When Notre Dame’s football team handed out their end of season awards in December the Team MVP went to Chase Claypool without much question.
Claypool was the best player on one of Notre Dame’s best offenses in program history and spent the first day at the Senior Bowl turning heads for all the right reasons.
But was Claypool the best player on Notre Dame last season?
I ask because Pro Football Focus is ranking the best 101 players nationwide in 2019. So far they’ve covered 26-101 and Notre Dame has just one representitive on the list (I have trouble believing any Irish player comes in the top-25).
Spoiler alert: it’s not Chase Claypool.
Checking in at No. 73 is Kyle Hamilton who they recently ranked the fifth-best returning safety in college football for the 2020 season. Here is what PFF had to say about the young Notre Dame safety today:
The fabulous true freshman safety for the Fighting Irish wowed in his first season in South Bend, picking off four passes and breaking up another five while allowing just seven catches to be caught into his primary coverage. He missed a few too many tackles to come away with an elite-graded season overall, but he more than made up for that with his prowess on the backend. He didn’t allow a single reception over 20 yards and saw a completion percentage of just 30.4% when he was the primary coverage defender. In fact, he allowed a passer rating of just 1.6 when he was targeted, and no, that’s no typo…one point six. He made 38 solo tackles, and 12 of them went down as a defensive stop. He continually began to improve his overall game grades as the season wore on — the sky is the limit for No. 14.
Hamilton was great, no question about it. He was a big part of the Louisville opener and by the middle of the year, the USC game specifically the defense was creating gameplans based on their faith in him not getting beat deep. I can’t say how much credit that is worthy of for a freshman.
Is Hamilton the player you think who will be the best for Notre Dame in 2020 however?
I certainly only expect him to improve in his sophomore and junior seasons. However, after an incredible Camping World Bowl showing and some marquee names leaving a very good defense I’m interested to see if a year from now how high Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah may show up the best players of 2020 list.
We’ll save plenty of this conversation for the months we still have to wait to get to football season again but it’s unlikely that any other Notre Dame players make the list that ranks Hamilton at 73 today.