Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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someone slamming a metal meter with an oversized hammer at the county fair and watching the lights illuminate all the way to the top of the tower. Hartman raises Notre Dame's ceiling considerably. He's a 45-game starter who has thrown for 12,967 yards and 110 touchdowns in his career. Those num- bers came at Wake Forest, but they'd be all-time bests at Notre Dame by a long shot. He's in a class of signal-callers the Irish have not had since Jimmy Clausen and Brady Quinn. 2. OT JOE ALT Hartman is lucky to have Alt protect- ing his blind side. Among tackles with 30 or more snaps in 2022, Alt earned the highest overall Pro Football Focus grade in college football at 91.4 and the highest run blocking grade at 91.0. In last year's Top 25, BGI wanted to see Alt make the jump from good as a freshman to great as a sophomore. Did he ever. Alt is Notre Dame's best and most proven player, and he plays one of the most valuable positions on the team. With senior Tosh Baker (16 snaps in 2022, 45.3 PFF grade in '21) and highly recruited sophomore Aamil Wagner (still probably a year away) as his primary backups, Alt was the unanimous choice for No. 2. 3. CB BENJAMIN MORRISON Morrison zigged when the rest of the Notre Dame defensive backs zagged in 2022. He had 6 interceptions, which was the second highest total of any indi- vidual in college football, while the rest of the Irish roster had 4. Morrison had twice as many picks as the rest of the Notre Dame secondary combined. The sophomore is instinctual. He makes attacking plays on the foot- ball, something that was seri- ously lacking among Notre Dame defenders last year. The Irish defense had 24 passes broken up, which ranked tied for 129th nationally. Morrison had 4 of those. A corner can only do so much to con- trol games, but Notre Dame has one of the most capable in the country at doing just that. 4. OT BLAKE FISHER Standing at 6-foot-6, weighing 310 pounds and wielding the long arms that NFL scouts crave, Fisher has an ideal frame for an offensive tackle. He is an excellent athlete for his size, and he fin- ishes blocks when he gets his hands on a defender. Notre Dame hasn't even seen Fisher realize his full potential quite yet; he needs to be more consistent, particu- larly in pass protection. That being said, Fisher steadily im- proved from the beginning of last season to the end, and a full year of playing time under his belt should only help him going forward. He and Alt make up arguably the best tackle duo in the country, and the Irish can ill afford to lose either of them for any length of time in 2023. 5. RB AUDRIC ESTIMÉ Estimé is the most proven running back on a team led by a head coach that wants to win in the trenches. He's got some heart and soul to him. He's the type of player fans pay to enter a sta- dium to see on a Saturday. Estimé has 980 rushing yards in his ca- reer. The four other Notre Dame scholar- ship running backs have 671 — combined. He is built differently than any of the Irish's other tailbacks, too. Estimé weighs a lean 233 pounds. The next heaviest scholarship tailback is sophomore Gi'Bran Payne at 208. Estimé can carry the load as a true RB1. He can run, block and catch passes with the best of them. He's ready for a dominant season. 6. DE JORDAN BOTELHO Necessity, positional value, numbers that indicate a breakout season is coming … pretty much everything that makes an unproven player important applies to Botelho. In just 77 pass rush snaps, he totaled 4.5 sacks. PFF rated him as the nation's most efficient pass rusher. Even with that small sample size, Botelho is by far the most experienced vyper on Notre Dame's roster, with the next two in line being sophomore Junior Tuihalamaka (30 career pass rush snaps) and redshirt freshman Joshua Burnham (zero). Vyper is a wildly important posi- tion, serving as the biggest threat to get to the quarterback on Notre Dame's defense. If Botelho can't be that guy, Notre Dame won't put enough pressure on op- posing quarterbacks this season. And the Irish would be in trouble. 7. WR JAYDEN THOMAS It just feels like Thomas is going to be the one to have the strongest connec- tion with Sam Hartman. Hartman had an unbreakable bond with A.T. Perry at Wake Forest. He needs a similarly reli- BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM PRESEASON 2023 21 Junior wide receiver Jayden Thomas has the most receiving yards of any returning Fighting Irish player, after totaling 362 as a sophomore in 2022. PHOTO BY DAVID BECKER