Analysis: How to watch and what to watch in Notre Dame's Gator Bowl matchup
Marcus Freeman was emphatic Thursday that his hope and decree was that his players would avoid pondering and talking about 2023 implications to be taken from Friday’s Gator Bowl matchup with South Carolina (8-4) ahead of the actual game.
What the Notre Dame head football coach didn’t say was that the same intent applied to the rest of us.
Typically on game days, we offer up four players to watch. That somehow seemed counterintuitive this time, because of the opt-outs some of the potentially most compelling players to watch will instead be watching the game themselves between the 21st-ranked Irish (8-4) and the Gamecocks at TIAA Bank Field (3:30 p.m. EST; ESPN). Not playing in it.
The big-picture angles might be more fun anyway. Here are five on which to ruminate:
Quarterback play
The trap is to extrapolate Tyler Buchner’s play Friday against the nation’s No. 79 team in total defense over what might have been in the 10 games he missed this season, as well as what a depth-chart battle against a grad transfer might look like in the spring.
A reasonable and right-sized expectation Friday would simply be incremental progress.
Buchner’s sample size in his sophomore season is as small as it is awkward. He faced the nation’s No. 10 and 12 teams in total defense when healthy, but behind an offensive line that hadn’t yet found traction. He won’t have All-America tight end Michael Mayer (opt-out) on Friday, but he will have a more polished receiving corps and a more accomplished running game around him.
The winning formula in an in-progress comeback after a long layoff would be consistently good decisions with the ball and the ability to throw it well enough to keep the South Carolina defense uncomfortable committing an eighth defender to the run game.
What Buchner needs now and moving forward for his development is reps, reps and more reps. Spring football is the realistic time frame for him to begin to redefine himself.
Wide receivers/tight ends
By the time summer rolls around, there will be eight additions to the wide receiver/tight end corps from Friday’s contingent and just one certain subtraction, in grad senior wideout Braden Lenzy. Recovering tight ends Eli Raridon and Kevin Bauman will be joined by incoming freshman Cooper Flanagan. Four of the wide receiver additions, including Virginia Tech transfer Kaleb Smith, will enroll next month. Another Kaleb Smith — this one a freshman — arrives in June.
The three current sophomores and freshman Tobias Merriweather are the ones to focus on in the Gator Bowl. It’s likely all three 2023 starters will emerge from that group and a strong rotational player as well.
With no Mayer as the dominant offensive focus, Lorenzo Styles, Jayden Thomas, Deion Colzie and Merriweather have a chance to show what they can do in an offense that’s more geared to them and reinforce the notion that they’re all ascending players worthy of building an offense that tilts more toward them in 2023.
Defensive line
Isaiah Foskey’s opt-out and Jayson Ademilola’s injury will likely show Freeman and D-line coach Al Washington what 2023 might look like if they whiff on the grad transfer market of adding an interior piece and a defensive end.
Sometimes, though, situations such as Friday’s produce pleasant surprises when players rise to the occasion when given the opportunity. A case in point was the offseason heading into the 2017 season, when Notre Dame lost out on Clemson grad transfer Scott Pagano, who landed at Oregon.
Defensive tackle Jerry Tillery was the beneficiary of Pagano’s decision, and he evolved into an All-American over the next couple of seasons. Pagano struggled through injuries at Oregon, played in eight games and finished the 2017 season with two tackles.
Junior vyper end Jordan Botelho is the man of intrigue in Friday’s equation. But it would be encouraging from a player development standpoint to see at least some small contributions from former blue-chip recruits Tyson Ford, Aiden Gobaira, Joshua Burnham and Junior Tuihalamaka.
Safeties
Juniors Ramon Henderson and Xavier Watts are the future at the position, and both figure to get plenty of high-leverage snaps in Friday’s game, whether senior Brandon Joseph plays or not. The question is whether Joseph is part of ND’s future at the position, or even its present.
Freeman said Thursday Joseph would be a gametime decision. He’s played 37 snaps since suffering a high ankle sprain Nov. 5 against Clemson, and all 37 came in a 38-27 loss to USC on Nov. 26 in which he struggled mightily and uncharacteristically with his tackling.
Perhaps his late-season struggles will change the Northwestern transfer’s preseason notion that his first season at ND would be his last, and instead defer his NFL aspirations a year. Maybe not.
Should Joseph have to sit out Friday and opt not to return, the Gator Bowl may help inform the coaching staff whether it might make sense to add depth from the transfer portal. The fact that sophomore Justin Walters never made it onto the field for a single snap at safety during the regular season only doubles down on that notion, with most of 2023’s reinforcements being freshmen.
Jaylen Sneed
The expression “turning the corner” may be hackneyed, but it fits where freshman rover Jaylen Sneed seems to be arriving very soon.
The most exciting moment to cover someone you believe is an emerging star is just before they get to the corner and there’s still some doubt about whether it’s going to unfold in the end the way momentum is nudging it.
When greatness is still a rumor, and sometimes always will be.
And sometimes not.
Sneed’s role on Friday’s Gator Bowl is likely to be more specialized than one that constitutes an evolutionary step. But his December training for that role and his 22 game snaps in November have caught the attention of his teammates.
On Thursday, senior middle linebacker JD Bertrand described the 6-foot-1, 220-pound former South Carolina Mr. Football as follows:
“The biggest thing is he is very raw athletically. He has so much athletic talent and potential, you can see such flashes and stuff that, I mean, kind of remind you of 'Wu' like.
“Those instances where you see that are super exciting. He has so much to build off of. It's exciting to be able to see him be able to step into a little bit bigger role one step at a time.”
Wu is in reference to former Notre Dame All-America rover Jeremiah Owusu-Kormoah.
Friday isn’t about who Sneed is now, but catching a glimpse of who he could be
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