This post is about the 2022 offense. Specifically, about how it’s time to get aggressive. At a high level, let’s look at the challenges and opportunities our brave Leprechauns face on the glorious side of the ball:
Challenges
- We have a young quarterback who has a lot of talent but will need to play over mistakes
- We are talented but thin, thin, thin at receiver and running back
Opportunities
We’ve got some really nice and complimentary pieces on offense, if we can get good at the interior run game. Get above 5 ypc consistently between the tackles and a lot of things will start to come together. Consider:
– Styles, Tyree and Mayer can all be dangerous on the perimeter in their own ways
– Buchner can be extremely dangerous on the perimeter with even a small advantage vis a vis inside backers and safeties
– Styles, Mayer and Davis can all be dangerous down the seam
– the OTs won’t need much help in pass protection which will open up a ton, especially when it comes to play action
Prognosis
We need to go full Freejack. What does that mean? It means maximizing the explosiveness of the offense. We need our big plays to be very big, and to do that we need to maximize the quality and quantity of one-on-one matchups we get in the passing game.
That will actually begin with establishing a pain-in-the-ass interior run game, and if/when we do that, fans of offensive football just might be in for a fun sexy time.
Don’t take my word for it. Look to no less an authority than 2019 LSU Defensive Coordinator Dave Aranda for a synopsis as to what — even before getting into the sublime talents of Joe Burrow and Ja’Maar Chase — made that squad’s offense such a hellacious challenge for opposing DCs. Over at America’s War Game (a must-subscribe substack if one is into this side of college football), Ian Boyd has a pair of posts up detailing a conversation he recently had with Aranda about the way lightning was bottled for that particular squad:
Dave Aranda: …one of the things would be, are we saying that the talent is equal on both sides? Between LSU and the other teams?
The two things they did was run inside zone really well, and you had Clyde who could bounce and cut and (gesturing) here, here, and here (left, right, and straight) then the other thing they did was they got five out continuously.
(Narrator pause)
He means they’d get five receivers out into routes with only five left to block for the quarterback. With inside zone, that play is most effective when the running back can read linebacker fits and cut to run where they ain’t.
And prior to that, LSU for years, was max protect and bring people in and they were only getting three guys out. But that particular year they got EVERY body out. I remember in spring ball the walks from the practice to the coaches office just like, walking with the coaches and I’d hear them confront it, they didn’t want to do it, “this is a weakness if we get five out.” And for sure what a strength it was at the end.
(Narrator pause)
This is kinda hilarious. He’s saying the LSU coaches were terrified to follow through on Joe Brady’s plan to be so spread oriented and leave just five to protect the quarterback. For whatever reason, Brady and whoever was with him were able to convince or force the other coaches to go along with it.
PASSING GAME – IDEAL POSSIBILITIES
To illustrate the types of alluring options that present themselves in the passing game when a team can credibly commit to 5-man routes, Boyd zeros in on one concept in particular, one with option routes to each side of the formation:
Boyd:
You have Y-stick on the bottom and then the dreaded weakside option play in the boundary. Y-stick is a classic West Coast scheme where you have three receivers to one side and the innermost runs at the linebacker and either stops and turns if he’s in open space or breaks outside if someone matches him from the inside.
Traditionally the X receiver would run a go route to clear space and the H receiver would run a flat route. The gist of the play is to have the option “find space” route in the middle, then a flat route to hold a flat defender from bracketing the option route, and a go route to clear out another defender.
LSU liked to have the slot receiver run the go route so instead of a normal go/fade route it’d be a slot fade route. The slot fade is one of the most dangerous routes in all of football, because the defender playing it in man coverage doesn’t have the sideline to help him. The receiver can go inside or outside and just run to open grass, there’s no way to play it 1-on-1, you almost have to have help or you’re at the mercy of a fast receiver and a good throw.
Well that’s even harder in light of the stick route, which is designed to isolate the inside receiver on a middle linebacker who probably isn’t a starter because of his awesome ability in coverage. Y-stick with a slot fade is an extremely difficult play to defend, Lincoln Riley has multiple versions of it in his offense.
The weakside option concept takes place on the backside. After a team has already done what they can to try and deal with the stress of the Y-stick/slot fade issues, now you have the weakside option cleaning up whatever is left over to the short side of the field. What Sean Payton did very effectively here, and Joe Brady took for use with the LSU Tigers, was to put his best option route runner in the boundary slot (or to the field at times) to run the option route.
