Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM MARCH 2024 23 he was for five years at his previous stop in Duke's RJ Oben. The secondary lost a trio of starters in nickel corner Thomas Harper, field corner Cam Hart and safety DJ Brown. The replacements there are as reassur- ing as Oben; Arizona State defensive back transfer Jordan Clark at nickel, ei- ther sophomore Christian Gray or junior Jaden Mickey at field corner, and North- western defensive back transfer Rod Heard II at safety. There are some depth and inexperience concerns at safety, but it sure helps to have reigning Bronko Nagurski Trophy winner Xavier Watts as the leader back in the Irish backfield. Having Benjamin Morrison at boundary corner is a luxury, too. So if you're looking at an area of in- trigue on the Notre Dame defense, look in the middle. Look to the linebackers. JD Bertrand played 647 defensive snaps last year. Marist Liufau played 595. If you tuned into a Notre Dame game at a random time and the Irish were on de- fense, odds are those two were on the field. So what now? Jack Kiser will be an every-down guy, but Notre Dame needs one more. Drayk Bowen? Jaylen Sneed? Preston Zinter? Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa? A combination of all of them? A combo might be the preferred route. It gets players with different skill sets on the field. But as soon as you start to rotate too much, people notice and ponder why there isn't someone who can be trusted for three or four downs. Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden has his work cut out for him in figuring out how to divvy up the reps at linebacker. Kiser has never played 400 or more defensive snaps in a single season, so even he has something to prove in his sixth season. And if Golden wants to keep him around the 350-400 mark, where he's been the last three years, then there will be even more asked of the aforemen- tioned group of players who are all either a freshman, sophomore or junior. Notre Dame is recruiting well at line- backer. The developmental part of the program is paramount now. Sneed has to take the next step. Bowen and Zinter can't look like freshmen anymore. Irish fans have been clamoring for fresh blood at linebacker for a while. Now they're getting it. We're about to deter- mine what it really is. THE BOOKENDS For two years, Notre Dame never had to worry who was starting at both of- fensive tackle spots. It was Joe Alt on the left side and Blake Fisher on the right. It wouldn't shock anybody to see both of those guys starting in the NFL this year. The voids they've left behind in South Bend are massive. In their place, Charles Jagusah and Tosh Baker started the Sun Bowl. That was an interesting dynamic. It was the last game of Jagusah's true freshman season, and he had only played five of- fensive snaps in the first 12 games. Baker had his opportunity to earn starting status in 2021. Alt beat him and others for the left tackle job and never looked back. Baker has been a reserve ever since. Will patience pay off for Baker? Can he really start as a graduate student after spending the majority of his career as an insurance policy? The only other options outside of Jag- usah and Baker seem to be junior Aamil Wagner, who has never hit 290 pounds in his career, and true freshman Guerby Lambert. Alt and Fisher both started at tackle as freshmen, so it's not im- possible for Lambert to follow in their footsteps. The precedent is there and is on his side. But he's still got to earn his reps. He won't play if he's not better than Jagusah or Baker. Rising sophomore Charles Jagusah (No. 56) acquitted himself well in his first career start at left tackle versus Oregon State in the Sun Bowl, but he has some big shoes to fill with the departure of Joe Alt. PHOTO BY MARCELL GORDON