SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The fact that Tobias Merriweather had just one catch last season, missed multiple games in concussion protocol in 2022 and had a catchless debut in his first collegiate start last Saturday hasn’t prompted the Notre Dame football coaching staff into recalculating their expectations of the sophomore wide receiver in 2023.
Or thoughts of fitting him with the football equivalent of training wheels, something that often happened to young wide receivers during the Brian Kelly Era.
Nor has the 6-foot-4, 204-pound former high school 200-meter Washington state champ dialed back his aspirations.
“I think he's been really good in practice,” Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said Thursday on a Zoom with the media ahead of Saturday’s home opener with Tennessee State (3:30 p.m. EDT; NBC/Peacock).
“To me he's been dying to have more of a role after last season. And so, he's done a great job in the preparation. I know he didn't score a touchdown, but he did some really good things in the game, and sometimes the stat sheet doesn't show that. But we were pleased with what he did in the game and we really look forward to him having another great opportunity to have a big game this week.”
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Irish QBs completed 20 of 24 passes in the game, targeting 10 different receivers. None of them was thrown to more than Jayden Thomas’ four times. Merriweather, the only one of the 10 targets without a reception in 13th-ranked Notre Dame’s 42-3 romp over Navy in Dublin, Ireland, was targeted twice.
Because of the matchup with Navy’s smaller physically, but aggressively blitzing defense, the Irish were in predominantly two-tight end sets, meaning just two wide receivers on the field at a time for ND. That became a dominant identity for the Irish offense in its three seasons of Tommy Rees serving as Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator.
Freeman and Rees' successor, Gerad Parker, want to keep that in the toolbox but mix in more varied personnel groups, depending upon opponent, matchups, down and distance and game situation.
So, two backs? Four wide receivers? Five wide receivers?
“I don't know if I want to give away everything we're going to do,” Freeman said, “but you will see some personnel groups that maybe you haven't seen in the past that we look to really create some mismatches and try to put ourselves in a matchup where we feel really favorable.”
Whatever personnel groups Notre Dame put itself in during the 12-year Kelly Era, freshmen wide receivers were rarely featured or even used frequently.
The now-LSU coach signed 35 high school receivers during his 12 complete recruiting cycles (2010-21). And current freshman wide receiver Jaden Greathouse — with three catches for 68 yards and two TDs — had more receptions in his college debut than 27 of the Kelly signees had during their entire freshman seasons.
Only three of the 35 — TJ Jones, Kevin Stepherson and Lorenzo Styles — reached double digits in catches as freshmen. Merriweather, a Freeman signee, had one — a 41-yarder, for a TD against Stanford in 2022
The Irish went seven deep in their wide receiver corps last Saturday against Navy, with more opportunities for more reps seemingly ahead of them this week.
“I think that as these young wideouts continue to gain the trust of our coaching staff and of everybody, you can see more [of the] wideouts,” Freeman said. “[And] you look at having five running backs that all contributed last game, and so how do we make sure that we utilize all these different skills that we have with different personnel?
“And so we used 12 [two tight ends] probably more than anything last week, with Holden [Staes] and Mitch [Evans], and I would see us using that at times this week a lot, too. But I also see us just being versatile in what we're doing. And really it starts with us, like who gives us the best chance to succeed? What personnel can we get into that we believe creates some advantages for us offensively?”
Smooth re-entry so far
The first time Notre Dame tried to schedule its third trip to Ireland to play Navy, athletic director Jack Swarbrick built in a bye week immediately after, with a home opener with Arkansas falling two weeks following the late-August international season opener.
That was 2020.
And the COVID-19 pandemic forced Swarbrick to reconfigure into a schedule that made ND a full football member of the ACC for a year, so none of those other things happened.
This time, an FCS school — Tennessee State — was placed into the schedule the weekend following the 2023 Navy-ND game in Ireland instead of a bye. And Freeman and Swarbrick are relying, in part, on sports science and better planning to make this alternative work in light of the 2012 team’s languid performance in a near-loss to Purdue a week after opening that season with a 50-10 rout of Navy in Dublin.
That meant Freeman was open to shorter and less-physical practices if necessary this week, but so far the changes needed have been minimal.
“I did not take away from those scout-team periods that we need to be prepared for a game,” Freeman said, “I think we saved probably 10 minutes on Tuesday and maybe five minutes on Wednesday, but, again, that doesn't take away from the preparation for Tennessee State.
“I feel like our guys truly have bounced back. We had a really spirited Tuesday practice, and I challenged us all, as coaches and players, for Wednesday to be even better than Tuesday in terms of the execution, the urgency we have to have on the field.
“I told them that was probably the best Wednesday practice we've had here in a while. I was really pleased with those two days of physical work, and we're going to have one more good one today.”
Tennessee State thumbnail
Freeman reiterated Thursday the coaching matchup he’s relishing with Tennessee State’s Eddie George, a star running back at Ohio State (1992-95) when Freeman was growing up in Ohio.
Freeman better hope George, as a coach, doesn’t do the damage, George, the player, did to the Irish.
During his 1995 Heisman Trophy-winning season, George rushed for 207 yards 32 carries with two TDs in the Buckeyes’ 45-26 mauling of the visiting Irish that season.
The 49-year-old George is on his third season leading the Tennessee State program, the first FCS school and HBCU to grace the Notre Dame football schedule ever. The Tigers were 4-7 last season and ranked 98th in total offense and no better than 78th (in rush offense) in any major offensive category nationally in the FCS in 2022.
Tennessee State ranked 50th in total defense, and was second in the FCS in red-zone defense and 35 in sacks. Most impressive was the Tigers’ No. 14 ranking in turnover margin.
• Tennessee State is 1-5 against FBS teams dating back to 2006. The Tigers beat Georgia State, in 2017, and have lost to Vandebilt and Middle Tennessee State twice each and once to Mississippi State.
• The Tigers are a transfer-friendly team (14 from the portal) and an older team. There are 14 fifth-year players, 10 sixth-years and one seventh-year player on Tennessee State’s roster.
Tennessee State has produced seven first-round draft choice in program history, starting with Claude Humphrey by Atlanta in 1968. The most recent was Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie by the Arizona Cardinals in 2008.
“As far as the significance of this game, the opportunity for these two institutions to play a football game that has never been done, I think, is tremendous,” Freeman said. “It's great for college football to have an FCS school come to Notre Dame Stadium and play a game and the first HBCU ever to play here. I think it's going to be a great opportunity, a great experience.”
Raridon update
There have not been setbacks in sophomore tight end Eli Raridon’s recovery from a torn ACL last October, but the timeline continues to slide back, and Freeman said Raridon definitely won’t play this weekend.
“We hope in the next couple of weeks he will be 100% cleared,” Freeman said. “It's just a process for him, from where he's at now to being able to be game-ready. So, hopefully, in the next few weeks, he’ll be at that point.”
Raridon played in five games in 2022 as a freshman before suffering the injury in practice. He did not record a catch but was graded out as one of Notre Dame’s top run blockers.
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