Tag: notre dame offensive line

Notre Dame beats Florida State 42-26: 5 takeaways

Notre Dame moved to 3-0 on the 2020 season

Notre Dame moved to 3-0 with a win over now 1-3 Florida State on Saturday night in a game that will go down as a victory that was impressive on some fronts for the Fighting Irish while it looked downright bad in others.

With the Florida loss earlier in the day we could see Notre Dame ranked fourth in the updated Amway Coaches Poll powered by USA TODAY on Sunday as well as the AP Poll.

As we await that news however, let’s look at five of the takeaways from the Notre Dame victory.

The Rust was There…

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Is the Notre Dame Offensive Line the best group in the country?

Five returning starters give the Irish a very formidable group, but just how good are they when compared to other top groups?

A long history of putting offensive linemen into the NFL has obviously gotten the notice of plenty of national pundits. Mike Farrell, the Recruiting Director over at Rivals, has ranked the best group of five offensive linemen in the country and the Irish came out on top of the list.

It’s not just one elite player on the line that Farrell likes its everyone “from Liam Eichenberg to Aaron Banks to Robert Hainsey, the front is loaded with talent and should pave the way for a strong running game and a dangerous offense under Ian Book.” The Irish will depend on the offensive line to pave holes for a very green running backs unit. They will also have to give Book enough time to find his also green wide receivers.

It is a very good luxury to have all five returning starters, with the aforementioned three along with Tommy Kraemer and Jarrett Patterson, to help ease the offense this coming season. Having a line that has been through the trials of a season together will surely help as Book finds go to targets and who will be the lead running back. You can add in Josh Lugg into the mix as well in case an injury occurs. Winning the battle on the trenches is often a good sign for great teams, and if the Irish offensive line plays up to expectations, you can expect very good results.

Notre Dame well-represented on NFL Top 100 list

Through just over half the rankings four Notre Dame players have appeared on the NFL’s Top 100 list. How many more will show up?

If you’re craving football returning chances are you’ve flipped on NFL Network in the last few days.  If you’ve done that you’ve almost certainly seen them promote their “NFL Top 100” list that has returned again this season.

NFL Network is revealing the list this week and has already counted down from 100 to 41.  In that window four former Notre Dame players have already been unvieled.

Checking in at No. 88 was Dallas Cowboys linebacker Jaylon Smith who is actually down 27 spots from a year ago when he checked in at 61.

Ronnie Stanley made his debut on the list as he came in ranked at 74.  I thought even though he wasn’t on the list previously that this felt a bit low considering how elite he was in pass protection a year ago and because of how much he helped an incredibly strong Ravens run game.

Harrison Smith has been a mainstay on the list as he’s appeared on it now five consecutive seasons.  Smith had the highest Madden rating of any safety in football recently and checked in at No. 64 on this years list, up 19 spots from No. 83 a year ago.

Finally Zack Martin of the Dallas Cowboys rounds out the Notre Dame players that have been mentioned so far. Martin is as reliable as any offensive guard in the game and came in ranked No. 55, his highest rating ever of the four times he’s now appeared on the list.

The show resumes Tuesday night as spots 40-11 will be unveieled, then Wednesday night spots 10-1 will be counted down.

The list has featured the main Notre Dame characters you’d expect to see with the exception of Quenton Nelson.  Nelson is as dominant of offensive lineman as there is in the game but I’m curious how high they’ll actually rank a guard.

My best guess is he’ll come in somewhere around 25 or so largely because of the position that he plays.

2020 Virtual Notre Dame Football Cards: John Dirksen – OG

As Notre Dame continues to approach the 2020 football season we release more virtual player cards. The latest is that of OL John Dirksen.

2020 Notre Dame Football Player Cards

Remember how great football cards were when you were a kid?  So do we!  We unfortunately can’t print out a bunch of pictures on cardboard and send them to all of you but we have the next best thing, virtual player cards for the 2020 Notre Dame football team!  Here you’ll find all the information, stats, facts and in some cases a photo gallery and/or highlights of all of your favorite Notre Dame players ahead of the 2020 season.  Check it out as we build the complete team set throughout July!

Card number five in the series belongs to offensive lineman John Dirksen.

Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

Next:  Information and Stats

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247Sports: A Super Team would Consist of an Notre Dame Positional Group

An Irish positional group is included as part of a super-team of units across the country.

This should not come as much of a surprise to anyone, especially from the school that hold’s the mantle of Offensive Line U, that Notre Dame’s group of 5 road graders would be named among the best in the nation. As 247Sports continues their preview of the upcoming season, Chris Hummer chose the Irish offensive line as his group when building a super team.

