Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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12 MARCH 2020 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME A second Big Ten player has joined Notre Dame's 2020 football roster as a graduate transfer. Former Northwestern wide receiver Ben Skow- ronek — a two-time Academic All-Big Ten pick and one of four 2019 team captains — enrolled in January with one year of eligibility remaining. Also joining the fold in January was former Ohio State safety Isaiah Pryor, who has two more years of eligibility remaining. In 36 games played at Northwestern over four seasons, the 6-4, 215-pound Skowronek accu- mulated 110 catches for 1,417 yards and eight touchdowns. In both 2017 and 2018, he had 45 receptions for 644 and 562 yards. He played only three games in 2019, catching 12 passes for 141 yards and no touchdowns, be- fore an ankle injury resulted in a medical redshirt campaign. Coming off a Big Ten West title in 2018 in which Skowronek's spectacular touchdown catch against Iowa became one of the most famous plays in school history, Northwestern had the worst passing offense among the 65 Power Five teams in the country in 2019. The Wildcats ranked dead last in passing yards gained (1,404, 117.0 yards per game), touch- down-to-interception ratio (6 to 15) and yards per attempt (4.50). Overall, Northwestern also was 126th out of 130 Football Bowl Subdivision in scoring with a 16.3 average per game. At Notre Dame, the Fort Wayne, Ind., native Skowronek will have more of an opportunity to showcase his talents following the graduation of top two wideouts Chase Claypool and Chris Finke, plus the presence of a veteran third-year starting quarterback in Ian Book. Skowronek adds size and experience to a wideout group that returns a grand total of 40 catches for 746 yards: • Slot Lawrence Keys III: 13 catches, 134 yards, zero touchdowns. • Speedster Braden Lenzy: 11 catches, 254 yards, two touchdowns. • Javon McKinley: 11 catches for 268 yards, four touchdowns. • Kevin Austin, suspended from action in 2019 as a sophomore, five catches for 90 yards as a 2018 freshman. Including three incoming freshmen in 2019, among Notre Dame's 11 potential scholarship wideouts in 2020, only two would be taller than 6-2: Skowronek and current sophomore Micah Jones (6-4½, 215), who has seen limited action and not yet caught a pass. With Skowronek's combination of size and physicality the boundary position (W) vacated by Claypool would be his likely spot. Each of the last three Irish starting wideouts on that short side of the field were at least 6-4: Equanimeous St. Brown, Miles Boykin and Clay- pool, and the latter two were also more than 220 pounds. — Lou Somogyi UNDER THE DOME Skowronek, a 6-4, 215-pound graduate transfer from Northwestern, will give the Irish size at wide receiver in 2020 to help replace Chase Claypool. PHOTO BY STEPHEN J. CARRERA/NORTHWESTERN ATHLETICS Northwestern's Ben Skowronek Enrolls At Notre Dame NIGHT KICKOFF FOR WISCONSIN GAME This year's heavily anticipated Oct. 3 football clash between Notre Dame and Wisconsin at Green Bay's historic Lambeau Field will have a kickoff shortly after 7:30 p.m Eastern Time (6:30 p.m. Central Time). The two-game 2020-21 series with the Badgers will take place at neutral sites at NFL venues, with the Sept. 25, 2021 meeting to be held at Soldier Field in Chicago. Both games are Shamrock Series outings for Notre Dame that will be telecast on NBC. The first Shamrock Series contest was played in 2009 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, and the Fighting Irish are 9-0 in such contests, most recently a 36-3 rout of Syracuse in New York's Yankee Stadium on Nov. 17, 2018. Now entering his sixth season as the head coach of the Badgers, Paul Chryst has a 52-16 career record for a .765 winning percentage. Wisconsin finished No. 11 in this year's Associated Press poll with a 10-4 record, with 11-2 Notre Dame right behind at No. 12. The game between the two schools will be the first since the Sept. 26, 1964 opener at Madison in which first-year head coach Ara Parseghian's Fighting Irish debuted with an impressive 31-7 victory in the rain en route to a 9-0 start after finishing 2-7 the year prior, including a 14-9 loss in the opener that year versus the Badgers. Notre Dame holds an 8-6-2 advantage in the series. — Lou Somogyi NOTRE DAME TO PLAY CAL IN 2022 For the first time since the 1967 season opener, Notre Dame will play the California Bears in football, per the BearInsider. The one-game series will be played at Notre Dame on Sept. 17, 2022. In a rare move by a Power Five team, the Bears, whose athletic finances have been in turmoil and will receive a $1.9-million gate from Notre Dame, per USA Today, agreed to no return game at home. Under head coach Justin Wilcox, who will be entering his third season, Cal finished the 2019 season with an 8-5 overall record and won four of five games to close out the year. It featured victories at Stanford and UCLA, and against Illinois in the Redbox Bowl. Notre Dame and Cal met four times from 1959-67, with the Irish winning each time, most recently 41-8 to open the year as the reigning national champ and No. 1-ranked team. Here is how the 2022 Notre Dame schedule tentatively looks so far: Sept. 3 — at Ohio State Sept. 10 — Marshall Sept. 17 — Cal Oct. 15 — Stanford Oct. 22 — vs. Navy Nov. 5 — Clemson No. 26 — at USC The ACC still has to determine what dates Notre Dame will play road games at North Carolina and Syracuse that season, plus at home versus Boston College. That leaves room for two more contests. — Lou Somogyi Head coach Paul Chryst and his Wisconsin t e a m f i n i s h e d N o . 1 1 i n t h i s y e a r ' s Associated Press poll, one spot ahead of the Irish. Notre Dame will face the Badgers in a night game at the Green Bay Packers' historic Lambeau Field on Oct. 3, 2020. PHOTO BY PER KJELDSEN