Later this month, the annual exercise of relentless Watch List releases (Biletnikoff, Thorpe, Butkus, etc., etc., etc.) will clutter your college football mental hard drives with preseason positional awards candidates so inclusive that it might be more efficient to list the players who didn’t make a particular Watch List.
Spoiler alert: You don’t need to be on the Watch List to later win the actual award.
Sprinkled into this offseason ritual, we also have the Only Mildly Absurdly Early Top 25 team rankings and the Pre-Preseason All-America teams, recently supplemented by one of the typically better-researched offerings from Phil Steele.
Junior offensive tackle Joe Alt (first-team offense), sophomore cornerback Benjamin Morrison (second-team defense) and grad long snapper Michael Vinson (second-team special teams) were Notre Dame’s representatives on an All-America projection that goes four teams deep.
Typically in this same time frame, I privately engage in an equally inconsequential exercise — trying to rank Notre Dame’s top 20 players in order. Then I revise the list and compare as preseason training camp concludes.
This offseason, I’m sharing it with you. And yes, this year’s was more difficult than usual once you get past the top five, based on two assertions I have: That projection overshadowed past production with so many players on the list, making the ranking process even more subjective. And that once you get past No. 5, and especially as you move toward 20, there’s an incredible amount of perceived parity, especially between say player 18 and player 25.
So, to mitigate some of that, I creatively expanded the list to 23 and covered my indecision by calling it the “The Top 23 for 2023”. One caveat, I assumed perfect health for all 23 players in assessing their individual ranking.
Off we go:
No. 23 | Jaden Greathouse, freshman wide receiver: As mirage-ish as extreme Blue-Gold Game performances can sometimes be, there were enough elements in the latter spring practices leading up to it and a prolific high school career in Texas to make his 11 catches for 118 yards in the 24-0 Gold rout on April 22 seem more real than a reboot of the worn Junior Jabbie cautionary tale. Who’s Junior Jabbie? Exactly.
No. 22 | Javontae Jean-Baptiste, grad defensive end: The Ohio State sixth-year transfer was a late scratch in warm-ups before the Blue-Gold Game and didn’t provide a lot of useful data in the other media viewing windows earlier in the spring. The 6-foot-5, 255-pound New Jersey product and the first player to wear uniform No. 1 since former coach Brian Kelly rotated it from game to game based on merit in 2016 looks the part. And he talks a good game. And rumblings from the Guglielmino Athletics Complex about JJB this summer have been encouraging.
No. 21 | Antonio Carter II, grad safety: One of my seven Irish players projected to have breakout training camps/seasons, the 6-1, 200-pound former zero-star recruit and transfer from FCS Rhode Island steps into the vacancy left in the four-man safety rotation by former transfer Brandon Joseph’s exit to pursue an NFL career. Carter has long had the speed to play at the FBS level but the former 5-10, 146-pound high school recruit now has the body and the savvy to project that the best is still yet to come.
No. 20 | Marist Liufau, grad linebacker: Generally perceived as a top 10 player on the roster going into last year’s training camp, ND’s starting will linebacker in 2022 only showed glimpses of that after missing the previous season with a serious leg injury. The offseason reinvention of Liufau — if it sticks — will see him as a rotational player with varied roles, including rushing the passer. Training camp will go a long way toward defining just how and how much he’ll be used during the season.
No. 19 | Jadarian Price, sophomore running back: Notre Dame was careful not to rush Price back from a ruptured Achilles tendon sustained in June of 2022, and so far patience has paid off as the 5-10, 203-pounder returns to form. The Irish added an intriguing running back grad transfer in former Rivals top 60 prospect Devyn Ford from Penn State, but Price is the most likely player in ND’s deep running back corps to rise and rotate in the most with starter Audric Estimé.
No. 18 | Chris Tyree, senior wide receiver: There was some unevenness in Tyree’s transition from running back this spring, but wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey expected that and actually deemed Tyree well ahead of schedule. If that is indeed the case, it’ll show up in training camp. If not, the Irish have the depth of talent to be patient.
No. 17 | Zeke Correll, grad center: So technically sound, Correll could move up this list if he can pair enough physicality with his assignment-correctness to keep from being overpowered. First-year O-line coach Joe Rudolph likes what he’s seen so far in that regard since arriving in February.
No. 16 | Mitchell Evans, junior tight end: The former high school quarterback heads into the 2023 season tied with recovering senior Kevin Bauman for ND’s most prolific receiver among the six tight ends on the roster with … five career catches. Departed All-American Michael Mayer averaged more than that per game in 2022 (5.6). But the 6-5, 260-pounder picked up a lot of great habits from being around Mayer for two years and appears ready to assert himself as TE1.
No. 15 | Jordan Botelho, senior vyper end: The mercurial Hawaii product finally gained traction regarding a regular role and regular playing time midway through the 2022 season, as former ND All-American Isaiah Foskey’s primary backup/rotation partner. With Foskey gone, Botelho continued this offseason to buy into the necessity to play under control and disciplined after long resisting it, and blend it with his raw passion and instincts.
