Notre Dame’s 2021 Offensive Line Will Have Rare Turnover, Lots Of Intrigue
Perhaps the 2021 season and months leading up to it are a task Jeff Quinn wanted.
Not because he still needs to prove himself as Notre Dame’s offensive line coach, but because of coaches’ natural enjoyment of the building process.
With senior left guard Aaron Banks’ Sunday announcement that he is headed to the NFL Draft and fifth-year senior right guard Tommy Kraemer’s expected departure, Notre Dame will have four new starters on its offensive line in 2021. Senior tackles Liam Eichenberg and Robert Hainsey previously accepted Senior Bowl.
It’s a year with much turnover, but with the same expectations of performance. Notre Dame had a combined 114 starts on its offensive line entering 2020. It will begin 2021 with 31. The lone holdover, junior center Jarrett Patterson, has 21 career starts.
This season, Quinn was tasked with making a good line great, and his group offered lots of evidence of such results: It was one of three Joe Moore Award finalists, paved the way for a running game that averaged 5.8 yards per non-sack rush and excelled in short-yardage situations.
In 2021, his undertaking is to oversee a smooth transition and maintain a high level of play. The line will be almost entirely comprised of players he recruited. Based on their pedigree as recruits, the successors are intriguing. Now they have to go produce.
“I just told them in the locker room, as one group leaves, another group comes in,” Hainsey said after Notre Dame’s 31-14 loss to Alabama Jan. 1. “We’ve seen it and we’ve been through it.
“We were a younger group in 2018, and we won 12 games and we’re back here.”
That 2018 season was Quinn’s first year and the first without top-10 picks Mike McGlinchey and Quinton Nelson on the left side. They were replaced by Eichenberg and eventually Banks, each a top-200 recruit who endured early bumps but contributed to the line’s overall productive season.
The Irish have five former top-200 players on their roster next year: junior guard/tackle Quinn Carroll (No. 68, 2019), rising junior center Zeke Correll (No. 114, 2019) and sophomore tackle Tosh Baker (No. 137, 2020), freshman tackle Blake Fisher (No. 25, 2021) and freshman guard Rocco Spindler (No. 67, 2021).
Notre Dame also is scheduled to return former four-stars Josh Lugg (fifth-year senior), Andrew Kristofic (junior), converted defensive lineman Hunter Spears (junior), Michael Carmody (sophomore) and enrolls freshman Caleb Johnson. It has a pair of three-star freshmen signees in Joe Alt and Pat Coogan, plus senior John Dirksen and fifth-year Dillan Gibbons.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that these guys can step up and play the type of football that they learned how to play from Coach Quinn and Coach [Tommy] Rees and from each other,” Hainsey said. “They'll be able to step up and attack.”
In terms of on-field experience, Patterson, Lugg and Correll offer the most. To play them all together, though, requires one of Patterson or Correll to move from center, the position where they have exclusively practiced since spring 2019. Correll took over for Patterson in late November after the latter sustained a season-ending foot injury. Lugg also started twice in December at center due to Correll’s ankle injury.
Patterson was a high school tackle and began his Notre Dame career on the outside. Given the importance of both tackle spots, putting the most experience there could serve the offense well. Five of Lugg’s seven career starts were at right tackle in 2019, and he drew positive reviews for his play there.
Moving both to tackle allows Correll to stay at center, the position he has been groomed to play since his arrival. Lugg also has practiced at guard before and briefly appeared there in this season’s win at Georgia Tech. His versatility gives Quinn more flexibility to ensure the best five see the field.
In discussing the two other openings on the line, Gibbons may get left out because of his lesser ranking. It’s worth noting he’s the only player outside of Patterson, Lugg and Correll with starting experience, though it’s just one game (Dec. 5 against Syracuse). He was on the second-team all season and held up fine in that start.
All told, Notre Dame hasn’t had this many holes to fill in some time. It also hasn’t had this many seemingly capable options from which to pick — and the Irish need them to grow up fast.
“This team's going to go as the offensive line goes,” Hainsey said. “It always has, always will, as with any team. They need to be the core of the offense like we were, and I think they'll do a great job of that as they step up. This offseason is going to be huge.”
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