Tag: Fighting Irish football

Recruiting: Irish Offer Two Florida Defensive Ends

Notre Dame offers two Florida edge-rushers spanning two different recruiting classes.

If you follow high school football, you know that Florida’s St. Thomas Aquinas is one of the best programs in the country and they have yet again produced another potential star. Dallas Turner, a 6’4” and 235-pound defensive end, is next in line of talented Raiders to come through the program and yesterday the Irish offered the star player.

This offer might be one where it is too little, too late. Turner’s recruitment will be an uphill battle for the Irish, he’s seen as lean towards two SEC schools in Alabama and Georgia. Michigan has made him a priority recruit as well, so the battle for a commitment from Turner will be difficult.

It’s three years away from when the 2023 class can start signing their letter of intent, but that hasn’t stopped schools from offering star Florida defensive end Derrick LeBlanc. Notre Dame joined Alabama, Auburn, Florida State and others in offering the 6’5” and 247-pound edge-rusher.

Just a rising sophomore with the offer list LeBlanc has shows that he is a national level prospect. At this stage of his recruiting, to hold over 20 offers is extremely impressive. His frame at this time is just as impressive as his offer list, as LeBlanc will have three more years to add to it before enrolling on a college campus.

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LeBlanc is just the fifth player from the 2023 class to report an Irish offer at this moment, two other offers also reside in Florida. His pinned tweet is his offer from Alabama, so one would have to guess they are near the top of this list. By Brian Kelly and his staff offering early, the Irish have made it well known to LeBlanc he is a priority for them.

ESPN: Four What If’s for Notre Dame to be Title Contenders

The Irish have appeared on many experts short list of title contenders, with ESPN looking at scenarios for those teams to make a CFP run.

When you look at what it takes for a run at the College Football Playoff Championship, teams with the least questions heading into the season usually have the best opportunities to finish the season winner of the CFP. ESPN’s Bill Connelly looked at 18 teams and their If’s regarding making a run at being a contender this season.

The Irish were included by Connelly, with 4 Ifs, two each on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. The first If for the Irish starts with who will be catching passes from Book.  Now that Tommy Rees took over for Chip Long as the offensive coordinator, Rees will have to figure out Book’s best bet to make plays. Connelly mentions Northwestern transfer Ben Skowronek, Javon McKinley, Braden Lenzy and in-coming freshman Jordan Johnson as receivers who could step up and says, “someone needs to come through.” Connelly is right, at least two receivers or tight end’s will need to step up and be a major contributor. Keep an eye out for a pair of unknowns in Kevin Austin and incoming freshman Jordan Johnson, either one of them could have an impact this coming season.

Next, Connelly stays on the offensive side and looks at who will line up next to Book in the backfield. C’Bo Flemister, Jafar Armstrong and Jahmir Smith are the returning players mentioned while freshman Chris Tyree could make an impact as well. Connelly fails to mention the potential impact of Stanford transfer Trevor Speights, which gives me a feeling his impact might be minimal. I expect Tyree to emerge from the group, provided he stays healthy.

Moving on to the defense, Connelly is looking at the defensive backfield as and If for the Irish. This point I actually disagree with as I feel like this group will be a strength for Notre Dame. Sophomore safety Kyle Hamilton should become a household name by the end of the year, while cornerback Houston Griffin has been working hard this offseason to finally make an impact, which I think he will. The addition of NC State transfer Nick McCloud, a cornerback, along with Ohio State transfer Isaiah Pryor makes a solid group in my eyes.

Connelly’s final point stays on the defense and questions the “lack of beef” on the defensive line. I would agree with this point, as he points out that just “two of 10 returning contributing linemen are listed above 286 pounds. This group will have to grow up in a hurry to protect the linebackers and allow them to continue to make plays.

These four If’s are important keys to the Irish season, although some of them aren’t nearly as concerning as others, especially on the defensive side of the ball. If Kelly is able to overcome some of these questions, Notre Dame should have a standout 2020

USA TODAY: Wisconsin has a top-5 “interesting” non-conference schedule

The Badgers play an intriguing non-conference slate

As we move closer to the hopeful starting date of the 2020 football season, anticipation continues to build, specifically surrounding Wisconsin’s early non-conference schedule. USA TODAY Sports recently took a wide look at non-conference schedules around the country and ranked who had the most interesting group of opponents. The Badgers came in at No. 4 overall for good reason.