No. 14 | Jack Kiser, grad linebacker: Playing out of position the last two years out of necessity has helped the team more than it’s helped Kiser. Training camp provides the 6-foot-2, 223-pounder a chance to encore what he did in the spring so successfully — become an every-down linebacker and play to his strengths.
No. 13 | Xavier Watts, senior safety: By the end of last season, Watts was Notre Dame’s best safety, even surpassing a healthy version of Brandon Joseph (who was decidedly not during that stretch). The next step for the converted wide receiver is being more consistent in coverage to complement his advanced run defense skills.
No. 12 | Billy Schrauth, sophomore offensive guard: This is my most out-on-a-limb projection, and yet it has never felt like a question of if with the 6-foot-5, 304-pound Wisconsin product, only when. And playing next to All-America left tackle Joe Alt will likely only accelerate that process. Both former ND O-line coach Harry Hiestand and the current one, Joe Rudolph, battled each other to land Schrauth during a long, topsy-turvy recruiting process. And now Rudolph, who believes Schrauth is on a high-NFL draft pick trajectory, gets to coach him anyway.
No. 11 | Howard Cross III, grad nose guard: Nothing about the 6-1, 280-pounder screams prototypical nose guard, but Cross’ quickness and ability to effectively use his hands has propelled him to a productive and consistent force on ND’s defensive line.
No. 10 | Tobias Merriweather, sophomore wide receiver: Wake Forest transfer quarterback Sam Hartman and the veteran QB’s ability to thrive in the deep passing game will in turn bring out the best in the 6-4, 205-pound former Washington state 200-meter dash champ. But Merriweather is bringing out his best as well this offseason, making significant gains in physical strength, mental toughness and his knowledge of the ND route tree under promoted first-year offensive coordinator Gerad Parker.
No. 9 | Jayden Thomas, junior wide receiver: Another player who should benefit from the Drew Pyne-to-Sam Hartman upgrade at quarterback, Thomas heads into 2023 as Notre Dame’s most reliable passing target. Hartman makes him more dangerous.
No. 8 | Rylie Mills, senior defensive tackle: Irish defensive coordinator Al Golden loved Mills’ ability to toggle between field end and interior defensive line in 2022, but focusing on playing inside may finally make those “Mills poised for breakout season” narratives finally come to life. The 6-5, 296-pounder has reportedly wowed in the weight room so far this summer, for what it’s worth.
No. 7 | JD Bertrand, grad linebacker: Many people forget ND’s leading tackler the past two seasons was once a Georgia commit, and had scholarship offers from the likes of Florida, Florida State, LSU and Tennessee, among others. The move from weakside to middle linebacker last season put Bertrand in a better position for favorable matchups in coverage, and his elite play diagnosis allows him to play faster than he’s generally given credit for.
No. 6 | Cam Hart, grad cornerback: You don’t see a lot of 6-3 cornerbacks with the physicality, length, speed combination that the former three-star wide receiver prospect possesses. But what Notre Dame hasn’t seen yet is long stretches of that skill set on display with two completely healthy shoulders. Hart, now 100 percent, is convinced he’ll be a first-round draft pick next spring. If he plays close to that, he’ll provide incentive for opposing quarterbacks not to simply avoid throwing in 2022 freshman All-American Benjamin Morrison’s direction.
No. 5 | Audric Estimé, junior running back: The 6-foot, 227-pounder had a couple of conversations with former Irish star Jerome Bettis when the Pro Football Hall of Fame running back came back to ND to get his degree in the spring of 2022. Estimé’s big takeaway was working on weaknesses, and he’s done just that. Better nutrition, he says, was part of the formula that has made him faster, more agile, most versatile and a more dangerous weapon in the passing game.
No. 4 | Blake Fisher, junior offensive tackle: Once healthy last season, Fisher was able to coax his five-star pedigree to show itself, but he also had to work through some growing pains. Achieving consistency is the next level from the 6-5, 310-pound junior, who missed all but the first and last games of his freshman season in 2021.
No. 3 | Benjamin Morrison, sophomore cornerback: After learning some tough lessons in game conditions during the first half of his freshman All-America season, the 6-0, 185-pound Arizona product made quantum leaps of improvement in every area but trash talking over the back half of 2022. And the humble Morrison refuses to prioritize it. A healthy Cam Hart and impressive depth behind them both will make it difficult for opposing offenses from trying to minimize Morrison by throwing away from him.
No. 2 | Sam Hartman, grad quarterback: Two big summer priorities heading into his first and only season with the Irish were to tap into Notre Dame’s past — talking to former Irish QBs who both starred and struggled in the spotlight — and refining timing, chemistry with his receivers and mastery over offensive coordinator Gerad Parker’s new playbook.
No. 1 | Joe Alt, junior offensive tackle: The biggest question about Alt is whether the 2023 season will be his last in an ND uniform. If it is, he’d be the first Irish offensive lineman ever to go three-and-out. Now under his third offensive line coach in three years at ND, Joe Rudolph, the projected future first-round NFL Draft pick had a long to-do list to continue to elevate his game, including being one of the team leaders on offense on and off the field. That includes not just binge-watching film for himself, but dragging the entire O-Line and reserves into the film room to watch together.
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