Point-counterpoint: Who was Notre Dame football MVP during regular season?
It's award season.
Over the next week, college football players across the country will see their names appear on All-America lists. A select few will win some hardware such as the Heisman Trophy and a few other highly coveted individual awards.
Notre Dame might not have any players take home any of the latter, but that doesn't mean the Fighting Irish didn't receive stellar performances from guys up and down the roster in an 11-1 regular season. Read below to find out who BlueandGold.com’s Tyler Horka and Todd Burlage selected as team MVP to this point.
Tyler Horka: Kyren Williams is irreplaceable
Running back MVPs aren’t usually held to less than 100 rushing yards in 10 of 12 games, but the circumstances have allowed for some shifting of the goalposts in this argument. Junior running back Kyren Williams is still Notre Dame’s MVP, and here’s why.
When Notre Dame’s offensive line wasn’t meshing and it was a downright burden to run the ball in the first half of the season, graduate student quarterback Jack Coan was benched on two separate occasions. The offensive line shored up, Williams started putting up numbers, and the conversation about Coan needing to ride the pine ceased entirely. Funny how that works.
Williams has been an invaluable asset to Coan in the second half of the season. He scored at least one touchdown in every game since the 24-13 loss to Cincinnati Oct. 2 through the end of the regular season. He scored multiple touchdowns in four games during that stretch.
It is understandable there is a case to be made for Coan being the team’s MVP. He has stabilized along with the offensive line in a similar way as Williams. But in which games can you confidently say it’s been Coan, not Williams, who has been the team’s best and most important player down the stretch?
Williams had 204 rushing attempts this season. The next closest player not named Jack Coan on the Notre Dame roster in that category was Chris Tyree with 50. Williams has been Notre Dame’s rock all year long, even when the going was tough. He might not have been named one of 10 semifinalists for the Doak Walker Award, but he should surely be named Notre Dame’s team MVP.
Todd Burlage: Steadiness makes Jack Coan the choice
Never during my 20-plus years covering Notre Dame football can I remember a time or a team that was so difficult to find an MVP. There are no Heisman candidates and only one potential NFL first-rounder this spring, Kyle Hamilton, and he was injured.
This team, instead, is better defined by unselfishness, improvement and a next-man-in approach than by any single superstar. And that’s why stoic and steady quarterback Jack Coan fit this team so perfectly and was the root of its success, even if his ride was anything but smooth.
Coan was sacked 22 times through his first six games, and pressured more than that, but he still completed 62 percent of his passes with 10 touchdowns and only three interceptions. He led last-minute game-winning drives against Toledo and Virginia Tech, and he inexplicably managed five wins in the first six games. Holding things together when this season could have unraveled, Coan’s steadiness was paramount.
And as his offensive line, running game and defense improved in the second half of this season, Coan became more of a game manager than a miracle worker, and he accepted and perfected that role, completing a remarkable 74 percent of his passes with eight touchdowns and two interceptions in the five games prior to Saturday’s regular-season finale at Stanford.
Certainly, the leadership skills, big personality and second-half surge from Irish junior tailback Kyren Williams make him a strong MVP candidate.
But it was Coan who held this season together when all could have been lost.
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