2023 Notre Dame Football position group preview
Shake down the thunder things of that nature
In 2022 Notre Dame had a positively weird season in the first year of the Marcus Freeman era. The Irish began the year 0-2 with an opening loss on the road vs #2 Ohio State where ND led in the 4th Quarter and then a bizarre home loss to a Marshall team that would end up with 9 wins and a Top 10 defensive unit. Notre Dame would respond by finishing the year 9-2 which wasn’t without its fair share of weirdness including a dreadful 16-14 home primetime loss to a 3-9 Stanford team and a barn burner bowl game win vs a Top 20 South Carolina team. Now in 2023 with a full season of experience under his belt Marcus Freeman has quite a different team to lead unto the breach.
Quarterbacks
The biggest difference from 2022 to 2023 for Notre Dame football is obviously at the Quarterback position. Both signal callers from last season have departed as original QB1 Tyler Buchner followed former OC Tommy Rees to Alabama. Buchner began the year inconsistently before hurting his shoulder in the Marshall loss and coming back just at the very end for some outstanding heroics and a Gator Bowl MVP award with a final statline of 652 passing yards, 55.4 completion percentage, 3 touchdowns, and 5 interceptions with 4 touchdowns and 171 yards on the ground as well. For the 10 Buchnerless games the much (and unfairly so in my opinion) maligned Drew Pyne guided the Irish to an 8-2 record with 2,021 passing yards, a 64.6 completion percentage, and 22 touchdowns to 6 interceptions. Pyne left for Arizona State before the bowl game. Despite these losses QB is seen as one of the major strengths of this Irish squad and that is because of who Marcus Freeman and company brought in via the transfer portal. The all-time ACC touchdown pass leader (110) with the second most passing yards in ACC history (12,967) and most 300 passing yard games (21) as well as holding just about every Wake Forest QB stat imaginable makes his way to South Bend in the form of Sam Hartman as a Grad transfer QB. Hartman brings a level of arm talent combined with big time results that Notre Dame hasn’t seen since Jimmy Clausen. Hartman’s 2022 season started off with a bang with a 6 touchdown performance in a week 3 double OT loss to Clemson at home and he finished with 3,701 yards, a 63.1 completion percentage, 38 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions (6 of which came in a 2 week span on the road at Louisville and NCSU where he was sacked 11 times as well). 3,701 yards would be the third most in a season in Notre Dame history ranking behind Brady Quinn’s 2005 season (3,919) and Jimmy Clausen’s 2009 (3,722) while edging out Everrett Golson’s 2014 campaign (3,445) and his 38 touchdowns would be the most in a season ever. Behind #10 is former four star redshirt freshman Steve Angeli who saw very little mop up duty action last season and the four star true freshman Kenny Minchey the dual threat who flipped from Pitt to ND in the class of 2023.
Running Backs
One of the biggest reasons for Notre Dame’s surge over the back half of the 2022 season was the rise of a diabolical backfield troika of Audric Estime Chris Tyree and Logan Diggs. Only Diggs departs from the squad heading into this new season joining Brian Kelly on the bayou after falling behind Estime and some new blood in the RB room during the spring. Estime returns after running for 920 yards, at 5.9 yards per carry, for 11 touchdowns while bringing in 135 yards and a touchdown through the air. Chris Tyree however will be joining the wide receivers full time this fall after posting 4.4 yards per carry, 444 yards, and 3 touchdowns on the ground with 138 yards and 2 touchdowns through the air. As a whole the Irish rushed for 189 yards per game but mostly in a 4 yards and a cloud of dust fashion and would mix in shocking no shows vs poor run defenses of Southern Cal and Navy with punishing performances vs the likes of Syracuse (who was ranked!) and Clemson. The biggest thing the Irish lacked as a whole but definitely in the running game was a lack of explosive plays and Audric Estime lead the way being far and way the best in terms of explosive rate (percentage of runs that gained 12 or more yards) at 15.4% while also being stuffed the fewest of the big 3. Behind Estime now is a redshirt freshman duo of Jadarian Price who looks to be fully healthy after an achilles injury kept him out for his entire freshman season and Gi’Bran Payne who were both four star recruits. There is also Penn State transfer Devyn Ford who worked primarily as a return man for the Nittany Lions and true freshman Top 100 recruit Jeremiyah Love who both figure to get looks due to their speed be it out of the backfield or in special teams.