. . .The danger of 5-out is the offense can get any receiver on their team in an advantageous position to deal damage and the defense doesn’t have much recourse. Say you’re the defense and you have a big, powerful inside linebacker. Not even two, just one, and you’re in dime but you like having him on the field because he’s a great run blocker.
Who is he covering on these 5-out concepts? Let’s say he’s the Mike and you decide to keep him in the box and protect him from having to venture out in much space. Against 5-out he can be targeted on weakside option . . .
If you squint you can kind of see this mapping onto something like ND’s personnel. A scheme-up of the above play in which Tyree is the R, Styles (or Davis) the X, Mayer is the Y, Davis (or Styles or Lenzy) is the H and Colzie is the X would be enough to really stress any team on the schedule not named Clemson.
THREE KEY QUESTIONS
Of course, ND 2022 has something less than the transcendent talent of 2019 LSU. Whether or not this year’s Irish can present a threatening facisimilie comes down to three things, in order of importance:
1- Can the line (and friends) create lanes in the run game? At the core of the idea here is that Alt and Fisher are going to provide something close to a negative image of the tackle play quality ND saw most of last year. We all recall the agony of two man routes against Cincinnati while ND held eight men in to protect against a three man rush. Even with stellar bookend play, however, ND (particularly considering its relatively thin talent distribution among the skill positions) will need defenses to keep their gloves in front of their noses if they want to break big plays on the regular. To precipitate that, they’ll need to have a credible and painful jab established.
The beautiful thing here? The personnel set up nicely for this. The same 11 personnel grouping outlined in the dual option route above could just as easily set itself up for a QB draw with a lead blocker (a la the play Brandon Wimbush scored his first TD on vs. MSU in 2017), motion Mayer across for some iso action – you can do a lot. The point is, though, the defense has to believe ND will pound it right at them all day if they want to buy that extra beat they’ll need to break big ones in the type of five-out scheme that will take advantage of their plus matchups (Mayer, Styles, Tyree/Davis sorta) and superior tackle play.
2- Can one of the RBs be a two-way threat?
It’s easy to imagine Chris Tyree dusting an isolated defender on a vertical route. Bursting through an arm tackle on an inide zone play? Less clear. Similarly, I think most here can imagine Audric Estime ripping off gashes between the tackles, but putting stress on the defense in the pass game? Ask again later. If ND ends up in a position (as it has many times) where run/pass tendency is being tipped off by personnel the whole conceit gets pretty threadbare. Again, against Cal or whomever a guy like Estime can probably make hay up the field but against OSU or Clemson it’s likely to be a very different story.
3 – Can another receiving threat break through?
With all due respect, it’s unlikely that the non-Styles, non-Mayer elements of the receiving corps distinguish themselves much in the minds of opposing coaches when it comes to gameplan priorities. Just one of Davis, Lenzy, Colzie, Thomas, Merriweather, et al emerging as “A dude who will ruin your day” would make things categorically harder for opposing defenses from a pick-your-poison perspective, and categorically easier on Tyler Buchner from a decision-making perspective.
How does this fit with the more pro-style, RPO game that Rees has been building the last few years? And building, it seems, with Buchner in mind?
2019 lsu ran quite a bit of RPO, which can gel; if theres a credible inside zone threat, that will pull in defenders to stop/honor the read. The rpo bubble and rpo glance will get some one on ones in space. This has been there in the past, but alas, we didnt quite have the QBs to execute. Wimbush had his issues in the passing game, even book lacked some of the anticipatory skills to throw to a spot instead of needing to see an open man first. We’ve already seen a bit of this last year, our first TD against north Carolina came on an RPO bubble where the bubble side OLB was totally caught in no mans land, with an outside zone away from him, and the buchner run threat at him (tb12 had just picked up a first down on his feet prior)
Some other looks to consider: 4 or 5 wide with jet sweep play action and 3 or 4 verticals. This pushes a defense back deep to cover these home run threats, you can have a viable check down in the jet sweep, especially if that’s a tyree or lenzy type who can take said check down and go for 20. Further, if a defense mans up and runs deep, buchner can tuck it and scoot underneath. This is a big part of Lincoln riley’s offense, and baylor used it to great effect during the RG3 era.
A big question will be, with ND being so thing at WR, can they use uptempo play to their advantage, or will the extra plays/speed wear down our horses faster than the defenses?
If we could get the fiesta bowl first half offense with even like 100 more rush yards, that would be pretty damn good.
