He might not be the fastest receiver in the 2020 NFL Draft but his ball skills are as good as anybody else’s. Enjoy your final game with Claypool in a Notre Dame uniform on Saturday because come 2020 he will be missed in blue and gold.
#83Nation.
As we near the end of the 2019 calendar year its a good time to look back at everything that went on in 2019 both personally and for our favorite sports teams. We’re counting down the 10 best plays of Notre Dame’s 10-2 regular season.
We will unveil the plays now through Friday – feel free to leave comments in our forum if you agree or disagree or are just looking for some general Notre Dame or college football conversation.
Here’s what we have so far:
No. 10 – Cole Kmet Gives Notre Dame the Lead at Georgia
No. 9 – Kyle Hamilton Announces His Arrival
No. 8 – Finally, A Perfected Executed Screen Pass
No. 7 – Special Teams Shift Momentum
Which brings us to number six:
Chase Claypool didn’t enter Notre Dame with the star hype that some receivers in fairly recent memory did like Will Fuller or Michael Floyd, but he’ll leave with an impressive list of accomplishments and being a downright nasty target for Ian Book over the last two seasons.
Claypool started his senior campaign fine, but far from special. In 2019 he had four touchdown receptions through the teams first eight games which isn’t bad, but hardly impressive compared to his final month of the regular season.
After multiple clutch catches by him helped lead to a comeback win over Virginia Tech to start November, he soared scoring eight times over his final four regular season games.
I wish I could take one catch and say that it was Chase Claypool’s biggest moment but I simply can’t. For that reason I award the sixth best play of the season to my favorite two Chase Claypool touchdown receptions this season:
The first for me was actually his fourth on a November afternoon against Navy. He simply goes up over the Navy defender, gets both hands on the ball and is able to keep his foot in-bounds all while maintaining possession. It seemed like a lot to type but he makes it all look incredibly easy during his fourth score that day.
The other Claypool catch that especially stood out to me was his 41 yard go-ahead touchdown reception against Stanford the final weekend of November. Claypool again out-works the defenders, leaps and makes the acrobatic catch all while maintaining possession and giving Notre Dame their first lead of the day, one they would never look back from.
He might not be the fastest receiver in the 2020 NFL Draft but his ball skills are as good as anybody else’s. Enjoy your final game with Claypool in a Notre Dame uniform on Saturday because come 2020 he will be missed in blue and gold.
#83Nation.