The 2016 receiving corps had to grow up fast. Not only were 3 out of the team’s top 4 receivers gone from the previous year but senior-to-be Corey Robinson announced his retirement prior to his final season.
No Fuller, no Brown, no Carlisle, no Robinson, no problem? Hey, the kids were alright in 2016.
Snap Count
Equanimeous St. Brown, JR- 630 (93 targets, 58 receptions, 961 yards, 9 TD)
Torii Hunter, r-SR- 463 (61 targets, 38 receptions, 521 yards, 3 TD)
Kevin Stepherson, SO- 348 (52 targets, 25 receptions, 462 yards, 5 TD)
C.J. Sanders, JR- 383 (42 targets, 24 receptions, 293 yards, 2 TD)
Corey Holmes, r-JR- 184 (21 targets, 11 receptions, 96 yards, 0 TD)
Miles Boykin, r-SO- 156 (14 targets, 6 receptions, 81 yards, 1 TD)
Chris Finke, r-SO- 123 (16 targets, 10 receptions, 122 yards, 2 TD)
Chase Claypool, SO- 99 (9 targets, 5 receptions, 81 yards, 0 TD)
Javon McKinley, SO- 8 (1 target, 0 receptions, 0 yards, 0 TD)
BOLD denotes out of eligibility/transfer/no longer with program
Eligibility is for 2017 season
The bright spot this past fall was obviously St. Brown who was one of the nation’s best sophomore receivers. His underlying data is also very encouraging. St. Brown’s 62.3% catch rate led the team for receivers who caught more than 10 passes. If he can maintain that catch rate with roughly 25% more production he’ll be an elite college receiver in 2017.
In many ways, Hunter had a sad ending to his career as he struggled through a pair of injuries before hanging the cleats up. However, his production will be missed and his reliability (62.2% catch rate) even more so. Hunter’s 13.7 YPC wasn’t anything special and could be an area for improvement for the new outside receiver.
Speaking of which, Stepherson exceeded just about every expectation as a true freshman and assuming he’s in the lineup he offers a lot of hope. Still, his catch rate (48.0%) has to improve a lot as a sophomore although his 18.4 YPC was tantalizing.
It’s weird how it feels like Sanders all but disappeared for the second half of the season yet his numbers are pretty similar to every slot receiver who has split time in Kelly’s offense. Then again, the fact that he wasn’t getting 500+ snaps at the very least isn’t a great sign.
I can never fault someone for transferring if they feel like it’s in their best interest but Holmes is leaving an opportunity to grab twice as many snaps as last year for the great unknown at another school. So it goes, right?
Depth at outside receiver is going to be a big off-season topic and Boykin is square in the middle of those discussions. For one, his snaps-per-catch ratio is going to have to go way up if he’s to be threatening as a starter. His 26.0 SpC was the highest of anyone on the roster by a wide margin.
It’s a small sample size but there’s evidence that Finke Master Flash will develop into one of the top 3 or 4 receivers on the team. His catch ratio (62.5%) led the whole unit and his 12.3 snaps-per-catch ratio was only behind St. Brown and Hunter. A lot may depend on his rapport with Brandon Wimbush, however, Finke looks like he’ll easily double his snaps from a year ago.
We got a small peek at Chase Claypool this past fall and we’d all like to see more. Out of everyone on the roster he’s the one guy who could shake up the receiver corps by putting up a 40 catch season. The Irish really need to hit on Claypool or McKinley and get them to be productive receivers before they are upperclassmen.
Quite frankly, McKinley’s situation is not a good one. He burned a redshirt for little more than special teams and suffered the fate of a late season broken leg that will likely force him to miss the off-season through spring practice. He should have the talent to move back into the mix once summer comes around and in reality the depth isn’t so overwhelming as to make this so depressing of a situation. Nonetheless, he has a lot of work ahead.
New Faces
Deon McIntosh, r-FR
Michael Young, FR
The skeptic in me thinks McIntosh is going to get lost in the shuffle which was a worry I had during his recruitment. He’ll likely be too small to play running back and there doesn’t appear to be a serious chance for playing time in the slot until 2019 at the earliest. Can he stick around that long? Will he move to defense?
As I write this the Irish only have one receiver commit but will likely add a couple more freshman to the fold for 2017. The funny thing is that while the depth isn’t great at wideout (Kelly has always seemed comfortable with at least 11 bodies) I wouldn’t see a need for any of a 3-man freshman haul to see the field unless they were just too good.
Grade: B
I was tempted to go with a B+ here because, if you recall, receiver was such an enormously huge question mark going into August. I know I’m grading on a curve here because of the youth but St. Brown, Stepherson, and to a lesser extent Finke, all hilariously overachieved.
