Top Offensive Players Notre Dame Will See At Each Position In 2020
With an ever-daunting schedule, filled with coast-to-coast travel and historic college football rivals, Notre Dame must also face some of the best and most talented players year in and year out.
Last season was especially overwhelming, where Notre Dame defenders went up against five offensive linemen taken in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft.
Additionally, the first three picks of the second round — Clemson wide receiver Tee Higgins, USC wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr. and Georgia running back D’Andre Swift — each lined up against the Fighting Irish in 2018 or 2019. Near the end of the second round, Boston College running back A.J. Dillion was selected with the No. 62 overall pick.
That list doesn’t even include collegiate stars, such as Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm, taken by the Buffalo Bills in the sixth round this spring.
The trend of playing game-changing college football players will continue in 2020, especially with projected top-25 teams on the schedule in Clemson, Wisconsin and USC. Also, don’t sleep on a talented Louisville roster in year two under head coach Scott Satterfield.
This month, Pro Football Focus, in a partnership with ESPN, put together a list ranking college football's top 10 returning players at each position for 2020 and — surprise, surprise — Notre Dame will face several of the players to make the cut. To come up with the list, a combination of PFF grades and wins above average (WAA) metric was used.
Using this information, plus other pieces of PFF content and statistics, below is a breakdown of the best offensive players Notre Dame will face in 2020.
Quarterback
Trevor Lawrence • Clemson • Nov. 7
The last time Notre Dame faced a future first-round pick at quarterback was against USC’s Sam Darnold in 2017 when the Irish obliterated the Trojans 49-14. Assuming the season proceeds as scheduled, this fact will change Nov. 7 when Clemson and Trevor Lawrence — widely projected as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft — travels to South Bend.
According to PFF/ESPN, he is the No. 1 returning quarterback in all of college football.
In two seasons at Clemson, he has thrown for a total of 6,945 yards with 66 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. There is room for him to be more accurate, though, with just a 65.5 career completion percentage. However, he has made up for that by producing one of the best big-time throw rates over the last two seasons, according to Pro Football Focus.
Even scarier is that he has lost just one game in his collegiate career — the 2019 College Football Play off national championship game against an all-time LSU team. Clemson will be loaded again in 2020, so even with the game taking place in November, it is very likely a Notre Dame victory over Clemson would equate to just the second loss for Lawrence of his career.
Kedon Slovis • USC • Nov. 28
Even after injuries created a path for him to get on the field, I don’t think anyone saw a consensus three-star quarterback recruiting enrolling at USC and almost immediately thriving as a starter. But Kedon Slovis was so successful in that role that former five-star quarterback JT Daniels — who also started as a true freshman the season prior — is now in the transfer portal.
Slovis doesn’t have the biggest arm, but he is incredibly accurate. In 12 games, he produced a 71.9 completion percentage, which was the third best mark in the Football Bowl Subdivision last season behind Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow (a god-like 76.3 percent) and Utah’s Tyler Huntley. Slovis accomplishes this by throwing very few uncatchable balls. In total, he has thrown for 3,502 yards with 30 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
PFF/ESPN has Slovis pegged as the No. 10 returning quarterback in 2020, and Notre Dame is scheduled to play USC at the end of the season Nov. 28.
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