KEY QUESTIONS FOR 2024: Notre Dame Fighting Irish
By Stiofán Mac Fhilib
As Marcus Freeman enters his important third season as Head Coach of Notre Dame, the tumultuous world of college football in this decade sees one of its most notable changes yet. The twelve-team playoff, that former Irish Athletic Director, Jack Swarbrick, played a pivotal role in developing, is finally here, and with that comes a whole host of revised expectations for fans of leading programs.
Freeman is likely tired by now of hearing how previous ND head coaches, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz all won a national championship in their respective third seasons. But the Irish Head Coaching position is not one for a person wary of the weight of history.
That said, realistic expectations for the Notre Dame faithful in 2024 are a little more reserved. But only a little. Entering the season ranked #7 in the AP Pre-Season Poll, victory in a home playoff game is pretty much the bare minimum and a quarter-final win should be the goal with a reasonable seeding. The Irish face an easier schedule than normal, in part due to Miami (FL) pulling out of a game that will now see ND instead face Army at Yankee Stadium.
As many are already aware, and many more will soon learn, the Irish can be seeded no higher than #5. A 12-0 regular season would almost certainly ensure that, and in turn a home game against the #12 seed, likely the highest-ranked G5 team. Such an outcome is more than possible, however, it initially all hinges upon ND’s ability to go to Texas A&M as current underdogs and win. The Irish have the defense to do so. The key is how the offense will fare.
Will talent trump (lack of) experience at OL U?
For the fourth consecutive season Notre Dame will have a new starter at QB, but I’ve used ‘Another Year, Another New QB’ in each of the last two seasons, so time to focus on what in 2024 is an even more critical part of the offense.
The Irish didn’t scrimp on the coordinator front in the off-season. Al Golden signed a new four-year contract as DC worth over $2m per year, and Mike Denbrock was hired away from his high-octane LSU offense to begin a third stint as ND OC on similarly expensive terms.
Notre Dame has an excellent running back room, led by Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price, is stacked at tight end with the returning Mitchell Evans complimenting Eli Raridon and Cooper Flanagan, and has greatly improved at wide eceiver thanks to significant help from the portal in the form of Kris Mitchell, Beaux Collins and Jayden Harrison.
Helping Riley Leonard learn the lessons of Sam Hartman’s experience will, of course, be important, but Denbrock’s most pressing issue is assembling a competent offensive line that can at least hold its own on a sultry, humid night in College Station in front of over 100,000 baying home fans.
Had Joe Alt and Blake Fisher returned for their senior seasons, then some Irish fans would be quietly checking out hotels in Atlanta for the third Monday in January. However, when you’ve the talent to be selected 5th or 59th in the NFL draft, you make the financially prudent decision.
A season-ending injury to presumptive starting LT, Charles Jagusah, saw fifth-year senior, Tosh Baker, moved to that spot, leaving redshirt sophomore, Aamil Wagner solidified at RT. Within days, however, starting freshman, Anthonie Knapp had beaten out Baker, which is either a very promising or somewhat ominous sign, heading off to Texas.
The C (Ashton Craig) and RG (Billy Schrauth) spots were locked down early by a pair of redshirt sophomores, but the LG spot was a battle between redshirt junior, Pat Coogan, and redshirt freshman, Sam Pendleton, and as at LT, the younger man won. Every single one of them was a highly ranked recruit, but what they clearly have in potential and talent, they sorely lack in experience and starts – the entire starting OL has just six.
By November, when the Irish take on FSU and USC, they should be a significantly improved unit. But it is how well Denbrock and OL coach, Joe Rudolph, have them prepared for College Station that may determine just how highly a playoff-bound ND team is seeded and how realistic a path through the playoffs it has.
The University (Grad School) of Defense
A year surely is a very long time in college football. Last August many Irish fans were a little underwhelmed by the performance of new DC, Al Golden, in his first season, one which saw the ND defensive players playing under their third coordinator in as many years.
Now, it’s the Irish offense about to start its third coordinator since 2022, whereas the defensive side of the ball is expected to benefit from the relative stability of a third straight year under Golden’s tutelage, as well as reaping the rewards of bringing back an extremely experienced line-up.
The entire starting DL is made up of two fifth-year and two sixth-year ‘super seniors’, as the Covid year exemption finally unwinds. Notre Dame’s leading LB, Jack Kiser, is another sixth-year senior. Then in the secondary, the nickelback, sixth-year senior Jordan Clark, joins the 2023 Bronko Nagurski Award Winner, fifth-year senior, safety Xavier Watts.
The combination of an experienced DC and so many players, who as Graduate Students have a relatively light class load and can effectively ‘study for the NFL’ as their major until Christmas, could well form the basis of a top-five defense nationally.
The Defensive Tackle combo of Howard Cross and Rylie Mills may be the best in all of college football, and the entire DL has at least 10 or 11 players who should feature significantly with little drop-off.
The linebacker room is the least experienced of the three levels of defense but the veteran, Jack Kiser, is surrounded by a plethora of sophomore and freshman talent. For success in 2024, the development of redshirt sophomore Jaylen Snead will be vital, but in the longer term, the player with the highest ceiling is true freshman Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asu, and KVA is expected to feature more and more as the season unfolds.
Following the departure of safeties coach, Chris O’Leary, last winter, Marcus Freeman rejigged his assistant coaching structure and put former CB coach, Mike Mickens, in charge of all the secondary. Freeman’s former colleague at Cincinnati had already done an excellent job improving the CB room and inherited the safety voted the Best Defensive Player in America last season.
Ben Morrison will lock down the boundary side of the field, in his junior year before heading to the NFL draft. And true sophomore, Christian Gray, is expected to do likewise on the field side. Another name to keep an eye on is true freshman, Leonard Moore, who may only play in spells, but who may turn out to be the most talented of all of the CBs by the time he graduates.
On Special Teams, the trend of one-year hires from the Grad transfer portal pool has continued at Kicker. Former South Carolina K, Mitch Jeter, is expected to bring a hugely consistent, if not long, leg to ND. His ability to kick under pressure may be tested straight out the gate on Saturday evening.
At Punter the Irish have a taken a different, and much longer travelled route, bringing in Australian, James Rendell. Son of an Aussie Rules star, he has a prodigious leg, and if he can achieve the requisite level of consistency, then he could be an underrated weapon for the Irish in 2024.
After a 2023 season that began with eight straight games, including four consecutive prime time outings, the 2024 campaign has two bye weeks, after the fifth and eighth games respectively. Bookended by trips to Texas A&M and USC, the visits of Florida State and Louisville look to be the toughest home assignments.
So much of college football is momentum-driven and an underdog victory in College Station will certainly bring a 12-0 season and #5 seed into play. But in a 12-team playoff era, a defeat would not extinguish post-season ambitions, merely make the route notably tougher.
