More Experienced Notre Dame Receivers Starting Over Again
A year ago at this time, nothing better reflected how green Notre Dame’s receiving corps was than the fact that senior linebacker James Onwualu’s four career starts were the most among any returning wideout (Onwualu played there as a freshman before shifting to linebacker).
Other than senior Torii Hunter Jr., now pursuing a career in professional baseball, no other returning wide receiver at Notre Dame had caught more than one pass in his career.
Twelve months later, there is a significant role reversal.
Junior Equanimeous St. Brown returns as the stalwart after snatching 58 passes that averaged 16.6 yards with nine touchdowns last year, while classmates C.J. Sanders and Chris Finke combined for 34 catches and four scores at the slot position.
As a 2016 freshman, Kevin Stepherson’s 25 catches averaged 18.5 yards, and his five touchdowns were second only to Michael Floyd’s seven in 2008 for the most by a freshman Irish receiver.
Throw in vastly improving junior Miles Boykin (six catches for 81 yards and a touchdown), highly promising sophomore Chase Claypool (five catches for 81 yards) and the addition of one of Notre Dame’s top recruits in 2016, Javon McKinley, recovering from fibula surgery last November, and Notre Dame’s 2017 corps is deemed “experienced.”
Not so fast, notes first-year Notre Dame receivers coach Del Alexander, a former compatriot of Fighting Irish first-year offensive coordinator Chip Long. The receiving unit does boast three seniors — but all are walk-ons, headlined by a team captain in Austin Webster, along with Keenan Centlivre and Grant Hammann.
“Experience is relevant to what?” Alexander queried rhetorically this week. “They have no experience in our offense. Some of the things we’re doing … we’re gaining experience and I’m asking them to use my experience and learn from the things that I’m teaching them, different from what they may have done in the past.
“They have to adjust to the vocabulary. We have to speak the same language. So when they’re taking notes and whenever we’re communicating, it’s about the vocabulary. They can’t try to blend vocabulary [from last year]. It has to be really specific. When I’m asking them to do something, there’s a catch-phrase, there are comments I make they have to respond to.
“Even though Chip and I know each other, we have different guys on the staff, so in our communication we can’t cut corners. We have to share that vocabulary with different things that we’re teaching. The players are all new, they don’t know me yet. We’re building on relationships.”
Through the first nine practices (prior to the Friday, April 7 session), Alexander said while there has been progress between both the players and coaching staff, the overall plan and adjustments might not begin to crystallize until August.
“We’re trying to put in an offense, trying to identify skills, fundamentals, and from there you go into what you’re going to use a guy for in the season,” Alexander said. “It’s putting in a system and asking to understand and adapt to it.”
The past working relationship between Alexander and Long at Arizona State from 2012-14 has made the transition easier on their end. While there aren’t major radical changes and Long was hired by head coach Brian Kelly to run the type of attack with which the head coach is most familiar, one of the tweaks is a desire to operate at a faster pace/tempo.
Consequently, pigeonholing receivers into boundary (W), field (X) or slot (Z) is less relevant. Last year’s slots, Sanders and Finke, often have been stationed on the outside, while the 6-4 3/8, 224-pound Claypool has been on the inside at slot.
When there is more tempo, receivers cannot waste time thinking only about their position, so it will be imperative to grasp the overall concept of what the offense wants to do and what their role will be — wherever they line up.
“Sometimes they can line up in a different spot,” Alexander said. “It may not be the spot the formation calls for, but because they understand the concepts, guys can line up quickly and then cover for each other — ‘Hey, no problem, you stay outside, I’ll stay over here.’ And then that way of tempo keeps going faster and faster.
“Any history study in our offense, we like to move guys around. We’re very multiple using guys in different spots. We’re just trying to find matchups and right now we’re trying to figure out what guys do well.”
Like the majority of the six new assistants on the staff, Alexander is reluctant to talk too much about individuals until he learns more about them.
Who has the best hands? He jokingly lists all as one name.
Who’s the fastest? They all can run well, but functional football speed is what is important.
“That’s difficult to say because sometimes when they are tired or they don’t understand what they’re doing yet, they’re not going to play as fast,” Alexander said. “When you look at the offseason conditioning — and that gets pretty competitive when we put them in competitive situations — you can see multiple guys win the race.
“But when you put fatigue and the playbook on them, then they start to change gears a little bit. I’m still trying to figure that out — who can play fast at game speed.”
Who’s the most physical? They all better be, Alexander said, because physicality is the name of the game.
Even the star of last year’s unit, St. Brown, is lumped in the same category as everyone else, with consistency the main emphasis.
“His deal is just showing growth,” Alexander said of St. Brown. “You can have a breakout season, but once you’ve got a new set of coaches then there are more things you have to learn and adjust to.”
Alexander also said there isn’t anything to read into Stepherson — “really fluid,” said the coach — generally coming out with the third unit.
“We’re just trying to work through rotations and he’s got just as much production as anybody, wherever you may see him be in the lineup,” Alexander said of Stepherson: “Playing football is easy for him.”
In his 25 years of college football, Alexander does acknowledge he’s never been around a taller, rangier, athletic group of receivers than the current crop with the Irish. In addition to Claypool, there is the 6-5, 204-pound St. Brown, the 6-4, 225-pound Boykin — with 6-4¾, 245-pound tight end Alizé Jones also regularly lining up on the outside.
“Chip Long doesn’t have to worry about sending him over here,” Alexander said of the offensive coordinator who also is the tight ends coach. “[Jones is] doing the same thing a receiver does when he lines up outside the perimeter, and when he’s in box, he’s a tight end.”
Claypool’s ceiling might match anyone’s, but he is generally labeled a “raw talent.”
“We’re moving past the raw talent part,” Alexander said. “We’re moving more toward him being talented, physical and with great speed. He’s shown a lot of things to me, Coach Long and our staff.”
Spring is blooming time. Much fuller growth will be expected in August, and beyond.
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