Really great comment. Agree with everything you said, right down to the observation on the first TD vs. UNC last year.
Will add re: yout poinr about us wearing ourselves out that we are just going to need some good big play luck this year. Can’t have 40+ yard gainers getting tripped up at 20 yards, 30+ers at 15, etc.
Also, from a complimentary football perspective this would seem to recommend a Lea-type defense where we try to bleed teams until about the +40 and be ready to really get after them when they’re threatening. If you can dial up disruption reliably when you need it, not the worst thing to manage TOP counter to the standard impulse
Mike, you struck me right in my football nerve with a well written x’s and o’s post, these are some great additional points.
From what you’re saying, it almost seems us leaning into a bend/dont break 4 yard allowed defense will be to the offense’s benefit. We can lean into the depth of the defense, keep them on the field longer to rest up the offense so it’s high octane go go go. I’ve usually viewed this from the reverse: ball control offense to keep your D on the sideline, see 2020 irish offense, but if the team strength is talen and depth of the defensive front, maybe push to keep them out there more?
And yes, I am 200% on board with the mega big plays instead of the kinda sorta ones. That’s a MASSIVE difference in the ohio states and Alabamas to the pack, their skill positions can take any place any spot and go the distance. We’ve really grown accustomed to only having 1 maybe 2 guys be able to do that. Imagine having 3 or 4 will fuller’s on the field at once??? That’s Ohio state it alabama. Their schemes arent anything crazy, but the fact that a smith-njigba or devonta smith can take a hitch route for 80 yards all the time is the great opener there. This comes full circle to our below average recruiting and retention of dynamic skill talent over the last few years.
Thanks for indulging me, about the only other topic that I’ll go this intense on is the ramifications of the brian van gorder era, and this one is much healthier for my soul
Pleased to get this bass line stuck in everyone’s heads today!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5WWSqtjzH4
Weird, I was listening to that album yesterday, for the first time in years.
The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is real! Anyone who’s paying attention to the world around them has been Terry Mullen at some point.
This week, my recency bias is tourniquets. TQs everywhere. Today it was the video of the guy that jumped through a window to save the 5yo from a fire and the officer had a TQ on to control the forearm bleed in about 45s.
I just took a couple first aid classes and TQs have *completely* overcome their old reputation as a last resort. What I learned in lifeguard classes in the 90s, that TQs are limb-deleters, has been disproven. The war on whatever it was (not a political statement) taught us a lot. A TQ can be on there for a couple days under good care and the limb can be saved.
If you’re of the rescuer mindset, toss a $30 certified CAT TQ in your glovebox and watch a video because you never know.
Ok, back to your regularly scheduled football chalk talk, which I’m thoroughly enjoying.
I was very aware of “Tommy” before listening two days ago. The Who and the album for decades, being all time favs of mine, I certainly would have noticed Eric’s post even if I hadn’t “coincidently” listened to it on Tuesday.
I notice this every time I get a new to me car. For example a few months ago I got a 2007 volvo S60. Now I see every non-descript volvo on the road.
I think you’re going to see ND do almost the exact opposite of this in 2022. Trying to compare any offense, especially one with ND’s current personnel, to 2019 LSU is a tall task. Our QB’s arm isn’t nearly as strong. We don’t have 2 WRs who are going to go to the NFL and each set the rookie receiving record in back to back years. We don’t have a healthy RB who is great at breaking tackles. Kyren Williams, our best inside runner last year, couldn’t even average 5 YPC. I unfortunately don’t see any way our current group is going to “get above 5 YPC between the tackles consistently.”
I expect Tommy to try to run the ball outside the tackles, rather than inside. Zone reads where Buchner keeps and sprints off tackle or hands off to Tyree to run outside (we’ve seen him try to run up the middle; it’s not fun). Jet sweeps to Lenzy. Perhaps even the occasional speed option. Things to try to get the LBs moving side to side and out of the middle. (I’m also not sold on the middle 3 of our O Line being particularly good at run blocking anyway).
Then, we will be attempt to attack the middle through the air. Michael Mayer running down the seam, where he is a matchup nightmare. Styles on quick slants and drag routes. While Buchner can make many throws, working to the outside and deep down the field just aren’t a strength for him. Burrow was able to do that with ease, and when he missed his target, he had 2 unbelievable WRs to make up for his mistakes. ND just doesn’t have the personnel, in my opinion, to run that kind of offense.
