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That's indeed.com/bluewire, terms and condition supply. Indeed to hire, you need Indeed. So we also got to talk to Jaden Greathouse after practice today and add some pretty interesting thoughts on a few different things I thought for starters. You remember Jesse? Was it earlier this week or was it last week? We talked about how Irish nickel back, Jordan Clark compared Greathouse to Raiders wide receiver Devontae Adams. Remember that? I guess that was just a couple of days ago, right? Yes. So I asked the great one as our friend Salty likes to say, "Jaden Greathouse about that comparison to Devontae Adams." No, I didn't hear that, but he's my favorite receiver, so I'll take that for sure. I mean just like a combination of size and speed and then just like his route running, his releases, all those kinds of things, I definitely try to implement that into my game. Like I watch Devontae Adams film whenever I can, Justin Jefferson film whenever I can. So I just try to add their film into my game however I can, and I just really try to model my game after them. I think we kind of hit it when we were talking about the comparison the other day. The Devontae Adams one Salty says, "Size speed, Greathouse has got it." I mean if that's his favorite guy, it's probably, at least he likes the comparison. Yeah, one of the odds that you get compared to your favorite wide receiver from a defensive back that is just entering the program. I think that's pretty cool and there must be some truth to it as well. If you can get someone to say that kind of unprovoked and that's a guy that you openly kind of want to model your game around. So a little bit more important stuff. We talked to Greathouse about some details on him, some details about the offense, Mike Denbrock's offense as well. The tempo that Mike Denbrock is going to run this offense at this season. Definitely. In the beginning of the camp, it was definitely an adjustment. Just getting in shape, getting used to the tempo, all those kind of things. But me personally, I love it just like with where we're at right now. I love the tempo of the offense, being able to get set, be able to line up, get a play fast. I think it's good for us. I think it's good for the offense. Just being able to go out there and play fast. How important do you think it is bringing tempo to this offense, Jess? I think tempo is a double edged sword. It looks great when it's going well because you have the defense on its heels. You kind of get them gassed and kind of guessing, you know, what's going on when things are going well. So three and out, and you're off the field in under a minute, that's kind of the flip side of things. So you have to kind of find that balance of, okay, when is it time to put the foot on the pedal and really get into some tempo, and when is it smart to kind of maybe slow some things down and give the defense some sort of break? Because the last thing a defense wants is getting a critical stop, and then the offense is going tempo, tempo, tempo, and then go three and out, and now the defense is back on the field in two minutes. That's where you're like, yeah. Guys, like we just literally got a sip of water now, we're going to get it back out there. So for this offense, specifically, I do believe, you know, with it has to be of importance because it's going to help Riley Leonard's game overall. He is a tempo quarterback and for a system that wants to use its quarterback's legs, the mobility of its quarterback, and we've seen that through various clips of practice of Riley Leonard using his legs, you have to be able to operate at that kind of RPO type tempo, right? It is a very quick, fast pace, and again, that's why it has so much potency is because it gets the defense tired and it gets them on their heels of when you're constantly moving around and moving fast, it just doesn't allow the defense to settle in and get their calls in as quickly as well. And the other thing kind of piggybacking on what you're saying is, okay, you're going to Texas A&M, you go into college station, rumor has it, it's going to be hot down there. I mean, I think we've heard that a time or two, right? So like all those factors that you're talking about and you combine the heat in there with it, I mean, you want to be able to get and put the defense on its heels and you want to get your quarterback into that rhythm like you're talking about. But as you said, the flip side going three and out and then all of a sudden, you know, you are playing in a, you know, like a hotter environment, higher climate, all that kind of thing, especially in this first game, I think that that could be a huge, I mean, it could end up being a factor for either side. I mean, it's great for Notre Dame if they're able to go tempo in Texas A&M is unable to catch up. I think that that's a huge advantage for Notre Dame. Yeah, and also with the defensive line like Texas A&M, you want to kind of use their speed and overall talent against them because you can get those guys gassed. And another thing you can do in tempo is you can get a defense stuck in a look that they might not want to, and that doesn't allow them to sub off the field, right? And so not only can you be tired and guys can't get subs and our breathers, but