Notebook: D-lineman Chris Smith adds to Notre Dame's portal power
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — For all the red tape that has oftentimes entangled and choked off potential incoming help from the transfer portal, the few who did make it to Notre Dame in the last cycle are making a difference.
Saturday night in Las Vegas, in a 28-20 Irish win over BYU, marked the first time this season all four were cast in starting roles. Harvard transfer Chris Smith — a 6-foot-1, 310-pound interior defensive lineman from Detroit — stepped in from an injured Howard Cross, played 28 snaps (of the 46 BYU had the ball) and delivered the consistently strong play (two tackles, high pass-rush/pressure grade) that he’d been contributing all season in smaller doses.
He joined safety Brandon Joseph (Northwestern) — ND’s third-leading tackler (21) and lead punt returner (9.6-yard average), kicker Blake Grupe (Arkansas State) — 5-for-6 on field goals and 13-for-13 on PATs, and punter Jon Sot (Harvard) — third in the nation in punting (46.6) and seventh in net punting (42.9).
“I’m feeling great,” Smith said earlier this week. “The game is definitely slowing down more for me here. That fall camp and those first couple weeks were definitely good for me in terms of getting adjusted to the speed.
“I’m feeling more confident. I think (defensive line) coach (Al) Washington is feeling a lot more confident in me on the field and trusting me more. Just trying to continue to show that in practice every day. It’s been awesome so far.”
Smith has totaled seven tackles on the season, after recording 40, with five tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks, as an All-Ivy League first-teamer in 2021.
Cross (high ankle sprain) was limited in practice Tuesday, but Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said on his weekly Zoom call with the media on Thursday that 6-1, 276-pound senior was full-go Wednesday and is expected back in the lineup for Saturday night’s home game with Stanford (7:30 EDT; NBC).
The 33rd-ever meeting between the Irish (3-2) and Cardinal (1-4) will be just the second one in the last 12 in which both teams come into the game unranked.
But with senior Jacob Lacey opting into a redshirt year last week and already shopping for a new school in the transfer portal, Smith’s role figures to expand this weekend, and moving forward, as does sophomore Gabe Rubio’s.
“He's a big physical presence,” defensive coordinator Al Golden said of Smith, a zero-star defensive end prospect as a high school senior at Cranbrook Kingswood, a boarding school in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
“He can anchor in, and it takes two to get him off the ball a lot. So with him, Gabe, Jayson (Ademilola), Howard (Cross), (we can) have a nice little rotation in there. But Chris will do exactly what we ask him to do. It's an unbelievable quality. And he's really trying to do the technique perfectly.”
Added Freeman, “With more opportunities, which he's gaining because of the way he's been practicing at a high level, now you're seeing performance in games at a high level. And he played more this last game versus BYU than he's ever had. And he'll continue to play more, because he's doing a great job with those opportunities.”
And Smith is doing that while taking challenging classes in a one-year master’s program in business management. Graduated players, whether transfers or ND’s own, have the option to take a master’s curriculum or non-degree-seeking classes.
Smith said ND’s master’s degree options were one of the reasons he flipped to the Irish after initially committing to transfer to Minnesota in January.
“I was coming back from spring break and working out with some of my other buddies at Harvard,” Smith said. “I saw a text or email from someone at Notre Dame, and they said, ‘We just want to talk.’ I was like, ‘OK.’ It kind of went from there.
“I was definitely shocked. It was a good feeling.”
Bracy still questionable
The good news for Notre Dame is that its most dependable and indispensable cornerback this season, grad senior TaRiq Bracy, practiced on Wednesday after suffering a hamstring injury last Saturday night against BYU.
“I think he'll go (Saturday night vs. Stanford),” Freeman said Thursday. “I hope he'll go, be able to go. But how long and how much is still to be determined.”
The less-settling news is Notre Dame doesn’t necessarily have an abundance of replacement options when Bracy plays nickel. Safety and former cornerback Ramon Henderson auditioned this week. Also, the hope was to stop cross-training freshman Jaden Mickey and let him hone in on learning and progressing at the field cornerback position.
On top of that, Stanford plays a “mesh” offensive system like Wake Forest, that’s kind of a delayed RPO look and puts a lot of pressure on opposing linebackers and cornerbacks.
“And so, you’ve got to do some different things up front to try to be able to have your ‘backers play a little bit more patiently,” Freeman said. “And you’ve got to be able to play man-to-man coverage at times versus some big, tall, long, wideouts."
Stanford’s top five receiving threats all range from 6-2 to 6-5.
“It's a really good scheme that they've done a good job of being able to execute in games," Freeman aid, "and it's going to be a big challenge for us.”
Sophomore Ryan Barnes, who has yet to play a defensive snap this season and had just a one-game cameo on special teams, moved up into the five-man corner rotation this week and had a strong week of practice, per Freeman.
Squibs
The youngest of former Notre Dame standout quarterback Rick Mirer’s three sons, Charlie Mirer, is a freshman quarterback on the Stanford roster.
The 6-foot-6, 235-pound product out of Cathedral Catholic High School in San Diego is not listed as one of the top three QBs on the Cardinal depth chart.
• Stanford starting quarterback, junior Tanner McKee, is one of five Stanford players who have taken a Mormon Mission. McKee did his service in Brazil. The other four are senior linebacker Levani Damuni (New Zealand), freshman safety Scotty Edwards (South Africa), senior linebacker Spencer Jorgensen (Thailand) and sophomore wide receiver Kale Lucas (Philippines and Seattle)
Linebacker Anson Pulsipher is currently on a mission in Chile and will return in 2023.
• So far, ND head coach Marcus Freeman has deferred to the second half when he’s won the coin toss, the opposite of what predecessor Brian Kelly tended to do. Freeman may want to ponder a change this weekend, given some more-extreme-than-usual splits/tendencies for Stanford under head coach David Shaw.
In Shaw’s 12 seasons as head coach, Stanford is 74-21 when scoring first (20-28 otherwise), and 81-8 when leading at halftime.
---------------------------------------------------------------
• Talk with Notre Dame fans on The Insider Lounge.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Podbean or Pocket Casts.
• Subscribe to the Inside ND Sports channel on YouTube.
• Follow us on Twitter: @insideNDsports, @EHansenND, @TJamesND and @ByKyleKelly.
• Like us on Facebook: Inside ND Sports
• Follow us on Instagram: @insideNDsports