Here is what Wisconsin’s non-conference slate looks like:

Week 2: vs. Southern Illinois 

Week 3: vs. Appalachian State

Week 5: vs. Notre Dame (at Lambeau for now) 

The cupcake game is easy to see as Wisconsin welcomes FCS Southern Illinois to Camp Randall in the second week of the season. If you have not heard this warning already, hear it from me right now: do not overlook Appalachian State. If you have yet to jump on the App State bandwagon, you had better hurry because the train is filling up. This is a squad that lost one game last season and ended the year ranked as the No. 20 overall team in the nation with wins over North Carolina and South Carolina. The small town of Boone, North Carolina, where App State is located, runs college football in the Carolinas.

Then, you have the marquee matchup with Notre Dame that will hopefully take place at Lambeau Field in Green Bay despite recent reports that the game may be moved. A battle of two teams with New Years Bowl aspirations on NBC will be one of the marquee games of Wisconsin’s season in 2020. This non-conference slate certainly is among the most intriguing in the nation.

 

 

Is Notre Dame on the Verge of breaking their Championship Drought?

The Irish haven’t won a championship since 1988 and one 247Sports expert thinks they are close to ending that drought.

Yesterday, Brandon Marcello predicting the Irish would return to national prominence and today another 247Sports analyst thinks Notre Dame could be on the verge of breaking their championship drought. Chris Hummer looked at the 10 teams most likely to do that and his list included Notre Dame.

The caveat with Hummer’s article is looking back with at least a 15-year drought and unfortunately the Irish qualify inside that time frame. The legendary Lou Holtz guided the Irish to their last title in 1988, have had two chances since 2012 for titles; losing both the 2013 BCS National Championship to Alabama and a 2018 College Football Playoff semifinal to eventual champion Clemson.

There is one similarity that Holtz and Brian Kelly have, as “Kelly has won 10-plus games for three straight seasons. He’s the first Notre Dame coach to do so since Lou Holtz in 1991-93,” Hummer noted. It’s that type of consistency that the major programs have, the best team’s year in and year out always get to double-digit wins.

Hummer also pointed out which areas the Irish need to improve to break the drought, “what needs to change is the caliber of recruit. It’s been two seasons since Notre Dame landed a top 10 class, and the Irish have only once done better than ninth during Kelly’s tenure (fifth in 2013).” He mentions that “we’ve seen a talent gap shine brightly twice before – Alabama in 2012 and Clemson in 2018 – and it still needs to close before Notre Dame can return to the top of college football once again.” Yes, the Irish were outmatched by the eventual champs, but Georgia, who recruits on the same level as Alabama and Clemson, barely won at home last year to the Irish.

Accumulating high level talent is never a bad thing, but it is not the end all for having a successful program. Kelly knows the recruiting needs to improve; the current 2021 class ranks 14th overall in the 247Sports composite team rankings. With 10 commitments in the bank, the Irish could add up to at least 10 more prospects and should see a rise in the rankings.

It’s been over three decades since the Irish have been able to call themselves champions of the college football world. The program is close to breaking the drought and if a breakthrough happens, the Irish could be seeing themselves rejoin the elite of college football.

Notre Dame Football Predicted to Return to National Prominence

Do the Irish have a legit shot at a playoff spot this year? One 247Sports writer makes a bold prediction that Notre Dame does and more.

With the seasons set to begin in less than 100 days, there will be plenty of predictions about how college football will play out in 2020. Brandon Marcello of 247Sports made 20 bold predictions for this year’s action and his view of Notre Dame should be seen as very encouraging.

Marcello loves what he sees for the Irish this coming season. He expects that Notre Dame will “contend for a national title in 2020.” Marcello sees the season hinging on their biggest contest of the year, the home date against perennial title contender Clemson. “The Irish will need all the help they can get to knock off the Tigers, but if they do it they will be in the College Football Playoff. Can they do it? Sure. This Irish team has a better shot at knocking off Clemson this season at home than Brian Kelly’s crew last season against Georgia on the road.”

The Irish lost a close on to the Bulldogs last year, 23-17, showing they have the talent to play against the best in the country. Marcello does note that Clemson “might just have its most talented roster in the Dabo Swinney era.” That’s a scary prospect after 5 straight College Football Playoff appearances along with 2 titles in that span.

What is most interesting is that Marcello mentions “this is the year the Irish catapult on the national scene and stay there.” The Irish have long been seen as just behind the top tier of elite teams and if Kelly can maneuver this team to the CFP, then Notre Dame has a leg up on its competitors. Aside from playoff mainstays Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Oklahoma there hasn’t been another school to get a second bid to the four-team playoff. Getting another bid would surely help the national perspective of the Irish and could see their rise into one of the top schools in the college football world.

Rivals: Kelly Hire Great, Notre Dame to Join Super Conference?