Wide Receivers
A position group whose only consistency was inconsistency in 2022 looks to turn the page with an incredibly talented group in 2023. Notre Dame returns just 1 of their top 3 wideouts production wise and lost Virginia Tech grad transfer Kaleb Smith to medical retirement but Sam Hartman is still going to have plenty to work with. Sophomore Jayden Thomas put up 362 yards and 3 touchdowns on just 25 receptions and had a penchant for making tough contested catches in big moments to move the chains and looks to take the next step after a phenomenal rookie campaign. Joining Thomas out wide is a fellow sophomore in Tobias Merriweather who got more and more live reps as the season went on including a huge deep touchdown vs Stanford. Merriweather and Thomas on the outside give Notre Dame a healthy balance of speed, size, and strength with Thomas standing at 6’2” and Merriweather at 6’4”. Joining those two as a starter is former RB Chris Tyree who has transitioned fully to a slot receiver and looks to make an impact through the air for his junior season through the air utilizing his blistering speed and it should be a lot of fun seeing him get the ball out in space where he can make use of all of his physical tools. In terms of depth Notre Dame has it in spades and figures to rotate a lot of bodies at WR to maximize their potential. Deion Colzie had a fantastic end to his season hauling in just 9 passes for 192 yards a touchdown down the stretch. True freshman 6’2” Jaden Greathouse has greatly impressed during spring ball after early enrolling and fellow freshman Rico Flores Jr. has the blazing speed to potentially get some early playing time. Super senior and special teams aficionado Matt Salerno is also back to help out at depth in the slot position.
Tight Ends
Michael Mayer’s historic career in the blue and gold ended and he is now amongst many other Notre Dame tight ends in the NFL but the cupboard is far from bare in his absence for 2023 talent wise. Current TE1 for the Fighting Irish is actually the least touted of the bunch in terms of recruiting rankings but the junior came back from an off-season broken foot to play in 7 games and assume the primary position as Mayer sat out the Gator Bowl culminating in his game winning touchdown catch on 3rd down late in the 4th quarter. Behind Evans are two highly touted 2022 recruits that are entering their second year in the program in Eli Raridon and Holden Staes as well as Kevin Bauman the oldest man in the room who tore his ACL early in last season and looks to bounce back from that. There is also true freshman Cooper Flanagan a 4 star recruit who comes into college with highly touted blocking abilities in the run game. The tight ends are going to be incredibly valuable to helping the explosiveness of the 2023 Irish run game and I also figure multiple TE sets to be a heavy factor in Gerad Parker’s scheme for Notre Dame so all of these guys will see the field in some capacity.
Offensive Line
When you think of modern Notre Dame football you probably think of the offensive line and it’ll be no different in 2023. Despite Harry Hiestand’s retirement meaning a third coach in three years at the position Joe Rudolph is a welcome addition to the Irish coaching staff. He was the longtime OL coach at Wisconsin and spent a year at Virginia Tech prior to joining the Irish and is going to have a wealth of talent at his disposal. The starters seem to have 4 guys solidly in with a potential position battle at right guard. Junior Andrew Kristofic will be doing battle with sophomore Rocco Spindler who appeared sparingly in 2022 initially an in-season platoon system seemed to be the likely outcome but after recent comments from Rudolph the Irish seem to be heading towards a decisive battle. The other 4 starters include one of the best players in all of college football and a surefire top 10 NFL draft pick in Joe Alt at left tackle, Zeke Correll who started every game at center last season, redshirt freshman Billy Schrauth who came on strong during the end of the 2022 season and has really impressed, and right tackle Blake Fisher the redshirt sophomore who truly blossomed across 13 starts last season after missing most of 2021 with an unfortunate knee injury. Behind those 6 guys is a whole host of talent including juniors Michael Carmody, Tosh Baker and Quinn Murphy but also a ton of youth with a plethora of freshmen. All of these guys will be key in the Notre Dame ground game becoming a more consistently dominant force in 2023. In 2022 ND was able to run the ball but struggled with consistency and explosiveness. In losses last year the Irish averaged 2.5, 3.5, 3.6, and 3.5 yards per carry and while part of that came from the passing game being mostly a non factor the onus is on the OL to knock some guys off the ball and open holes for Estime to streak through.
