Notre Dame Tackling Right Side Of Offensive Line
For Notre Dame’s 2017 offensive line, it appears in many aspects to be a carbon copy of 2015. Or at least one hopes it can and will be.
• After an inconsistent 2014, the veteran line with 68 career starts returning was expected to be and turned out to be the strength of the 10-3 team in 2015 that finished No. 11 in the Associated Press poll. The 207.6 rushing yards per game that season were the most at Notre Dame (including bowl games) since 1998, and the Irish also set a single-season school record for yards per play (7.0) and a modern program record for yards per rush (5.63).
Likewise, there will be similar expectations on this year’s line, which returns 76 career starts after having only 27 entering last season’s 4-8 meltdown.
• The 2015 unit had two of the nation’s top players at their positions, first-round left tackle Ronnie Stanley and second-round center Nick Martin (shifted from guard).
In 2017, both left tackle Mike McGlinchey and left guard Quenton Nelson are bona fide first-round candidates next spring after earning some All-America notice last year.
• In 2015 the Irish featured four returning starters along the front, including a former tackle turned right guard in Steve Elmer. In 2017, four of the five starters return again, among them former tackle turned right guard Alex Bars.
• Finally, the one vacated spot along the line in 2015 featured a battle between two sophomores that were redshirted the year prior: Nelson and Bars. Continuing the trend this year at right tackle are two more sophomores, Tommy Kraemer and Liam Eichenberg, both of whom redshirted last season.
“This is a very competitive situation with Kraemer and Eichenberg at that tackle position,” head coach Brian Kelly said after Wednesday’s practice, the third of the spring and first in pads.
The 6-5, 313-pound Kraemer is the second-highest ranked offensive lineman recruited in Kelly’s eight seasons at Notre Dame (No. 41 overall national ranking by Rivals, with Nelson’s No. 29 in 2014 the highest).
Meanwhile, the 6-6, 294-pound Eichenberg was rated by BlueandGold.com football analyst Bryan Driskell as the No. 1 prospect in Notre Dame’s 23-man haul signed in 2016 (Kraemer was No. 3). When asked late last season who among the younger players not playing has made a strong mark in practice, Kelly referred to Eichenberg as “a stud.”
Much of seizing the starting role at right tackle depends on how effective either of the two is at setting the edge and playing comfortably in space against top pass rushers. The 6-6, 320-pound Bars is still an option to move back to tackle if needed, but like with Nelson and Bars in 2015, there is an eagerness to get the two rising young stars into the starting rotation.
“We would prefer to get him in at the guard position,” Kelly said of Bars. “Those two [Kraemer and Eichenberg] are the guys we have mapped for the right tackle position. They’re going to battle.
“Today, Kraemer was there. The first two practices Eichenberg got a lot of the work. Eichenberg will go back there on Friday, and they’re going to keep battling and splitting the action out there.”
When the offense lines up in team drills the first part of practice, the No. 2 left side features two early enrollees in Robert Hainsey (6-4½, 292) at tackle and Aaron Banks (6-5½, 310) at guard. However, since 2008, the Irish have redshirted 29 of the 31 offensive linemen who have enrolled, including first-round selections such as Zack Martin and Stanley. The likely plan is to do the same with Hainsey and Banks while fifth-year senior Hunter Bivin, who started once last year, is the next potential “swing” option at either tackle or guard.
Bivin has come out with the third unit in team drills, but that is more about allowing the early enrollees to get their feet wet this spring with some reps.
“We’ve just asked Hunter to take a seat right now, and he’s done that for the team,” Kelly said. “… We want to see these two young players.”
Kelly said Bivin will be the Mark Harrell of the 2017 team. Harrell returned as a fifth-year senior in 2016 despite having no career starts, but he provided value as a “flex” option at tackle or guard, and ended up starting the final three games at right guard.
Finding maximum value at No. 1 right tackle is the greater objective at the present time.
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