As the Irish step into their first, and most likely only, ACC conference season, there are plenty of questions along the way as to how Notre Dame will fare. Chip Patterson of CBS Sports tried to tackle how Brian Kelly will guide the Irish through this odd season.
Before Patterson got in-depth on how the Irish would do in conference play, still weird to say that, he looked at how they got to this point. Patterson singled out Kelly’s change in player development and recruiting since going 4-8 in 2016. The head coach addressed those issues and “the results were immediate, with Notre Dame going 33-5 over the last three seasons with three top-12 poll finishes and an appearance in the 2018 College Football Playoff.”
You can say that Kelly has really excelled with the change, not hoping the players improve, but instead putting an emphasis on drastic improvements. Patterson singled out linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah and Kyren Williams as two players who have benefitted from new priorities. This led Patterson to come to the conclusion that “Notre Dame is uniquely built to overcome whatever obstacles are ahead in the 2020 season.”
That main obstacle being the Clemson Tigers, who pretty much own the ACC right now. Patterson knows that as “Clemson is still the odds-on favorite to win the league, but Notre Dame is too strong to think we can pencil in those two matchups as ‘win, win’ for the Tigers.”