Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM PRESEASON 2024 9 UNDER THE DOME the strings in the Guglielmino Athletics Complex noticed the same thing. Of course, Freeman also said Notre Dame's offensive line starters will need to be adequate pass protectors. You won't play for the Fighting Irish if you can't consistently keep the quarterback upright. That's something Wa g n e r n e e d s to work on. Per PFF, he ranked 23rd out of 25 Notre Dame play- ers who recorded a pass-blocking grade in 2023. He turned in a figure of 37.0, but that was only on 15 pass-blocking snaps. Baker's grade of 57.3 on 41 pass- blocking snaps placed him 19th on the Irish roster. Both Coogan and Spindler appeared just inside the top half of Notre Dame's pass blockers. Spindler graded out at 64.8 on 192 pass-blocking snaps. Coogan came out at 64.7 on 389 pass- blocking snaps. Eleventh and 12th, re- spectively. Neck-and-neck, again. Of all the position battles, it might be theirs that takes the longest to re- solve. It could be something that lingers into the regular season, even. Who'd be shocked if Coogan, the only Notre Dame offensive lineman to start all 13 games in 2023, and Spindler, a 10-game starter and would-be 13-game starter if not for a knee injury, split time at left guard? Not Freeman. It's not easy settling on exactly five guys up front on offense. "There's ongoing competition at the O-line positions," he said. The ongoing competition at field cor- nerback, meanwhile, will receive just as much notoriety. And it will almost as- suredly result in what Blue & Gold Illus- trated is hinting could happen between Coogan and Spindler: shared playing time on Saturdays. There just isn't much that separates Mickey and Gray. They play a position that lends itself to frequent rotation, too. The quality that will ultimately allow one of them to nudge his nose in front of the other, though, is accountability. "Continue to build trust," Freeman said. "That's how you earn playing time, is trust. Can you do exactly what your coach tells you to do over and over and over? Everybody has ability, but we will play the guys that we trust, more than anything, to get the job done. So that's what you want to see over the course of now to the end of fall camp." That goes for Leonard and Angeli, too, for that matter. And Coogan, Spin- dler, Wagner, Baker and whoever else enters the fold in the wake of Jagusah's unfortunate situation. Trustworthiness is everything in player-coach relation- ships. There is no better time to enhance that kind of connection than the month leading into the first game of a season. "Who, at every position, is going to continue to build that trust within their position coach?" Freeman said. ✦ UNDER THE DOME "Continue to build trust. That's how you earn playing time, is trust. … Everybody has ability, but we will play the guys that we trust, more than anything, to get the job done. So that's what you want to see over the course of now to the end of fall camp." FREEMAN