Defensive Line
Notre Dame’s defense is a wealth of experience in 2023 everywhere except for the defensive line. Gone are Isaiah Foskey and the Ademilola bros and with them the boatloads of stats and accolades accumulated over their Fighting Irish careers but the cupboard is not entirely bare. Senior Howard Cross after making 7 starts is the full-time nose guard was second on the team in quarterback hits last year with 5 and junior Rylie Mills had 3.5 sacks and 2.5 tackles for loss make up the interior while bowl game hero Jordan Botelho a junior looks to be the successor to Isaiah Foskey off the edge. Joining the 3 returnees in the front four is Ohio State transfer Javontae Jean-Baptiste who appeared in 46 games for Ohio State over his career but only made 6 starts. The former highly rated recruit will look to explode in his big chance in the sun and will most certainly have September 23rd circled on his calendar. The depth is going to be an interesting thing to keep an eye on here with junior Nana Osafo-Mensah along with Princeton grad transfer Cole Aubrey being two players with a lot of experience at the college level. One player to look at for as a surprise is Jason Onye the junior former three star recruit who has greatly impressed in practices this offseason and is pushing for his first real playing time of his career.
Linebackers
Notre Dame returns all three of their starting linebackers from last season who also happened to be the three leading tacklers for the Irish. In the first year of Al Golden’s system in South Bend the trio of J.D. Bertrand, Jack Kiser, and Marist Liufau (who are all in their junior seasons of eligibility) saw themselves flying all over the field making huge plays and playing almost every snap of all 13 games. They combined for 191 tackles, 8 quarterback hits, 5 sacks, and 13.5 tackles for loss engineering one of the more chaotic and explosive defenses in college football. That trio slot in to the starting spots in Golden’s modified 4-3 scheme but the linebacker with the 4th most snaps last season, Prince Kollie, is gone by way of the transfer portal which leaves a lot of youth in the wings. Jaylen Sneed the redshirt freshman out of South Carolina had a good outing in the Gator Bowl vs his home state Gamecocks and looks to fill Kollie’s role as the first man off the bench for the linebackers and adds a level of athleticism and explosiveness that is going to make this unit even better. Drayk Bowen is the prize recruit he is one of three true freshman on the depth chart in the linebacker room for Notre Dame this season. If any of them are to get real playing time bet on it to be Bowen.
Safeties
The safety position is an interesting one for Notre Dame in 2023 as both Brandon Joseph and Houston Griffith are gone who saw a substantial amount of playing time/starts but still returning are D.J. Brown who made 10 starts on the season and Xavier Watts who saw a lot of playing time as the season wore on and injuries began to stack up. Those two experienced vets look to be the day 1 starters but there is also the case of Ramon Henderson the junior who filled in for Kyle Hamilton after his injury in 2021 and saw the field a lot in 2022 as well. The Irish secondary sees a good bit of rotation and formations so if the Irish aren’t in their nickel formation with a nickel corner on the field it is also possible to see Oklahoma State grad transfer Thomas Harper at strong safety as he has tremendous positional versatility to the Irish as coaches have raved about his ability to play wherever he is needed. Joining Harper as a transfer and in the versatility aspect is grad transfer Antonio Carter II from Rhode Island. Carter was incredibly sought after by LSU, Florida, Texas A&M among others and chose the Irish after a great career in FCS at Rhode Island. In 2022 alone he had 10 pass breakups, 60 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, and an interception and now he gets an opportunity to work in Notre Dame’s flexible secondary framework and it should be a lot of fun.
Cornerbacks
Potentially Notre Dame’s strongest position group for the 2023 season is at corner. They return just about everyone except for TaRiq Bracy who saw a nice career resurgence in the nickel role that Thomas Harper will assume control of in those packages. The leading man for the Irish is sophomore Benjamin Morrison who posted 4 pass breakups and 6 interceptions in his true freshman campaign earning him All-American honors. Across from him on the field is the veteran Cam Hart who returned somewhat surprisingly. Hart was looked at as a potential first round draft pick at the beginning of 2022 but was hampered by injuries and missed the final few games of the season vs Southern Cal and South Carolina. Morrison and Hart give ND one of the best CB duos in all of football but the depth is what truly shines here. Even taking out the aforementioned swiss army knife players like Harper and Carter II the Irish have Clarence Lewis who looked much improved in 2022 and has made 21 starts in his career as an option both outside and at nickel and Jaden Mickey a sophomore who started in place of the injured Cam Hart and played very admirably against the high powered passing attacks of both USCs. It has been a very long time since Notre Dame had both the top end talent and depth that it does at the corner position.
Overview
Notre Dame brings one of its most talented teams of the 21st century onto the gridiron in 2023 against a very interesting schedule. Stay tuned for another post breaking down the Irish opponents for 2023!