Depth along Notre Dame’s defensive front seven has become an early strength of the 2020 unit.
The line has established exceptional rotation patterns the past few years under Mike Elston, while the linebacker corps under coordinator Clark Lea has come to the forefront with its quality, including junior Bo Bauer as the No. 2 Mike and sophomore Jack Kiser earning the game ball versus USF when co-starters Marist Liufau and Shayne Simon were unavailable.
Even safety is displaying some strong competition when the likes of former top-50 recruit in junior Houston Griffith or former Ohio State starter and graduate transfer Isaiah Pryor are battling just to see regular action.
Where the most glaring gap existed on the defensive depth chart this preseason was at cornerback, where graduate transfer Nick McCloud and junior TaRiq Bracy entered the season ensconced as the starters at the boundary and field positions, respectively.
Numbers are hardly lacking at cornerback, particularly with five players who began this season with four years of eligibility remaining. The issue was who could augment the McCloud/Bracy duo.
After the Sept. 12 Duke opener in which McCloud took all 68 defensive snaps while Bracy took 66, head coach Brian Kelly emphasized the need to utilize more bodies at the position.
That was fulfilled in game 2 versus USF with freshman Clarence Lewis and sophomore Cam Hart. It was announced prior to the game that Bracy would be unavailable, so Lewis received the starting nod and excelled with five tackles, one for loss, and three pass breakups, one of which he nearly intercepted and two others coming on deep routes in which his technique was textbook.
That was hardly a surprise. Prior to the Duke opener, Lewis had been listed on the Notre Dame depth chart as the “co-starter” with Bracy. So impressive was Lewis throughout training camp that Kelly compared his potential impact to 2012 Freshman All-American KeiVarae Russell, who started from day one during that 12-0 regular season.
What was surprising is Lewis did not play a snap versus Duke, whereas the co-starters listed at Buck had 32 (Simon) and 27 (Liufau) snaps that truly reflected the competition there.
What became a bigger surprise, though, versus South Florida were the 44 snaps taken by Hart at corner compared to McCloud’s 14. Kelly said it was by design.
“This was a great opportunity for him to get that work,” said Kelly of Hart, who broke up two passes. “He was coming off shoulder surgery last fall, didn’t have spring ball …We thought it was a great opportunity to dial it back [for McCloud]."
For Hart, originally a wide receiver recruit, it was the first opportunity to hone his skills in regular game action. While most skill-position prospects coming out of high school often prefer the glamour of offense, the currently listed 6-2½, 207-pound Hart was thinking more long term when he signed with Notre Dame in the 2019 cycle.
“There aren’t a lot of 6-3 corners out there that can move,” Hart told Blueandgold.com that winter. “I thought, ‘Where am I going to make my money, playing DB or receiver?’
“… If I can find a DB coach that can teach me how to move and I can be proficient at that position, then of course I’m going to play DB and make however much money in the NFL.”
In first-year cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens, a two-time All-American cornerback at Cincinnati under Kelly who has already established a strong history of developing young talent, the opportunity to grow under him is especially appealing.
“I always loved playing cornerback,” Hart said. “I can be physical, I can do whatever I want whenever I want, and I have complete control over how my game goes. I don’t have to worry about the offensive tackle not blocking or the quarterback not putting it in the right spot. I have complete control over how I play.”
When the coaching staff approached Hart about the switch last fall, it was an easy sell.
“We’re suggesting in most of these instances what maybe is the best interest of the individual, whether it’s redshirting or coming back or changing a position,” Kelly said of the move last year. “In this instance, we were suggesting to Cam it may be in his best interest to play corner.
“Now, if he balked totally and said, ‘That’s not for me, that’s not what I want to do, that doesn’t sound right to me,’ we would have maybe had a subsequent conversation to lay out to him why we thought that.”
The shift was not done haphazardly. Cornerbacks with Hart’s size are rare because the position requires tremendous fluidity and ability to flip one’s hips, not the easiest task for rangier players — which is why the 6-4 Kyle Hamilton remains a classic center fielder at safety as opposed to playing corner.
“Balance, agility, change of direction, the ability for somebody long to transition from back pedal,” Kelly replied when asked what the staff saw from Hart to make the change. “Because that’s the biggest thing — how you can flip your hips and then break out of your back pedal on the football.
“Then there has to be a natural kind of easy movement in doing so — nd there was a lot of ease to that movement, those transitions.”
Last week was an encouraging first step to also expanding Notre Dame’s growing corner market.
----
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Sign up for Blue & Gold's news alerts and daily newsletter
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @Rivals_Singer, @PatrickEngel_, @MasonPlummer_ and @AndrewMentock.
• Like us on Facebook.