Just imagine how things might be if we could’ve said the same thing about another position like defensive line.
One thing I’ve seen in Kizer draft reports is some praise him for reading a pro-style route tree and being able to make progressions. I suppose with Long’s offense and playcalling there’s bound to be changes but it sounded like the 2016 ND offense was a relatively complex one; especially in the comparisons to where Kizer is compared to a QB like Watson who I saw in the same report was a guy only tasked with 1 or 2 reads all to the same side of the field and then encouraged to improvise if that wasn’t open.
With that in mind, I think the receivers did well enough in 2016, we were spoiled by Explosiva and didn’t really have a guy who can take the top off a defense. But as mentioned many underclassmen stepped up and all should be better next season, even if they’ll have a new starter and not an impending 1st round pick slinging the ball around. Hope Claypool can take a huge leap that would be a nice development.
It’s really crazy to think that there isn’t going to be a single Senior at QB, RB, or WR this year. And the guys getting the most playing time at TE could potentially all be underclassmen too. Hopefully all those young guys getting reps this year keeps the miscommunication issues to a minimum, but I’m definitely prepared for a few frustrating plays per game.
Of course, this group also still has a massive ceiling. The O-Line should be, at the very worst, solid (with elite potential, especially if they clean up the penalties). We all know Wimbush has a high ceiling; I just hope that trying to keep him from taking too many hits doesn’t limit his upside in the running game. A healthy Adams/Williams has major big play potential. St. Brown has shown that he can be a fantastic player if there’s another #1-ish WR on the field with him; can he take the leap to being “the guy” this year (he struggled to get as much separation in games where Hunter was injured). If Wimbush turns out to be merely “good enough,” we should be able to put up points on every team on the schedule, even with the lack of senior experience.
Without numbers to back it up, I’d hazard that Stepherson’s average route depth was longer than every other receiver, so I don’t worry too much about his low catch rate (and think it will go up as his YPC probably goes down a bit with a different role next year).
The split on Young Ray is also interesting:
CJ Sanders first five games: 17 catches, 254 yards.
Last seven games? 7 catches, 39 yards.
I have to think that more touches per game has to be a priority in 2017 for him, and I don’t have a great explanation for his drop-off besides a bit of downtick in playing time with Finke / Stepherson playing well, but there should have been ample opportunity with THJ’s injuries. Personally would love to see more jet sweep action with him involved, and maybe this is the year our timing finally doesn’t look clunky on it – it always seems like the wide receiver is past the QB who then has a half-hearted fake or a toss with a higher degree of difficulty than intended.
I don’t think there was that big of an issue last year on jet sweep timing, I just wish they ran it more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCmVDyId-QE&list=PLvFI28CIIB09GOszlL8G7IohnaQUj0hAX&index=3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-XBeCxGOG4&index=1&list=PLvFI28CIIB08mY5_mwiQx2Ga6vfdxraYZ
I think CJ’s playing time as WR coincided with his decreased playing time in the return game.
Also, I think our WRs were not as good as the numbers might indicate. I think a large part of the weaknesses in our passing game as the season went on, and as the game went on, is that our WRs were not able to create separation. An experienced Fuller, Brown, Hunter and Robinson made an enormous difference for a young Kizer. Plus, there were multiple reports of WRs having drop issues in practices, which we saw some in games. I don’t think Kizer had the confidence in his WRs, and felt he had to make perfect passes. This caused him to hold the ball too long.
We don’t know how many times WRs were not where they were supposed to be, which would also effect the passing game. Even the risk of them not being in the right spot, would prevent Kizer from throwing timing routes. Other than long passes, there seemed to be a lot fewer crossing or seam routes. Most of the out routes also seemed to be thrown after the break as opposed to before.
I think the drops, indecision and perhaps poor route running all contributed to the lack of explosiveness in our passing game. I think it also made our passing game predictable as the game wore on, and DBs knew what Kizer would do in certain situations or they knew they could bump a WR off his spot and break the play.
ESB – clearly the best of the bunch
Finke – I see potential with him
Stepherson – okay, but needs time to develop (beyond running deep routes)
C.J. – disappears too much; I’d rather see Finke get some time to see what ND has with him
Boykin – unimpressed so far
Claypool – big potential, but quite raw; I wanted to see him moved to defense, but with the low numbers at WR, he’ll probably stay here
McKinley – let’s hope that he needed a year to adjust, and is now ready (post-injury) to step up
Overall, with the WRs, I see a lot of potential…for the TE talent to see the field more.