Yeah, I think this is more realistic. Comparing our offense to that LSU team isn’t just a stretch, it’s totally off – we have a mobile quarterback who may be (really, likely is for now at least) a below-average accurate passer just compared to other D1 starters, whereas Burrow had pretty much inarguably the greatest deep-ball accuracy season in the history of college football that year.
I expect low-risk passing and spreading out the run game, rather than the alternative. That’s more consistent with where we’ve been for a while, including basically all the years Tommy Rees has been on campus (the exception since 2010 was the Kizer/Fuller era… and Tommy wasn’t around then).
I agree.
You could be right as to what we will try to do, I just don’t think there’s too much upside for us doing that for this year’s squad. We just don’t have the depth. Particularly at RB – we have maybe one guy with the experience and skill set to really thrive in an outside one scheme (Tyree) and he’s a durability question mark.
Also, not sure we really have any sense of Buchner’s limitations throwing the ball one way or another at this point.
I don’t think there’s much “upside” in pretending we can do what LSU’s offense did. As far as consistently getting 5yds. a carry between the tackles, if we can do that, any offense Rees runs should do well.
Yeah, definitely agree that the RB depth chart is terrifying. For pretty much any scheme, we’re essentially praying Tyree doesn’t get hurt or Estime is a legit RB1 already. It’s my #1 concern for the 2022 offense, even above WR, where the depth is nearly as scary.
It sucks to have 2 important and good RB’s hurt, but I don’t think it’s as dire as the depth chart suggests. It also needs to be remembered that Buchner is in the mix as well. I think he will be at least Ian Book level, triple digit carries on the season and 10 per game. Bake Buchner in and the running game looks a lot better.
For instance, against Ohio State, I think you can easily scheme up a system to get to 30+ carries between Tyree, Buchner and Estime. So I don’t even see it as much a problem, and then ideally Diggs will be back by the important games deeper in the season. But my opinion on Tyree as RB1 is higher than most.
I think 30 is about the most I would feel comfortable with there. In my ideal world, Buchner isn’t carrying the ball more than once per possession (on average), unless he learns how to avoid taking hits. I would absolutely love for Tyree to prove me wrong, but I don’t know that he can handle being a workhorse back. But this is really where there seems to be one of the biggest question marks for this offense; what exactly does 2022 hold for Chris Tyree?
So I feel good with 10 handoffs for Tyree per game (plus another 3 or 4 catches). About 10 or so carries for Buchner. So that leaves about 10 carries for Estime, who I don’t think has that many for his career. Mix in some handoffs to the WRs, and you’re in a fairly comfortable range. But man, that requires a lot to go right. We cannot afford any more injuries at WR, RB, or QB at this point, or I’m going to be extremely nervous all offseason.
Makes sense to me. I do like seeing a low level of expectation for Tyree, I think he’s going to be able to out-perform such modest contributions. He does have to stay healthy and earn it and show it, but there’s no reason that shouldn’t happen.
I don’t really think he needs to be the “workhorse” either, or at least by what that means for modern standards. Kyren had 211 carries in 2020 and 204 carries in 2021, both in 12 games. That’s a two season average of 17.3 per game.
So I mean even Kyren, a legit modern day RB1 in college if there ever was one, he’s not lugging it 25+ times like Emmitt Smith or anything. To me, Tyree should be getting in the 15 carry range, if necessary. That really doesn’t leave too much weight to pick up from where Kyren left off.
I’m with you – as long as Tyree is healthy, and I’m actually less worried about that than most – I think he is going to be a stud and a top 3 player on our offense.
But the point isn’t that this will be LSU’s offense if we run the scheme they ran. The point is given our strengths and weaknesses something like this offense would best use these players.
And the key is with rare tackles that can hold up on islands, it allows an offense to go more empty sets which are hard for the defense to defend if they can’t get to the QB.
Also not sure that Buchner has a weaker arm than Burrow necessarily.
Yes yes yes. No way in hell this offense matches the production of a generational 2019 squad, but you can approximate it. We’re not scoring 49points, but like 35, 36ppg?? That would be tight
Exactly, the point is that it still might be the best way to maximize the talent we have even though we are not going to be the best offense ever like LSU was.
It’s fun to guess what ND will do this fall on offense but, there are big questions at RB, WR and especially QB. We’ve seen very little of the players at these positions. Even the offensive line needs to make gains to do what is being suggested here. To state what would be “best” for this offense, with so little to go on as to what the players can do, seems conjecture and fancy.