The talented group of linemen all return boasted by some impressive stats they as a group accumulated last season. Pro Football Focus was very high on “all five Irish starters return off a unit that ranked 13th nationally, per PFF College. Notre Dame was particularly good as a pass-blocking group, ranking second nationally in PFF’s grading system.” Those numbers equal a very formidable group heading into this season.

Of the five returning starting offensive linemen just one, guard Tommy Kraemer, didn’t make PFF’s top 30 returning offensive linemen. The rest of the group, tackles Liam Eichenberg and Robert Hainsey, guard Aaron Banks and center Jarrett Patterson combine to make the best group in the country.

There was some negative about the group however, as they we not particularly great as a run-blocking unit. Hummer noted that “Notre Dame finished a respectable 28th nationally in yard per carry last season. But that’s a little misleading. The o-line finished just 62nd nationally in line yards per carry – a Football Outsiders stats that gives the line credit on a percentage basis depending on the length of the run – indicating much of the Irish’s rushing success was due to running backs creating chunk runs instead of the line consistently creating holes.” If that is the one issues with the unit, then the Irish are in great shape. Run-blocking can be seen as a mentality, one that former Irish star Quenton Nelson has plenty of. If this current line can get that nasty streak going, there is no doubt in my mind they can fix their perceived run-blocking issues and be the best group in the country.

Notre Dame’s Good, Not Great Offensive Line Gets Graded by PFF

Unfortunately, the dominance was not nearly as evident in the running game for Notre Dame. 

Notre Dame had a good offensive line in 2019.

However, in some places, certain things simply require more than being just “good”.

When it comes to Notre Dame, the play of the offensive line is one such thing.

A look at the recent NFL All-Pro First-Team saw three of the five selected offensive linemen be products of Notre Dame where the standard is being dominating as a unit, not simply good.

Pro Football Focus released their team rankings for offensive lines and Notre Dame, although rated fairly high, came in far from elite.

Here is the PFF write-up of the 13th ranked Notre Dame offensive line:

Splitting hairs with the team right above them, both Notre Dame and Penn State ranked 17th in overall grade from their offensive lines this year, but the Fighting Irish get the advantage due to their second-ranked pass-blocking grade in 2019. The Fighting Irish were led by Eichenberg, who didn’t allow a single sack all year long.

-Pro Football Focus on 1/6/2020

Liam Eichenberg graded the best of any Notre Dame offensive lineman, largely because of his ability in pass-protection, something the entire unit was rather dominant in.

Unfortunately, the dominance was not nearly as evident in the running game for Notre Dame.  The most telling number to that comes when you look at the Irish’s ability, or lack thereof, to run the ball successfully against the two best teams they played at Georgia and Michigan.

In those two games Notre Dame ran for just 93 yards total on 45 attempts, good for an average of just 2.06 yards per carry.

If Notre Dame is going to take that next step and close the gap separating them from the likes of Clemson, Alabama, LSU and Georgia, they’ll have to re-establish the ability to run the ball with regularity.

For what it’s worth Oregon, Alabama and Georgia graded out as the three best offensive line units for 2019.

Irish in the NFL: Quenton Nelson’s Historic Start

It was the second time in Nelson’s two year NFL career that the former sixth overall draft pick of the Indianapolis Colts has been named a First-Team NFL All-Pro.

The news of Quenton Nelson being named an NFL All-Pro (along with two other former Notre Dame offensive linemen) earlier Friday afternoon put him in some very rare air where only the most-elite of NFL players have gone in recent memory.

It was the second time in Nelson’s two year NFL career that the former sixth overall draft pick of the Indianapolis Colts has been named a First-Team NFL All-Pro.

Who else has ever accomplished that?

Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1971 here is the list:

Earl Campbell
Eric Dickerson
Devin Hester
Keith Jackson
Barry Sanders
Lawrence Taylor

And now add in Quenton Nelson.

That’s it.  That’s the list.

Campbell, Dickerson, Sanders and Taylor are not only in the Pro Football Hall of Fame but also regarded in the short list of best ever for the positions each played.

Hester isn’t in the Hall of Fame yet but was the greatest return man in the history of the NFL and by a wide margin.

Keith Jackson never wound up in Canton, Ohio but still had a tremendous nine year NFL career that saw him selected to five Pro Bowls and three times an All-Pro.

Nelson’s trajectory doesn’t just put him on a pace to one day make the Hall of Fame, but be one of the absolute best to ever play his position in doing so.

Perhaps he and fellow All-Pro Zack Martin (six times) will one day go in as members of the same class.