NFL
By: Greg Rector
Notre Dame Is Certainly Prime For Another CFB Appearance
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are ranked 5th and 6th in the preseason polls. Head coach Marcus Freeman is getting along just fine with the NIL dollars, and his recruiting has been magnificent. This roster has plenty of returning players, especially on defense, and can create headaches for any school.
Notre Dame Offense
Whether CJ Carr or Kenny Minchey wins the starting job at quarterback, my one hope and prayer for the Fighting Irish offense is seeing Malachai Fields and Jaden Greathouse get used far more often. Greathouse, especially, wasn’t given enough opportunities with Riley Leonard at quarterback last season. I understand the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are normally a running team, but in this era, you need to put the ball in the air.
With that being said, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish have two excellent running backs, and one of them is Jeremiyah Love, who is on many Heisman Award watch lists. If Love can keep maintaining the same pace as last season.
- Started in each of the 16 games for the Irish… led the Irish with 19 touchdowns, 17 rushing and 2 receiving… scored a rushing touchdown in 13-straight games… broke the Notre Dame record for most consecutive games with a rushing TD… had a team leading five games with 100+ rushing yards… led the team with 1125 rushing yards… averaged 6.9 yards per carry… 137 yard rushing effort against Virginia was a single game high for the Irish in 2024… set a CFP record with a 98-yard TD and scored the first touchdown of the game… Notre Dame Offensive Player of the Year… Notre Dame Offensive Player of the Game – Army, Virginia, Navy, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Purdue.
If Love gets even better this season, you can see why so many folks believe he is worthy of being mentioned as a candidate for the Heisman Award.
Then add in Jadarian Price, also a junior, and Aneyas Williams, who starts his sophomore campaign. You can see why the Fighting Irish rely upon the ground game when you can use three solid running backs.
Notre Dame Defense
Chris Ash is now coaching this version of Notre Dame’s defense, following Al Golden’s departure for the NFL. However, head coach Marcus Freeman must have made his returnees very happy to compete for a second straight opportunity at winning a National Championship.
There are 15 of the 17 scholarship athletes who returned to South Bend for another season on the defensive line. Bryce Young enters his sophomore season, and he is simply a monster for opposing offensive linemen to deal with. At 6’7″ and weighing in around 270lbs, he will cause headaches for quarterbacks just as his father did, who came to South Bend and had a 14-year career in the NFL. When you get that type of play in all 16 games and add in another season of offseason coaching, good luck to the opposing quarterbacks. You can see below how much bigger Bryce is than his father, Bryant.
Oh, so teams might want to run the ball against the Fighting Irish? Meet Gabriel Rubio, all of 6’5″ and weighing in at 325lbs. This young man could have left for the NFL, but he came back to South Bend to play for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Yes, he loves wearing eye black, and he plays mean.
For me, though, the power play unit to watch is the two corners Christian Gray, who starts his junior season, and maybe the best corner in the entire country, Leonard Moore, who is a sophomore. Notice how many of these players aren’t even eligible for the NFL Draft? This goes to the tremendous job head coach Marcus Freeman has done in recruiting.
Opposing teams despised playing Moore last season; even the National Champions, Ohio State Buckeyes, avoided throwing the ball against Moore. The one big play TD they got last year was against Gray, and that was not a normal play against Christian Gray.
Jeff Barnes and I have loved Notre Dame for many, many years, and we both agreed that when Notre Dame recruited better corners and got themselves a quarterback, they could indeed be back in the National Championship conversation. Last season, they brought in Riley Leonard. This season, there is no transfer QB.
We shall see which quarterback wins the starting job. If it’s Minchey, that will be fine, but for me and every other hater of “That School Up North,” aka Michigan, and CJ Carr, the grandson of former Wolverines head coach Lloyd Carr, leads the Notre Dame Fighting Irish onto the field against Miami on August 31st, they will be under the pressure to get the Fighting Irish back into the National Championship game.
#WeAreND #LetsGoIrish
