Growth is the real story for Irish in 2021 season
SOUTH BEND — This season promised to be a year to be able to give a real-time “grade” on the past few Notre Dame football recruiting classes.
With the graduation losses from a year ago and another sound defeat in their FBS playoff game against Alabama, it was going to be up to a lot of new faces to not only take their place on the field but more importantly hold the place of the program in the national spotlight.
The grade at this point would have to be an A- as with one loss, the Irish have done more than just hold serve but have made themselves relevant for post-season consideration.
Players like Jack Kiser, who played his high school ball at Pioneer, have emerged. Kiser had a second pick-six against Georgia Tech and has become that hybrid safety/linebacker player that is the anchor on every Irish defense.
The most underrated performance may be Jack Coan replacing Ian Book. While he isn’t a national championship-caliber quarterback he has been nothing but rock solid with a great amount of poise in what is questionably the hottest quarterback seat in college football.
“He moved the ball around,” said Irish coach Brian Kelly of Coan’s performance on Saturday. “There were a couple of key third-down situations, one, in particular, he found Kyren (Williams) on a drive route, where he could have been the fourth eligible receiver on that play. Just his patience and going through his progression his poise, his confidence, his vision, it’s been really good.”
The question here is, “Do the Irish have the next starting quarterback currently enrolled when Coan the placeholder moves on?”
It appears that the coaching staff - right now anyway - thinks that the next starter might be Tyler Buchner who did see time in Saturday’s blowout win.
“What we decided at halftime is we wanted to run the entire offense,” said Kelly. “This was an important half for him to continue to develop. We need to continue to coach and develop during those times, and they are really, really important times for him because he’s still growing as a quarterback for us. Again, he’s such a really good player, but he needs those moments as well.”
The offensive line is a mix of old and young with the left side returning and skill guys Lorenzo Styles at wideout and tight end Michael Mayer will be back as a solid base.
“This entire team has been about young players merging with veteran players and how that has really made this a special season because that doesn’t normally happen,” said Kelly. “Sometimes it’s not easy when younger players are put into the mix, so to speak, with veteran players.”
“We have a younger group of players in our locker room that are selfless, that model to what our upperclassmen do,” he said. “They’re not resistant to the standards that we have in our program. So they follow. But yet are confident in their own abilities as well, that they don’t just walk around and follow blindly. So it’s been a really good blend and a really good mix.”
It is a unique situation for Kelly as a coach.
“I’ve had teams where we haven’t had that really good mix of young players and veteran players,” he said. “This sounds like I’m talking about things that don’t matter to you, but the chemistry of this football team is what it is because of young players that have allowed themselves to be led by our veteran players in a manner that has allowed it to grow as a football team, and that’s the real story here.”