Tag: Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah

Is Notre Dame LB Owusu-Koramoah in line to Blow Up NFL Draft Boards

After a breakout season last year, will Irish pass rusher Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah be a player who shoots up NFL draft boards?

If you follow Notre Dame Football, which you clearly do, then you know what linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah did last year. However, many fans don’t pay much attention to what other teams are doing, aside from their rivals, so there is a possibility his great season went unnoticed by many people. Those people were not NFL scouts as yesterday 247Sports named Owusu-Koramoah as the next Patrick Queen.

Don’t know who Queen is? Well, all he did was lead the LSU defense to a National Title after having a so-so start to his career. Queen doubled his career tackles total, picked up his first interception, and added 3 sacks to the one he had in his previous two seasons with the Tigers.

Owusu-Koramoah’s breakout was last year, after taking the quarterback down 8.5 times while totaling 79 tackles. The rising redshirt junior’s stats are much more impressive than Queen’s, but this is more about being a nationally known player, as “perhaps he (Owusu-Koramoah) has a little bit more name appeal nationally than Queen’s 2018 profile. But after the 2020 season, expect Owusu-Koramoah to be a household name.”

The hype train should be building for the Irish star defender after what he did last year. If Owusu-Koramoah is about to at least replicate his stats from last year, he will surely be a household name. If he can exceed those impressive numbers from his redshirt sophomore campaign, Owusu-Koramoah should be hearing his name being called in the first round of the NFL Draft.

PFF Top 101 – One Notre Dame Star Checks in at 73

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.

Spoiler alert:  it’s not Chase Claypool.

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.

Notre Dame Football: One Irish Player Named to ESPN’s “All-Bowl Team”

Claypool’s ridiculous day didn’t earn him a spot

Bowl season has come and gone and despite the Camping World Bowl not being the most exciting destination for Notre Dame fans, the Irish rolled Iowa State 33-9.

In that game Chase Claypool walked away with MVP honors after he pulled down seven receptions for 146 yards, one touchdown and another score that was ultimately overturned.  However, Claypool’s ridiculous day didn’t earn him a spot on ESPN’s All Bowl Team for 2019.

Notre Dame’s sole-representitive on the team went to Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah.

Quite frankly, JOK was a freak on the field against Iowa State as he recorded nine tackles, had three sacks, four tackles for loss, a forced fumble, fumble recovery and an additional hurry on Iowa State Brock Purdy to boot.

Owusu-Koramoah’s day got Irish fans excited for a 2020 where the sky appears to be the limit and the Camping World Bowl highlighted just that.

If you’re upset about Claypool not being named to the team, it’s at least for good reason – receivers were downright nasty this bowl season.  Tyler Johnson of Minnesota pulled down 204 yards and two scores against Auburn, Jerry Jeudy of Alabama also had 204 yards and a score in a win over Michigan and George Pickens of Georgia had 175 yards and a touchdown in their win over Baylor.

Watch: Highlights of Camping World Bowl Victory

In case you missed the game or just want to relive the best parts again since we have no Notre Dame games to discuss until the end of August, enjoy the highlights below:

Notre Dame dominated on all fronts to finish 2019 11-2 and earn a Camping World Bowl trophy for the first time in school history.

Offense, defense and special teams all had huge plays at different times during the game that helped to the 33-9 blowout victory in the first ever match-up between Notre Dame and Iowa State.

In case you missed the game or just want to relive the best parts again since we have no Notre Dame games to discuss until the end of August, enjoy the highlights below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-sRivh6Nls&w=560&h=315]

11-2.  It wasn’t what we all wanted but it’s a lot better way to spend the evening of December 28 than 10-3 would have been.

Can we get to August already now?

Notre Dame Game Ball Awards for Camping Bowl Victory

He played like a man whose hair was on fire and dominated all afternoon, a great momentum builder for a 2020 season where his and team expectations will be sky-high.

Notre Dame steamrolled Iowa State 33-9 on Saturday, wrapping up an 11-2 campaign that saw them win reach that win total for a second year in a row for the first time since the 1988-89 seasons.

It may not have been the bowl game Notre Dame players, coaches or fans wanted but it was what they were handed and they dominated Iowa State for really the entirety of the games sixty minutes.

With the 33-9 win there were plenty of great performances to be seen but here are who won our game ball awards at Fighting Irish Wire for their play in each phase of the game.

Special Teams:

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Notre Dame Routs Iowa State: 5 Takeaways

I didn’t love everything early but he did do what my pre-game requests were in being able to isolate one of Claypool, Lenzy or Kmet and to exploit an Iowa State defense who didn’t have play-makers that could defend any of those three one-on-one.

There was concern about if Notre Dame would be interested in playing Saturday, how much their heads were in preparing for the Camping World Bowl and attention was only drawn to that this week as Brian Kelly called out his team publicly multiple times for not being focused.

Maybe it was a motivational technique or maybe it was just a lion playing coy, but that in no way, shape or form wound up being how things played out Saturday as Notre Dame steam-rolled Iowa State – to win the Camping World Bowl.

The Fighting Irish finish the year 11-2 have a chance to perhaps finish the year around the top 12, not that any ranking short of one really matters much.

Here are my five takeaways from Saturday’s blowout win.

1:  Clark Lea Owned Matt Campbell

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Game Ball Awards for Notre Dame’s Win over Stanford

I still think the Irish win Saturday had Isaiah Foskey not blocked the punt late in the first half because Notre Dame was simply too dominant afterwards to think it was only that play.

A look at the final score and you might not think Saturday’s 45-24 Notre Dame win over Stanford and think they dominated for the entire afternoon.

Although domination eventually came on, for 27 minutes or so in the first half things were anything but for the Fighting Irish.

So who gets the reward of the game balls in today’s win that wraps up a 10-2 regular season?

Let’s check it out:

Offense:

I could go a couple different ways here with Chase Claypool scoring twice and providing the go-ahead touchdown or Tony Jones scoring and putting up 90 total yards but to me it was Ian Book that offensively was the biggest star.

Four touchdowns and no interceptions, his ground game wasn’t as strong today but it was just as lethal when it absolutely needed to be, his fourth down run for 26 yards to the Stanford three while still only leading 21-17 was a huge play by the quarterback who Brian Kelly had big-time praise for after the game (more on that, later).

Ian Book: 17/30, 255 yards, 4 TD, 0 INT, 29 rush yards

Defense and Special Teams…

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