Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1519898
28 JUNE/JULY 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED near-perfect garbage time appearances against the likes of Tennessee State, Pitt and Wake Forest to impressive produc- tion in the Sun Bowl. KNOWING THEIR ROLE Morrison is going to hold down the corner spot when he's back from his shoulder injury. Jaden Mickey is going to either back him up or play opposite of him on the other side of the field. Those are two juniors who know their roles. Notre Dame has plenty of those. Ashton Craig is Notre Dame's start- ing center, for instance. Signed, sealed, delivered. He's the best the Irish have at the position and it is not particularly close. Joshua Burnham lined up as RJ Oben's backup at strong-side defensive end for the entirety of spring practices. See- ing him anywhere other than that exact spot in the fall would be a surprise. The same can probably be said for Junior Tuihalamaka backing up Jordan Botelho at vyper. If senior Mitchell Evans is healthy, Eli Raridon is tight end No. 2. If Ev- ans needs to take a little time coming back from his ACL tear, Raridon is TE1. There isn't much speculation to be had on Raridon's part so long as he stays healthy himself. Then you have four linemen, three on defense and one on offense, who are pigeonholed into reserve roles. Donovan Hinish has the best standing of any of them; he played 100 snaps last season and should see the field in a similar ca- pacity this year. As for offensive guard Ty Chan and defensive linemen Aiden Gobaira and Tyson Ford, the path to playing time is a very narrow one. Probably impassable. But as many who came before them know, it gets wider as the years go on. For some, senior season is when it really sticks. THE TRANSFERS There are a full half dozen of them, constituting over one-quarter of the signing class. To be exact, 27.27 percent. You might not even remember some of them are gone. Jayden Bellamy, for instance, entered the transfer portal be- fore Notre Dame even played the final game of head coach Marcus Freeman's first season. He started seven games for Syracuse in 2023 but was never on track to start that early in a crowded Fighting Irish cornerback room. Offensive lineman Joey Tanona trans- ferred to Purdue this past December, but he falls under the, "Oh yeah, there was that guy" umbrella as well because he never appeared for a single snap in a Notre Dame uniform. He battled a head injury from a car crash, and he ulti- mately ended up at Purdue. Linebacker Nolan Ziegler had off- field issues that led to his defection from the program as well. He struggled with mental health for much of 2023 be- fore ultimately appearing in three games for the Irish in the second half of the season. He decided he needed a change of scenery, though, and transferred to Central Michigan in the first week of 2024. Perhaps the two biggest losses from the junior class were a pair of pass catchers, tight end Holden Staes and wide receiver Tobias Merriweather. Considering Notre Dame's overall struggle to throw the football last fall, that duo combining for 29 receptions, 460 receiving yards and 6 touchdowns was not so bad. Staes, who ended up at Tennes- see, flashed tremendous upside with 4 catches for 115 yards and 2 scores against North Carolina State alone. He never had more than 2 receptions in any game the rest of the season, though, and that game against the Wolfpack was just the third of the year. Merriweather's highs were very high; a 41-yard touchdown against Stanford in 2022 and a 75-yard score against Central Michigan last September. But his lows were also very low; he no- showed against Duke — 0 catches — de- spite playing 63 snaps in that game as a part of a Notre Dame receiving corps that was severely undermanned. He also did not record any statistics against Navy on 35 snaps or against USC on 16 Steve Angeli received QB1 reps for most of the spring session with Duke transfer Riley Leonard hobbled by an ankle injury. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER