Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees has a simple goal for running backs Kyren Williams and Chris Tyree.
Involve them even more than he did last year.
It’s a task worth undertaking.
“If you just study us from last year and say, ‘OK, roll out your five best skill players,’ you’re probably not going to get past them before you get to five,” Rees told BlueandGold.com. “That’s why you saw a lot of them. If you said the same thing this year, you’re not going to get past Kyren and Chris.”
Right now, the list of Notre Dame’s best playmakers might not get past three without mentioning both. Even if Kevin Austin Jr., Braden Lenzy or other wide receivers establish themselves in fall camp, Williams and Tyree are two of Notre Dame’s best weapons for creating explosive plays.
Running back, though, is not exactly conducive to featuring multiple players. How Rees goes about it will be an interesting weekly plot. Williams already averaged 17.6 carries per game last year and was third on the team in catches, with 35. How can that grow while still upping Tyree’s 6.75 touches per game?
“Chris and Kyren are going to be asked to do more than they were a year ago,” Rees said. “They’re eager to get that and get going. We introduced a little in the spring, but it’s something we’re going to expand on as camp rolls around.
“Whether it’s two-back, empty, whether it’s split out, however we can get our five best on the field together, we’re going to do that.”
Excluding kneel-downs, Notre Dame used two-back sets on just 29 snaps last year. They felt experimental and brought modest impact. The highlight came at Georgia Tech, when four carries in two-back sets produced 47 yards.
Two-back plays don’t have to start with both in the backfield. They can have one back in a traditional alignment and the other split wide. Williams and Tyree are skilled enough to catch screens from the backfield or run normal routes from the slot.
My best guess is the usage increase involves a bump in targets more than it does a bump in carries. That might mean taking targets and snaps away from a second tight end or a slot receiver. That’s survivable if Williams and Tyree are better playmakers than those guys, which they seem to be.
It’s also not clear right now Notre Dame will be as run-heavy as last year. Williams’ and Tyree’s 23.7 combined carries per game was higher than any Irish running back tandem since 2011. Going up from there is hard.
2. Nick Singleton
Missing on Shillington (Pa.) Governor Mifflin four-star running back Nick Singleton meant Notre Dame did not land any of its big three targets to be its second running back in the class. Singleton is headed to Penn State, Memphis (Tenn.) Christian Brothers four-star Dallan Hayden committed to Ohio State and Highlands Ranch (Colo.) Valor Christian’s Gavin Sawchuk picked Oklahoma.
All told, it’s a hit to Notre Dame’s hopes of a top-five class. The Irish want to be there more often. The last month hasn’t been the best for Notre Dame’s offensive recruiting overall.
At the same time, the floor for the running back class remains high because it already has Denison (Texas) High four-star Jadarian Price in it. Even if Notre Dame signs only him, it will have three straight classes with at least one four- or five-star running back. A couple previously offered 2022 four-star running backs are still on the board.
Just last year, we saw Notre Dame can add a quality second back later in the cycle. It didn’t offer and flip four-star Audric Estime until December. That recruitment was an example of the power the Irish have on the trail. Notre Dame and its history of offensive line play will attract good running backs.
I know fans want that power to extend to beating Ohio State, Oklahoma or Clemson for recruits and landing more top-of-the-board targets — and that’s reasonable — but I’d stop short of calling the current state of running back recruiting a calamity.
3. Running Backs, Again
This might be familiar to anyone who has listened to the last couple Pod Like A Champion episodes, but it is worth mentioning in writing:
Notre Dame wanted one of Singleton, Sawchuk and Hayden in the class. Not landing players you covet is a miss. But I’m not sure a second back was at the top of the need list in this class.
Notre Dame has Price. It has Estime and Logan Diggs from 2021. Barring a surprise exit, Chris Tyree is around for 2022. If Kyren Williams and C’Bo Flemister depart after the season, a graduate transfer to complement Tyree and the 2021 recruits can get Notre Dame to five scholarship running backs if it only signs Price this year. The Fighting Irish won’t take a second back just to fill a spot.
When talking top needs and top wants on offense in 2022, that conversation starts with four-star wide receivers Tobias Merriweather and CJ Williams.
Those two are longtime Notre Dame targets. They’re top-160 players (Williams is a top-30 player) at a position where the Irish have recruited well, but still a notch below the sport’s titans. The Irish also have one receiver on the roster from the 2019-20 classes and five players in their academic senior year. Receiver might be the offense’s most important position this class.
4. A Returning Production Oddity
ESPN’s Bill Connelly released updated returning production rankings this week, and he pointed out a dynamic that will be unique to the next couple seasons.
The 2014-20 national average for returning production is 62.6 percent. This year, it’s 76.7. Why? Lots of players are returning for an extra year using the COVID-19 exemption, particularly at the Group of Five level.
Notre Dame’s week two opponent, Toledo, returns 97 percent of its 2020 production, the highest figure among all college football teams. The Rockets bring back 13 “super seniors” who are using the free year. Louisiana (95 percent, third) has 10 super seniors. Ball State (85 percent) has 16 players who are back for an extra season.
All that experience in college football should portend more quality games and teams that are better than their records. Probably not in the case of Notre Dame vs. Toledo, but in Group of Five leagues or between Power Five teams with a lot of experience coming back.
Notre Dame ranks 124th in returning production (55 percent). In the prior five years, a team that brings back 55 percent of its production would have ranked 96th, 102nd, 106th, 95th and 100th.
That’s still a lot of turnover. But fourth-lowest in a year like this is different than previous years. The last five teams to return the fourth-lowest amount of production brought back 42, 43, 40, 41 and 36 percent — well below Notre Dame’s 55 this year.
5. An Interesting Marcus Freeman Observation
This was far from the most notable or captivating comment Notre Dame defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman made in his one-on-one interview with BlueandGold.com, but it still struck me.
“We have a lot of guys on this defense who can play for us and should be playing for us,” Freeman said. “If you’re not playing guys who are good enough, they’re going to leave. We can’t have these guys leave. There has to be a reward for their hard work. That’s why I believe we have to have 1A’s and 1B’s.”
Allocating snaps is a tricky balancing act for coaches in the age of the one-time transfer rule. They must put their best players on the field often. They also want to get other deserving, trustworthy players some work. Notre Dame’s defensive line will be at least nine deep. It might have even more players who are good enough but will be squeezed out.
If a player is transferring because he was squeezed, that’s a sign of a healthy position set up to withstand a defection. It might be disappointing for a coach, but it happens. It’s hard to always keep 15 linemen or 10 receivers happy.
Most of the players who have left Notre Dame this year likely wouldn’t have cracked the 2021 two-deep. I’m not sure all of them fit into the category Freeman described, but there are some who clearly do. Defensive end Ovie Oghoufo is one. He was the No. 3 vyper in 2020 and probably would have been again in 2021.
That role yielded 149 snaps in 11 games last year. His talent is probably deserving of more. Texas took him after he decided to be a graduate transfer, after all. Vyper, though, won’t take a hit without him.
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