If the goal is to score 35 ppg (which I think is a good goal), you don’t think they will just try to run the same offense as last year, when they averaged 35.2 ppg?
I take your point, but no, because Jack Coan was a very different QB than Buchner is.
Rees is at his best when he’s pragmatic and realistic about what his players can and cannot do. Trying to force big plays with personnel who aren’t really built for that is a recipe for a lot of 30 second three and outs.
From a pre-draft scouting report:(Whole Nine Sports)
Arm Strength 7.4/10
This is my only real major concern with Burrow at the time of this report. His deep ball is very shaky and his arm strength overall is very mediocre at best. He uses a rainbow arc to get the ball to travel deep. This is a problem because the longer the ball hangs in the air; the more time defensive backs have to adjust and find the ball or communicate on the back half of the field. Burrow uses the rainbow arc to try and compensate for the lack of true arm strength that he has. The rainbow allows him to place the ball accurately and it pushes and carries the ball downfield without any amount of force. Burrow will have to realize that with the ball soaring in the air the way it does, it can cause more turnovers against NFL caliber defenses if he is not careful with placement.
So if anything, maybe Buchner has a stronger-arm.
Lol no. Goodness no.
Where’s this notion coming from that Buchner does not have a strong arm?
Buchner can really spin it. There’s a lot more reason to worry about his deep ball touch, reading coverages and the timing of how/when to hit his windows to get it there, but I’m not worried at all about him physically being able to get it there.
Right, that’s basically my thinking as well.
Well we really have no idea. But “Tyler Buchner can pretty much be 2019 Joe Burrow” is, uh, optimistic, to put it mildly.
Obviously I hope that turns out to be right.
No one is saying this
OK. Then let’s pick a different offense than 2019 LSU, which was quarterbacked by Joe Burrow, to model ND’s 2022 offense after.
Why not try to be like the best and use those concepts that worked so well? It should go without saying that the execution by the 2022 ND offense is not going to be performed at the same level that 2019 LSU did.
Any reasonable person can understand that, just more to me about the concepts of how to more modernize how the ND offense can put defenses in more vulnerable spots.
Preach hooks.
I mean, I agree that ND should run a better and different offense schematically. Maybe changing OCs would have accomplished that, but that’s spilled milk under the bridge now.
I would like to have an offense like 2019 LSU. For reasons that have been explained several times in this thread, I do not think that is a good comparison or even model for this team, given our personnel. “Be like the best” is overly simplistic.
Also, just imitating the scheme of the best recent offense when you don’t have the personnel or the coaching experience to do it can result in disaster. Just ask Charlie Weis in 2007.
Now we’re in the world of over-simplification!
Really I don’t think some of the concepts discussed: namely the idea to spread the defense and then read the free defender and option away from where he commits is all that different from the ND system now under Rees. That’s a fairly common offensive tactic these days, and of course is the basic tenet from the days of the triple option evolving into the zone read and then towards RPOs and so forth.
The ISD IG account has been showing a lot of recent ND play design like the triple option jet sweeps and pin and pull fake counter reverses and stuff, and ND is doing a lot of what the article’s author suggests in some form.
It’s just not coming that much from spread formations, but more pre-snap motioning and using speed going horizontal at first.
But hey, why try to simply use any concepts of the best offense ever when you don’t have the same pieces? Then you’re just Charlie Weis trying to do too much, apparently.
Because we don’t have a QB who can put it on a guys numbers on a 15 yard out route. We don’t have WRs that are open essentially the moment the ball is snapped. Again, LSU had:
1) The WR who broke the NFL rookie receiving record in 2020.
2) The WR who then broke the NFL rookie receiving record in 2021.
3) A QB who took his NFL team to the Super Bowl in his second season.
That’s an all-time great group of weapons for a college offense. A group of weapons that doesn’t match up to what ND has at all. ND doesn’t have two game-breaking WRs and a dead-eye QB. ND does have an All-American TE who is a matchup nightmare in the middle of the field, and a QB who has shown an unbelievable ability to run the football. Those can be extremely useful weapons, but in my eyes, they don’t seem to mirror the personnel on the 2019 LSU offense at all.
I guess my question is this: If we should just run the 2019 LSU offense regardless of personnel, then should we have done that last year too, with Jack Coan at QB?
I just disagree from the start of your assumption that Buchner can’t accurately throw a 15-yard out route. I think in 2022 he will be able to do that, but we shall see.
