SOUTH BEND, Ind, — In the space of less than 24 hours, Notre Dame wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey lost his most experienced and accomplished receiver for good and watched ND’s leading returning receiver from the 2022 season and highest-rated as a recruit warm up to a position switch.
And yet he’s still smiling, and thinking big.
“Recruiting,” Stuckey said of the main reason why on Wednesday after practice No. 13 of 15 this spring, with the Blue-Gold Game spring finale set for Saturday at 2 p.m. EDT at Notre Dame Stadium.
“I mean, we hit on all three freshmen. That was huge and that’s super rare. Great job by [recruiting director] Chad [Bowden] and our recruiting staff and our whole staff getting those guys here. Now you don’t feel such a big loss.”
A fourth freshman, Kaleb ‘KK” Smith of Frisco, Texas, will join the three early enrollees — Rico Flores Jr., Braylon James and Jaden Greathouse — in June. He’ll nudge the number of Irish scholarship receivers up to nine after Virginia Tech transfer Kaleb Smith (no relation) announced he’s medically retiring after three months with the ND program and before the aspiring sixth-year player could acquire a nickname.
Junior Lorenzo Styles could nudge it back to 10 wide receivers if he makes a U-turn from his experiment as a cornerback, which so far he seems to fully embrace.
“You have the freshmen who are making noise, who are pushing the older guys,” Stuckey said. “And that’s what you want in a successful wide receiver room, dire competition. And everybody is happy for each other. I think that’s what we’ve created through these [13] practices.”
Collectively Flores, James and Greathouse comprise the first group of three receivers or more ranked in the top 160 nationally by Rivals in the same class at ND since Rivals started ranking players beyond the top 100 in 2006.
Individually, Stuckey broke down the three on Wednesday and provided a quick thumbnail of each during their spring journeys so far:
► Rico Flores Jr.; 6-1, 198; Folsom (Calif.) High: “Rico is thicker. Way bigger than you thought. He gets here and has huge tree-trunk legs, and his arms, and has a little presence about him. Good size, great route-runner. Attention to detail is immaculate.
“You have to test sometimes if kids love football — Rico loves football. It’s important to him. And he’s betting everything he has on himself. He loves school. He’s working super hard. Takes care of his business off the field.
“Comes here, does extra work, lifts, asks great questions, takes notes. He’s a consummate professional only three months out of high school. The challenge to him is to keep getting better. Don’t let up. Reminding him of why he’s here.”
► Braylon James; 6-2, 195; Round Rock (Texas) Stony Point High: “Braylon has had the most interesting transition, because he put on 15 pounds. He got here and got 15 pounds super quick, so his body this spring has been used to carrying that extra weight. He’s the freakiest of them all — he’s 6-2, runs a 4.4 [40-yard dash], 38-inch vertical. He’s the biggest freakiest of them all, but his body has changed so much.”
► Jaden Greathouse; 6-1, 213; Austin (Texas) Westlake High: “JG is just physically ready to play,” Stuckey said. “Has great ball skills. Has a niftiness in and around through zones, where he can be slippery and get around guys but has enough power and quickness at the line of scrimmage to beat guys. His ball skills are out of control just from his basketball background and what they did at Westlake [in football].
“You put him into the boundary and get inside the 10-yard line, any ball, anywhere he’s going to make a play. Those two are so impressive physically—Rico and JG—but the athleticism of Braylon is just through the roof.”
The only reason that they’re not pushing for a spot at the top of the depth chart is the spring surges sophomore Tobias Merriweather, juniors Jayden Thomas and Deion Colzie are having along with recent dramatic progress by converted senior running back Chris Tyree.
"He is miles ahead of what any of us thought," Stuckey said of Tyree.
The starting three, if the Irish were playing someone other than themselves on Saturday on teams split up by a draft, would be Merriweather, Tyree and Thomas — with Colzie just behind them and sixth-year former walk-on Chris Salerno providing leadership.
“I think this spring is trying to teach him what the expectation is now,” Stuckey said of Colzie .
“If you do something for so long and you think that’s what it takes to be successful, now roles have changed. And he has to go to a higher level, another mindset.
“Most of the spring I was trying to teach him what it takes to expect more, because he was doing what he always did last year. … But there’s a higher expectation now, and it took him a while to figure it out. ‘Well I’m doing this and doing that?’
“But the last couple of practices, barring being sick today, he showed up. It was a difference. Like, we wanted to see a jump from him and then we started to see it. You have Tyree, you have JT, you have Tobias. Then you get Deion being where he is. You have a significant change from what the room was like last year.”
With the freshmen deep into the mix as well.
“It’s a compliment to their [high school] coaches [and] the high school programs that they came from that allows them to come in and be successful at Notre Dame,” Stuckey said. “Just the attention to detail, what’s required, the conditioning, the intensity, being coached hard, and reacting the right way, because you never know once you get them here.
“The big conversation we had in the room was just because you guys are freshmen, you uphold the standard of the room as well. It’s not, ‘It’s OK, you’re freshmen.’ No, your expectation is to know what to do and do it at a high level. And everyone expects that.
“Having success in high school, then coming here [and] having a little taste of success, then building. Then doing extra work over in the Gug. I mean those guys come over all the time. Fifteen minutes here and there every day — that’s a bunch of time over a month.
“Those guys have put in the time and detail and just understanding. [Offensive coordinator Jerad] Parker has taken those guys under his wing, too. I’m just so glad to have those three kids here.”
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