The Irish hiring of Brian Kelly gets praise once again, and Rivals Mike Farrell dreaming about four superconferences.

First it was ESPN giving Notre Dame’s hire of Brian Kelly away from Cincinnati as one of the best and now it is Rivals Mike Farrell giving props to the Irish for hiring Kelly. Farrell ranked the top coaching hires since 2008, with Kelly being ranked 6th among his coaching peers.

Farrell ranked Kelly behind Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley and LSU’s Ed Orgeron and a few others who have made a lot of noise since their hires. Farrell said “Kelly is 92-37 at Notre Dame and has been to a national title game. Dealing with academic restrictions, he’s done a great job.” Don’t forget Kelly guided the Irish to a College Football Playoff spot as well.

The most interesting part of Farrell’s article was his proposition of forming a ‘Power Four’ conference alignment. Farrell eliminates the Big XII, giving each conference in his scenario 16 teams with the Irish’s addition to the ACC giving them 17 teams. He propositions that every game would be a conference game except one, saying “we still want to see Notre Dame-USC and others, right?”

Farrell has the ACC adding the Irish along with West Virginia and TCU. Notre Dame would be in a division with newcomer TCU, Clemson, Florida State, Syracuse, NC State, Boston College, Louisville, and Wake Forest. Farrell believes that “Notre Dame in the same division as Clemson would be awesome,” but would it really? Part of the Irish allure is having a national schedule, playing teams from all across the country. This would limit those games, as traditional games against opponents like Stanford would be off the table.

This is just an idea, as Farrell states at the end “I know it’s impossible and won’t happen, but it sure is fun to imagine it. The ACC and the Pac-16 would certainly be much more interesting than they are now.” Yes, more interesting but would it work? Would you like to see the Irish join the ACC and have just one out of conference foe each year? I like it the way it is.

Notre Dame’s best teams not to win a national championship

Notre Dame has had a few great teams that didn’t win a national championship. Inspired by a bad ESPN list here are seven of the best here.

I was scrolling through different pages over the weekend and this morning and stumbled upon an interesting sounding list at ESPN:

“Our top college football teams that failed to win the national championship”

Certainly this list will create some discussion and without a doubt, Notre Dame will be represented on here a few times over.

Or so I thought.

If you clicked the link and read/scrolled through you probably realized that in that list of 25 teams, Notre Dame was never listed.

Uh, what?

No offense to Bill Connelly, I’m sure he’s a stand-up human but what on God’s green earth are you talking about on this list?

I can see Notre Dame not having a top team on the list but none in the top 25 of it is just absurd.  Here are just a few for Mr. Connelly and yourselves to freshen up on as each could have won a title.

1941 – Frank Leahy’s First Notre Dame Squad…

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8

Two New Preseason Top 25’s Released, See Where Irish are Ranked

It was Althon Sports and Pro Football Focus’ turn rank the preseason Top 25, see where Notre Dame landed in their projections.

College Football is trending in the right direction, as many conferences have announced plans to have student-athletes back on campus sometime in early June. The news has all of us salivating over the return of sports and dreaming about the upcoming season. Two different outlets, Althon Sports and Pro Football Focus have released their preseason Top 25 projections.

Let’s look at Althon Sports first, who rank the Irish 9th overall in the country heading into the season. Their look at the Irish goes in-depth as they voice some concerns prior to the contests being played, but nothing that we don’t know already. The core of Notre Dame’s returning offensive stars are led by quarterback Ian Book and all five starting offensive linemen. It’s the skill position where the Irish need to have players step up after losing a massive amount of production. “Incoming freshman Chris Tyree (RB), Jordan Johnson (WR) and Michael Mayer (TE) will have an opportunity to make an impact right away,” is how Steve Lassan of Althon Sports see’s it. Defensively, Lassan doesn’t think the group should miss a beat “but coordinator Clark Lea is going to have a busy fall trying to restock at defensive end and in the secondary.” The secondary concern’s shouldn’t be as large with the transfer of NC State’s Nick McCloud along with Ohio State transfer Isaiah Pryor and rising star sophomore Kyle Hamilton.

Pro Football Focus sees the Irish as one spot ahead at 8th in the country. Their preview doesn’t go as deep as Althon, but it’s still encouraging to see Notre Dame ranked that high. Book was singled out by PFF, as he had the “40th-highest PFF passing grade in the country in 2019,” a number that will need to be better if the Irish expect to contend for a spot in the College Football Playoffs.

Plenty of way-too-early Top 25 lists have been released, the majority have the Irish ranked anywhere from 8th to 12th at this juncture. When the season really gets started and the AP and Coaches polls are released, expect to find the Irish somewhere in that same range the preseason projections have them at.

