Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM AUGUST 2023 27 Extremely intelligent. Works hard. Just productive as heck." NOT DONE YET There are 10 players from Notre Dame's signing class of 2020 who will remain in South Bend for at least one more season. A few of them are among the most compelling players on the ros- ter across all age groups. Take running back turned wide re- ceiver Chris Tyree, for example. Outside of Mayer and Pyne, he's the most sta- tistically accomplished player from the class. He's carried the ball 229 times for 1,162 yards and 8 touchdowns. He also has 56 receptions for 461 yards and 4 scores. Don't forget about 50 kick returns for 1,057 yards. He returned a kick 97 yards for a touchdown versus Wisconsin in 2021. That's a total of 2,680 all-purpose yards and 13 touchdowns in three seasons. Before rising junior Logan Diggs transferred to LSU, Tyree spent the entire spring slate working at wide re- ceiver. His services may be needed out of the backfield again without Diggs around, but Tyree has yet to return to his freshman-year form when he aver- aged 6.8 yards per carry. He averaged 4.0 as a sophomore and 4.4 as a junior. Whether he performs better in a pure wideout role is a storyline that has piqued interest all offseason. Then there's defensive end Jordan Botelho. Isaiah Foskey is no longer in the picture. The vyper position is all Botelho's — if he can hang onto it. He's shown flashes of dominant pass rushing, but he also hasn't earned the full trust of the Notre Dame coaching staff to be an every-down player. This season has a now-or-never feel to it for Botelho. The situation isn't as dire for, say, Tosh Baker. He's backing up two next-level talents at offensive tackle. But if he isn't on track to start in 2024, he could trans- fer to spend his graduate season some- where else. The same goes for fellow of- fensive lineman Michael Carmody. Bauman is being swallowed up by younger players on the tight end front. This is his time to show he can be a con- tributor for the next two years. If he loses playing time to his position mates, he's also a candidate to play somewhere else in 2024. The following seniors are all facing similar scenarios; defensive linemen Rylie Mills and Aidan Keanaaina, and defensive backs Watts, Ramon Hen- derson and Clarence Lewis. Everyone in that group outside of Keanaaina are either projected starters or on the cusp of earning that status. That said, they aren't firmly entrenched. They could easily lose their jobs if their play isn't up to the coaching staff's desired standard. At that point, the portal often calls. That in mind, all five of them are guys coaches like to have in the rotation at various positions even though none of them are irreplaceable pro prospects. A college football program can't survive without players like Lewis and Watts. A team full of them is never going to win the national championship, though. That's where elite standouts like rising sophomore Benjamin Morrison and, a few years back, Hamilton come in. But even with guys like Morrison, Hamilton, Mayer and Foskey hanging around, Notre Dame has not sniffed a natty. It's the Tyrees who have to turn into Doak Walker or Biletnikoff Award candidates and the Johnsons who need to live up to their top-10 high school status that gets a program over the hump. If Notre Dame would have won a na- tional championship in the last three years, Mayer would not have graduated a champion. But he would have forever been a champion with the ability to one day graduate on his own timeline and terms, and that would have been just as sweet. It only took him two years to real- ize that all he felt was missing in his col- lege career was a national championship. Players like Bauman and Tyree will never be viewed in the same light as Mayer, but if they were to see their ca- reers out long enough to help the pro- gram win its first national title since 1988 they'd get as close as they possibly could. That's what keeps guys like Baker and Carmody around. They're definitely not playing as much as they'd like to. But they'd sacrifice snaps aplenty to raise a trophy over their heads in January. ✦ Defensive end Jordan Botelho could be Notre Dame's most prolific pass rusher in 2023. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER