Rocco Spindler walked in the door to Notre Dame in the winter of 2021 as an early enrollee gushing with star power.
He had the panache and personality to go with the unmistakable pedigree. The offensive guard prospect from Clarkston, Mich., is the son of a former NFL defensive lineman (Marc Spindler) and received massive recruiting love that’s rare for an interior line position.
Even now his No. 68 overall ranking per Rivals in the 2021 class is the highest of any of the Irish offensive lineman on the current roster, until freshman tackle Guerby Lambert (No. 37 in 2024) reports for summer school/workouts on June 9.
And then there was the promise.
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Shortly before his grandfather, George Spindler, passed in July of 2019, Rocco visited George in the hospital and whispered a secret in his ear. And that was when it came time to choose a school, it would be Notre Dame.
Promise kept, and then some.
That the 6-foot-5, 324-pound rising senior stayed out of the transfer portal the past two springs, when a starting job wasn’t imminent, and chose to fight for his spot on the Irish depth chart is just one of the reasons he tops the list of Inside ND Sports’ six players of summer intrigue.
And summer starts for the Notre Dame returnees with a June 2 report date, exactly two weeks after Spindler picked up his ND degree at the end of his junior year.
Excluded from consideration from this list were the 20 missing pieces from spring football — June-enrolling freshmen like Lambert, eight players who missed spring entirely or were severely limited, etc. Our five most impactful player list from that group was published in April.
Spindler actually wasn’t 100 percent physically recovered in the spring from a November knee injury that truncated his season in Game 10 of 2023 after he won the starting right guard job in last year’s training camp.
But he was able to show second-year offensive line coach Joe Rudolph enough in the spring that the only ND offensive lineman with a full season of starts on his résumé, classmate Pat Coogan, will have to fend off a fully healthy Spindler to keep his left guard job.
Spindler has always had the power. His challenge is adding precision to the equation in equal measure. His fight figures to make both Spindler and Coogan better and perhaps help raise the floor for the Notre Dame position group with the most unknowns and doubts wafting from it heading into summer
2. Jordan Botelho, Vyper End
The grad senior from Hawaii showed signs in the spring that his flourish in ND’s final two games of 2023, including winning Sun Bowl Defensive Player of the Dame honors, perhaps wasn’t an outlier but rather a precursor of what could unfold for the incumbent starter in 2024.
And perhaps some senior growing pains were a part of his natural evolution last season after all.
Consider that Botelho came to Notre Dame as a Rivals250 prospect and the No. 1 rated player out of Hawaii and the No. 11 inside linebacker nationally in the 2020 class, knowing he was going to be moved to the defensive line.
And then he toggled between defensive end and outside linebacker for most of his career until settling at vyper last season. He also had to learn how to harness his admirably hard-hitting but reckless style into a more mature, consistent approach, which he has.
So maybe, his final season is when he puts it all together.
If he does, the Irish have what appears to be a formidable rotation at the position in Botelho, junior Junior Tuihalamaka and sophomore Boubacar Traore. And if he doesn’t, look out for Traore.
3. Steve Angeli, Quarterback
With Duke transfer Riley Leonard in an ankle brace recovering from a second surgery for most of spring football, junior Angeli got most of the No. 1 reps and took advantage of them. Just as he did in the Sun Bowl last December in recording the highest pass-efficiency mark in (at least) 50 years by an Irish QB in his first start, when starter Sam Hartman opted out of the bowl.
But how does Angeli make the most of second-team reps if it comes to that — if Leonard, as expected, beats Angeli out in August, and if Leonard stays completely healthy his entire final collegiate season?
The same mindset that kept Angeli out of the transfer portal during the late-April window applies here. Position yourself to win the starting job in 2025, but be ready for that to happen in 2024 if the circumstances dictate that.
The drive, that positive chemistry, would not only help Angeli develop this fall no matter how many game reps he gets, but also make the whole quarterback room better and tighter,
“You know, we never have to talk about the depth chart in my room,” ND coach Gino Guidugli said back in April, “because if you recruit guys with great character and see the world through a realistic lens, you don’t have to tell them, because they know where they stand.
“They watch the same film. They get the grades from everybody every practice. They know what they need to work on. They know what they’re better at than the other guy. And I tell them, ‘It’s not you vs. him. It’s you vs. you. He has no effect on what you do with your reps when you’re in there.’
“At the end of the day it’s like golf. It’s them vs. them. You have to go out there, you have to operate, you have to lead. But that guy — they all want to be the starting quarterback — but that guy that’s vying for the job, he has no effect on what you do with your reps, how you prepare, and what kind of energy you bring to practice every day.”
4. Josh Burnham, Defensive End
Burnham was a high school quarterback out of necessity and a linebacker by choice at Traverse City (Mich.) Central, and good enough at both to be named the 2021 Michigan Gatorade Player of the Year and a four-star inside linebacker prospect by Rivals.
Field defensive end, where Ohio State transfer Javontae Jean-Baptiste blossomed last season, is Burnham’s third college position heading into his third collegiate season.
Ahead of the former inside linebacker and vyper end at his newest position is Duke grad transfer RJ Oben. Chasing him on the depth chart at field end is the spring prodigy in the freshman class, Bryce Young.
And yet the 6-4, 252-pound junior still feels like an ascending player and maybe good enough to press Oben. At the very least, Burnham is part of a rotation with loads of potential at a position that needs to show up this fall, given the proven firepower the Irish D-line has in its interior with All-American nose guard Howard Cross III and defensive tackle Riley Mills.
5. KK Smith, Wide Receiver
A little over a year ago, Smith was one of two newcomers for 2023, both of whom were named Kaleb Smith and both wide receivers. KK, the younger of the two and a June enrollee, volunteered to mitigate the confusion by defaulting to his nickname.
And then the elder Kaleb Smith, a grad transfer from Virginia Tech and a January enrollee, elected to retire before spring football ended and before KK enrolled. KK kept the nickname, then underwent shoulder surgery, which meant a quiet summer and even quieter fall.
He finally got to practice in December and managed to earn two snaps in the Dec. 29 Sun Bowl back in his home state of Texas, with both of those plays being running plays.
But this spring the 6-0, 170-pound sophomore was hardly an afterthought at wide receiver, and even earned an audition as a punt returner.
Florida International grad transfer Kris Mitchell is expected to win the starting job at the open field receiver position. The top two players at that position in 2023, Rico Flores Jr. and Tobias Merriweather, transferred to UCLA and Cal, respectively.
Smith has two things working in his favor toward being a summer surprise — speed and a less-cluttered path to playing time than at the crowded slot and boundary receiver positions. Consistency is what will help him push toward a spot in the rotation in August.
6. Chance Tucker, Cornerback
The senior has seen younger players leapfrog him on the depth chart — Ben Morrison and Jaden Mickey as freshmen in 2022, Christian Gray as a freshman last season.
But limited numbers in the position group, with three outgoing transfers this offseason, and the versatility to perhaps be a backup option at nickel may reignite a player who has avoided the transfer portal and did make the most of his opportunities this spring with Morrison sidelined with a shoulder injury.
Two freshmen, Karson Hobbs and Leonard Moore, arrive June 9 to give Notre Dame six true cornerbacks heading into fall camp. But Tucker has the opportunity to be a valuable backup and even a rotational player with a transformative summer.
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