Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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spring, and the two will have an op‑ portunity to become the best one‑two punch in the country. • Mike linebacker Nyles Morgan earned Football Writers Association of America first‑team Freshman All‑ America honors after his first year at Notre Dame, registering 39 tack‑ les and 3.5 tackles for loss in the fi‑ nal five games of the 2014 season. In 2015, he served as Joe Schmidt's backup, but with Schmidt gone it is now Morgan's job. Morgan is athletic and powerful. His brief tenure as a starter late in the 2014 season produced some of the most punishing tackles Notre Dame received from a defensive player over the last two seasons. The issue has been his inability to absorb defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder's complex defense, which resulted in a number of critical errors as a freshman. If Morgan can limit those mistakes, the Irish will have the anchor in the middle they des‑ perately need. • In his first year as the team's punter, Tyler Newsome had the program's fourth‑best single‑season mark for yards per punt (44.5) and the second‑best sophomore season, behind only Craig Hentrich's 44.9 average in 1990. When Newsome was on last sea‑ son, he proved capable of booming kicks and also showed the ability to place the ball deep in opponent ter‑ ritory. Newsome had as many kicks of more than 50 yards as ones that landed inside the opposition's 20‑ yard line (21). That kind of weapon is vitally important for a team whose defense is considered its biggest cause for concern. IT STARTS UP FRONT — PART I Junior Alex Bars replaces Mc‑ Glinchey at right tackle, but he's actually taking 2015 consensus All‑ American Ronnie Stanley's position in the lineup while McGlinchey flips to the left side. Like Stanley, Bars has good feet and is comfortable in space. He started two games at left guard in In his first year as a starter, left guard Quenton Nelson graded out as the 13th-best guard in the nation according to Pro Football Focus. PHOTO BY ANDREW IVINS