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Friday Five: Notre Dame, North Carolina and no Kyle Hamilton, Part 2

Be honest, Notre Dame fans.

You were nervous after safety Kyle Hamilton’s late first-half targeting ejection in Notre Dame’s game at North Carolina last year. The Irish had already given up two touchdowns. The penalty extended a drive, resulted in a field goal and a 17-14 Tar Heels lead at halftime.

How was Notre Dame going to stop a potent passing offense without its star safety and back-end eraser? The Irish had struggled to do so with him. How can a defense not take a step back when it loses an All-American and lacks reliable depth behind him?

Surely, you were nervous.

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Of course, those fears dissipated in the next 90 minutes. Notre Dame posted a second-half shutout and a stirring 31-17 win.

Because history repeats itself, I guess, Notre Dame enters this year’s game vs. North Carolina (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC) with the same task: stop the Tar Heels’ top-20 scoring and yards per play offense without its All-American.

Yet I don’t sense many nerves from fans. On one hand, I get it. On the other, it feels like overconfidence.

Let’s start with the latter. I take nothing away from what Notre Dame did last year, but I’d caution against making that the expectation. For one, it was a mild surprise. (Remember, you were nervous, right)? And this is, you know, Kyle Hamilton who’s out. You can’t help but have a drop-off when you remove a projected top-five pick and skeleton key from the defense.

Elsewhere, North Carolina has scored at least 20 points in all but three of Howell’s 32 starts. It has a potential All-American at wide receiver in Josh Downs. Running back Ty Chandler is on pace for 1,000 yards. This is a talented, high-ceiling team despite its 4-3 record. Brian Kelly drove that point home earlier this week.

Onto the other side. Despite the reasons for concern I outlined, I haven’t changed my Notre Dame pick.

No, this isn’t a top-20 matchup. The Tar Heels have three losses to teams with losing records and have beaten one winning team (Virginia).

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football senior safety DJ Brown
Senior safety DJ Brown will step in for Kyle Hamilton this week against North Carolina. (Nikos Frazier/USA Today Sports)

But more importantly, Notre Dame has a viable No. 2 behind Hamilton in senior D.J. Brown. Pro Football Focus’ grades aren’t gospel, but it’s worth noting the outlet rates him as Notre Dame’s best defender. His 84.3 grade is more than seven points higher than the No. 2 player, defensive end Isaiah Foskey.

Brown is Notre Dame’s second-highest graded tackler and has missed just one tackle this year. That whiff came on Florida State’s 89-yard touchdown run in the first half of the opener – 27 quarters ago. In coverage, Brown has allowed four catches on six targets for just seven yards. He is ninth on the team in tackles (24) despite ranking 16th in snaps played. He entered this year with 15 career tackles.

Like 2020, Notre Dame needs Brown to play well to beat North Carolina. That felt like a reach last year. Not so much now.

2. Josh Downs vs. Drake London

This game is the second of three in a four-week span against wide receivers who rank in the FBS’ top 10 in yards per game; North Carolina sophomore Josh Downs’ 119.6 yards per game ranks fifth nationally. He has 60 catches, 837 yards and eight touchdowns this year.

He is also an entirely different type of receiver than USC’s Drake London, who hung 15 catches and 171 yards on Notre Dame last week.

Downs’ 8.4 average depth of target is 18th-shortest among 82 FBS receivers with at least 60 targets. London, by contrast, is 60th. Downs plays mainly in the slot, while London is an outside receiver.

London wins downfield. He averages more than two catches per game on passes that travel at least 20 yards past the line of scrimmage. Downs has three all year, on nine targets. More than two-thirds of his targets are within 10 yards.

Downs wins after the catch. His 8.8 YAC per reception is tied for fourth nationally. He has forced seven missed tackles. Notre Dame has to tackle well to keep him in check. That caters to Brown’s strengths.

3. Isaiah Foskey in coverage

Foskey has dropped into coverage on 15.7 percent of his snaps this year, per PFF. He does so mostly when playing linebacker in Notre Dame’s three-man front “Dollar” package. Last week vs. USC, he dropped back on 10 of his 48 snaps (21 percent) – 29 of which were passing plays. That was the highest rate this year.

That’s a lot of time in coverage for a player who’s second nationally in sacks, with 8.0. It might be too much time. And yet, despite spending 23.8 percent of pass plays in coverage, he has been productive as a rusher.

“We’re taking away the quick game, the RPO game, the slant game and drive game, those quick games that hit in those areas in particular,” Kelly said. “You’re seeing less quick slants that hit in that box area. They’re in those windows.”

North Carolina, of course, is an RPO-heavy team. Given that, it makes sense to play the defense that helps disrupt RPOs, which Dollar is theoretically supposed to be. At the same time, this is a vulnerable Tar Heels offensive line that Foskey can exploit off the edge. Notre Dame won last year’s game due in no small part to its pass rush and physicality.

Dropping Foskey in coverage can be a useful disguise and a passing-lane disruptor. Those are good things. But so is his pass-rushing skill. He doesn’t have to be a rusher on every snap, but 15.7 percent of snaps in coverage feels a bit high.

4. Brian Kelly is 60

Kelly turned 60 on Monday and became the first Notre Dame coach to reach that age. He’s one more year away from tying Knute Rockne for the longest tenure in the job. He’s marching toward that with no signs of slowing down.

Historically, this is the age and length of tenure when being the Notre Dame head coach starts taking a toll. Lou Holtz and Ara Parseghian stepped aside after 11 years and in their late 50s. Yet Kelly is only leaning into it more.

He’s building a house in the shadow of campus. He talks of pushing upward in recruiting and the alignment between himself, athletic director Jack Swarbrick and President Fr. John Jenkins. He does not speak like a man running on fumes. On the field, the program is at its peak performance of his tenure.

“It’s a good thing I made it that long here at Notre Dame,” Kelly said. “I didn’t ever think I’d ever get to my 60th birthday here.”

Reaching it underscores the consistency Kelly brought up whenever he talked about passing Rockne’s career wins record earlier this year. Consistency that I’m skeptical he’d be willing to leave and try to rebuild at this stage of his coaching career at a place like, say, USC, if the Trojans listen to ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit’s recommendation to pursue Kelly.

5. Prentiss Hubb

One Notre Dame men’s basketball player is earning steady preseason buzz: senior point guard Prentiss Hubb.

Second-team All-ACC. No. 92 on CBS Sports’ Top 100 (and 1) players list. Respected among his ACC peers.

There’s some merit to it. He was a third-team All-ACC honoree last year, was second in the league in assist rate and had nine games with at least eight assists. He averaged 14.6 points per game and scored at least 20 points five times.

I get the sense, though, a lot of Notre Dame fans think that’s a bit much, especially the top-101 status. Within the fan base, the erratic moments seem to stand out more than the electric ones. They have sometimes been pronounced. And a bit too frequent.

Hubb had more games with at least four turnovers (10) than games with two or fewer (eight) last year. He had eight games where he shot below 35 percent from the floor and eight where he shot 45 percent or higher.

His career-best offensive rating for a season is 100.1, per KenPom, which equates to average. He has been a high-usage, average efficiency player.

If improving defense is Notre Dame’s No. 1 task, Hubb finding another efficiency level might be No. 2. He’s going to play a lot with the ball in his hands. Notre Dame’s offense will go as he goes, just like last season. It was too streaky last year.

If he can bump up his efficiency by just a step, it should net him second-team All-ACC honors and a status as a clear top-100 player in the country come March. And Notre Dame would be tracking toward the NCAA Tournament if so.

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