Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com AUGUST 2017 9 UNDER THE DOME 2 Football Bowl Subdivision coaches among the 130 who were given the dreaded "5" rating by CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd for hottest coaching seat in America for 2017: Notre Dame's Brian Kelly and Texas A&M's Kevin Sumlin. Dodd also gave a 5 to two coaches in 2016 — Baylor's Jim Grobe and LSU's Les Miles — and two in 2015, Illinois' Tim Beckman and Virginia's Mike London. All four were fired during or following those respective campaigns. 3 Notre Dame players represented on Sports Illustrated's list of college foot- ball's top 100 players of 2017: senior left guard Quenton Nelson (No. 27, second-best guard), fifth-year senior left tackle Mike McGlinchey (No. 47, third-best tackle) and junior wide receiver Equanimeous St. Brown (No. 85, ninth-best wideout). Eight teams had more players, while Penn State matched Notre Dame's three. Alabama set the pace with nine, while reigning national champion Clemson tied Florida State, Washington and USC for second with six apiece. Ohio State, Oklahoma and Auburn each had four. Nelson also was rated as the No. 21 player overall by Sporting News. 7 Different Notre Dame football players mentioned, as of July 17, on six different preseason watch lists released from July 10-21. Mc- Glinchey was represented on both the Maxwell Award (nation's top player) and Outland Trophy (nation's best interior lineman) lists. Se- nior Mike linebacker NYLES MORGAN was named a candidate for the Chuck Bednarik Award and Bronco Nagurski Award (both given to the nation's top defensive player), plus the Butkus Award (nation's top linebacker). Nelson joined McGlinchey on the Outland list, while junior running back Josh Adams was with McGlinchey on the Maxwell Award group. For the John Mackey Award (nation's top tight end), both fifth-year Durham Smythe and junior Alizé Mack made the cut. Senior center Sam Mustipher was selected to the Rimington Award list (nation's top center). Also expected to be added is St. Brown to the Biletnikoff Award watch list (na- tion's top wide receiver) July 18. 8 Cumulative ranking of Notre Dame in the Rivals data of top recruiting classes in the five-year period from 2013-17. In order, with their aver- age recruiting ranking in parentheses, the top 10 was comprised of: Alabama (1.2), Ohio State (3.8), Florida State (4.8), LSU (5.8), Georgia (7.8), USC (8.4), Auburn (9.6), Notre Dame (10.2), Texas A&M (10.8) and Florida (11.6). Notre Dame's 31-20 record over the past four years is the second worst in that time among the top 10, behind Florida's 29-21. 19-20-28 Preseason rankings of Notre Dame by noted college football outlets Phil Steele's (19), Athlon (20) and Lindy's (28) — despite the 4-8 record posted by the Fighting Irish last season. Meanwhile, Street & Smith's/Sporting News labeled the Fighting Irish "overrated" — even though the publication did not rank them in the top 25. Then again, last year at this time Notre Dame was No. 8 in Athlon, No. 9 in Phil Steele's, No. 10 in Sporting News and No. 11 in Lindy's — with three of the four projecting a Big Six Bowl for the Irish. 455 Student-athletes at Notre Dame named to the All-ACC Academic Honor Roll for the 2016-17 school year. The list is comprised of student-athletes who participated in a varsity-level sport and registered a grade point average of 3.0 or better for the full academic year. Only Duke (489) had more selections this year from the 15-team league. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA BY THE NUMBERS ✦ Sponsored by: NotreDameTickets.com