Jaylen Sneed and especially Prince Kollie should get in the mix a bit. Also, Junior Tuihalamaka carried over things from a strong spring and maybe gets his feet wet a little bit, too.

SECONDARY

True freshman Jaden Mickey is firmly entrenched in a position where he’s no worse than the 4th corner and likely coming in for nickel and dime packages against Ohio State. Now, this August fellow classmate Ben Morrison has made a move. Even if Morrison doesn’t actually see the field a ton it’s not great news for the 2021 corners who all go into year 2 in the program with no prospects of seeing the field.

Many will be watching the play of Clarence Lewis and how he does in contrast to Tariq Bracy and Mickey who could fight for reps on the outside too.

With Watts playing receiver (at least in practice) you have to think he’s not super in the mix at safety. Ramon Henderson is the other young safety that absolutely has to develop this season as Northwestern transfer Brandon Joseph has every intention of entering the NFL Draft and both DJ Brown and Houston Griffith will be out of eligibility.

SPECIAL TEAMS

If you like the unknown this is a wild special teams season to open up the Freeman era. Perhaps no one needs to be introduced more than Harvard transfer (look at this Crimson pipeline!) punter Jon Sot who has won the punting job and will be pulling double-duty as the holder. True freshman Bryce McFerson apparently has a huge leg that has allowed him to take the kickoff job but perhaps he’s lacking some consistency to beat out Sot for the punting duties.

Arkansas State graduate transfer Blake Grupe won the place-kicking job in a competition that didn’t appear to be very close.

All indications are that Chris Tyree will remain as the kick returner from last year (although there’s always worries about protecting his health given the lack of depth at running back), while Joseph looks set to win the punt return job in a role he flashed in at Northwestern.