Does Notre Dame Need to Recruit Ohio Harder?

It might be time for the Irish and Brian Kelly to have more of an impact with their neighboring states recruits.

Indiana’s neighbor to the east is Ohio, the most fertile football recruiting ground of any of the northern states. Rivals took a look at which schools recruit the Buckeye state the best and Notre Dame was not listed as one of the top 5 schools.

The current roster has 8 players from the state of Ohio; offensive linemen Tommy Kraemer and Liam Eichenberg along with defensive back Shaun Crawford are the biggest impact players from the state for the Irish. In this current recruiting cycle, wide receiver Lorenzo Styles Jr. is the lone Ohioan commit.

The state pumps out high-level Division I football players each year and it seems like Brian Kelly hasn’t been dipping into Ohio enough. This year, the state’s top 20 players are ranked inside the top 600 nationally, with schools like LSU, Northwestern, Purdue poaching talent.

It will always be a battle against Ohio State for their state’s top prospects, they usually have their pick of the litter. When Michigan was a college football power, they relied on Ohio players to make an impact. Their most recent Heisman winner Charles Woodson, he’s from Fremont, Ohio.

Kelly should know about how talent rich Ohio is, he should still have plenty of connections from his time as Cincinnati’s lead man, even if it was 10 years ago. Since 2016, the Irish have signed 4 players from the state. Not in one cycle, four total in that time frame, not including Styles Jr. who has yet to sign.

This year’s class from Ohio is deep, but even when it’s not, there are player’s who undoubtedly have the academic and athletic profile that fits what the Irish are looking for. It might be too late for the 2021 cycle but going forward it’s time to go back into Indiana’s neighboring state and start poaching away prospects.

Irish Overrated? CBS Gives Thoughts on Notre Dame’s ’20 Season Outlook

In a season series preview, CBS Sports looks at what is in store for the Irish this season.

The fact that Brian Kelly seems to falter against top teams is fair, since 2010 he has led the Irish to a 21-20 record in Top 25 matchups. So, Ben Kercheval’s assessment of that portion of the program is accurate, but that is in the past, this is about what is in store for the Irish in 2020.

There were multiple high-level players who left the Notre Dame program since it’s win over Iowa State in the Camping World Bowl just a few months ago. Kercheval feels like the biggest losses include TE Cole Kmet, WR Chase Claypool, RB Tony Jones Jr. and DE Julian Okwara. Each of them have brought their talents to the NFL.

What’s interesting is the fact that Kercheval mentions the firing of Offensive Coordinator Chip Long as a loss. Long was replaced by Tommy Rees prior to the bowl win, was seen as a excellent recruiter, but Kelly couldn’t mesh well with his play calling, especially in the aforementioned top matchups. While the offense under Rees was fantastic in Irish wins, averaging 38 points, the fact that Long couldn’t get more, 13.5 points per game, in losses irked Kelly and let to a change. The jury is still out on Rees, this season will be a big test for the first full year as offensive coordinator for the former Irish QB.

We all know about the returning Notre Dame stars, Kercheval sees QB Ian Book, OT Tommy Kraemer and WR Braden Lenzy as the offenses top returning playmakers. Pretty interesting that the other starting tackle, Liam Eichenberg isn’t mentioned, but Lenzy to me is the key. The leading returning receiver had just 11 catches last year, a number that will surely see a rise this coming season. The rising junior needs to break out for the Irish offense.

Defensively CB TaRiq Bracy and DE Daelin Hayes will be the key assets according to Kercheval. I think he didn’t pick the right players as Notre Dame’s key returning defenders. Safety Kyle Hamilton and linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah would have been my choices. It’s not a knock on Bracy and Hayes, they’re great players in their own right, I just believe that Hamilton and Owusu-Koramoah will have larger impacts.

Rees was named a fresh face, along with Northwestern WR transfer Bennett Skowronek and incoming freshman RB Chris Tyree. Spot on with Tyree, as the newest face to the Irish running back room might be needed to contribute immediately. Skowronek was a captain for the Wildcats last year, bring leadership to a position group that will need it. There are plenty of others that could have ended up in these spots include transfers safety Isaiah Pryor and CB Nick McCloud or freshman TE Michael Mayer. Each of them could play big roles for the Irish in ’20.

Kercheval sees the floor as 9 wins for the Irish, otherwise disappointment will reign in South Bend. A favorable schedule should result in double digits wins, so Kelly’s streak of 3 straight 10-plus win seasons should extent to a 4th once the season is played.