I’m more worried about the receiver talent (this year and last) at ND than the guy lining up under center. Obviously it should go without saying Coan isn’t a running threat and can’t/shouldn’t be able to make a defense buy him as a running threat, which limits some concepts to do. That’s why when Buchner came into games last season in the first half of the year, the running game was great. When Coan was at QB, the running game was buns.
I’m also not saying “be LSU and throw vertical concept passes 40 yards down the field and try to score on literally every play” so much as I’m saying that the basics of using spread offense to spread a defense, read the defense and then get the ball to where the defense lacks numbers shouldn’t be seen as a very high standard that the ND offense can’t execute.
It wasn’t the only scouting report I saw, that said Burrow had average arm strength.
That’s comparing him to NFL cannon arms like Mahomes, Allen and Herbert, not college QBs. Average arm strength for a starting NFL QB and first round pick is a different world than college football. Burrow also more than makes up for any lack of absolute dragon slinging with his deep ball touch and high arc
The idea that Buchner could possibly be as good on long passes as Burrow, who, again, had the greatest deep passing season in the history of college football and might already be the best deep passer in the NFL other than Patrick Mahomes and maybe Josh Allen, is just totally wild. We don’t know if Buchner is even good at throwing a football yet!
I don’t disagree but, that doesn’t change the scouting reports on the strength of his arm.
I guess I’m seeing different strengths than you/the author. That LSU offense had 2 of the best WR in the country. They had an RB who could run through any arm tackle. They had a QB who averaged nearly 11 yards per pass attempt!
We have an offense with a matchup nightmare TE and 1 WR I trust (and that WR has 334 career receiving yards). We have an RB who might be the fastest to ever play the position at ND, but who often goes down on first contact. We have a QB who I think is going to be an exceptional runner this year, but I have no idea what to expect as a passer (he has more runs for 10+ yards than completions for 10+ yards so far in his career). And we’re coming off of a year where I watched the worst ND interior rushing performance since Charlie Weis, and we’ve lost Kyren (and who knows when Diggs will be back).
To me, that personnel just doesn’t work for an offense that looks like 2019 LSU. I would love to be wrong, but I just don’t see it. Maybe Buchner shocks me with his arm strength and accuracy (still being in a supposed competition with Pyne at this point isn’t a great sign on that front though). Maybe Harry teaches our interior OL how to block this year. Maybe Styles becomes a star a year earlier than I’m expecting. And maybe Tyree is fully healthy this year and runs through people. Those would all bring me great joy, and I would love it. But that’s too many maybes for me to want us to just scrap our offensive game plan and try something new.
If Buchner has a season statistically like Burrow in 2018, I’d be more prone to think about being like LSU 2019, next season.
An offer and an instant CB both out for Lakota West safety Ben Minich. Without doing any additional research I’m of course in favor of adding more Cincinnati kids, so this seems great.
Uni check for Eric:
Solid! Don’t love the Wisconsin logo, though.
Related to recruiting. Looks like Jaiden Ausberry has set a commitment date. That should bode well for ND.
Finish in order of subjective likelihood:
I’m feeling like we’ll add 5 more total, either out of the top 6 or 4 of those 6 and a different QB. I’m pretty sure Downs and Freeling are headed to more warmly colored teams.
Ausberry and Minich seem like done-deals.
Novosad I’m not so sure about. He’s more in the exploratory stage so I’m pretty doubtful at this point.
Hanafin seems 50/50 with Clemson.
Love actually seems the 3rd next highest like ND is really the favorite here.
M’Pemba seems like a longshot right now – though he doesn’t seem to have a favorite.
Agree that Downs/Freeling are not coming. It seems like we moved away from Freeling anyway taking a 5th OL (of course it’s not like we’d turn Freeling down if he clearly wanted to come).
So that’s 3 or 4 from that list. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the last 1 or 2 turns out to be some late-bloomers during their senior year (esp. potentially a QB and a WR if we don’t get Hanafin).
Minich seems to be sold on an academic institution as his OV’s were to Stanford, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Duke and Cincy(?).
Nice article on him here.
Also, I assume this offer means ND thinks they are definitely out of the running for Downs.
Hey folks, michael meyer on bussin with the boys podcast:
https://youtu.be/NMbegzEYUsg
Who is that interviewing Mayer?
Will compton, he played LB for bo pelini at Nebraska, and wad a journeyman linebacker in the league. Fun fact, I guess he really wanted to go to ND, but they recruited him super late in the cycle and as a FB, which all miffed him.
And thus the era of the fullback came to and end at ND.