also they might get stuck in a defense that is, you know, just not good for what Notre Dame is doing. That's kind of, that's the job of Mike Dambrock is playing the chess with the tempo of I want to get you stuck in a certain look and just kind of keep pounding that look over and over until there's maybe an incomplete pass or, you know, some sort of, again, maybe timeout because Texas A&M wants to get out of, you know, whatever set they're in. I think that's why it's important that you have to be able to run the ball out of tempo. Tempo to me isn't all about, you know, just passing the ball. You have to be able to run the ball in tempo as well. Yeah, Chief Brody says I'm always a bigger fan of tempo, but keeping the ball on the ground. The problem is you have to actually have a coherent wide receivers for the opponent to respect. And I think that that is a huge advantage for Notre Dame because they have coherent wide receivers. I think that they are well, I think that's why you won the experience of Bo Collins and Chris Mitchell, the transfer portal is they provide some of that experience that you need like Chief Brody is talking about. And that had to be, you know, at the top of Marcus Sremen's kind of wish list at the time for that reason. And it's a, I'm kind of... Are you excited to see it though? Yeah. I guess that was... You asked what I was just about to get ready to say is this is much better than scan offense, you know, getting to the line, looking over to the sideline. Yeah, because when you're talking about slow, deliberate. And the other thing that we haven't even talked about is the fact that there will be headsets, you know, the headset communication that the quarterbacks will have. And I think that that will aid in some of this as well. And so the scan, again, it's a great, it's a great kind of change of pace and I think it's going to modernize Notre Dame's offense compared to what we've seen over the last few years. And again, when you go scan like that, it allows the defense to catch its breath to be like, okay, we got this. We can get set, you know, we can also get reset. To having that break to me is a confidence builder as a defensive player, because when you're reeling and on your heels, a team is just dominating you in tempo, it's just a bad feeling because you almost feel like you can't do anything, right? But when you're slowing it down, you get into the scan, I just think that one provides more confidence and it allows, you know, the defense to not get as tired as well. Price picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active members. Price picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. 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Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences so the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/bluewire. Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/bluewire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Something interesting, I keep using the word interesting, but I like this next cut that Great House was talking about because he said there have been plenty of times during this training camp where this tempo and the Irish offense has been able to keep Al Golden's Blitz Happy Defense off-balance have a listen. For sure and like a lot of our emotions help with that a lot too, just being in different spots, all our shifts, all our hard counts, those kinds of stuff, definitely have the defense on their heels kind of guessing a little bit and that's just a tribute to the offense and all the work coach Dembrock has put in with the play calls and things like that he's been doing a really good job. I definitely think we have a lot more emotion this year, a lot more moving parts, not just with the wide receivers, but the tight ends, running backs, all those kinds of things. So yeah, there's definitely going to be a lot of stuff that defenses aren't ready for. What was most interesting about this, as you know, as he said, you know, we've cut the defense off guard, he said it's a big difference from last year, like this offense compared to last year's offense and that ability to keep that defense off-balance, it's been a lot different, he said, during training camp this year. And so like when you look at Al Golden and the ability to bring pressure from all these different angles, and if Mike Denbrock and Riley Leonard are able to kind of meld their brains together and be able to counter some of that, one of the best defenses I think that they're going to see at any point that they see in practice every day, I think that's huge. And you know, again, like you talk about what we're going to see from this offense this year compared to last year's offense, it's going to be night and day different, I think. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of layers to what he was just talking about, motion can kill a lot of things defensively. And because a lot of times you are blitzing as a defense to kind of bring numbers or overload kind of aside, right? But if a defense, sorry, if an offense begins to motion, you have to kill some of those blitzes. Like when I was playing, we would have blitzes called and if a guy motions to across the formation, you almost have to kill your blitz and kind of get back into your base. So that's some of the stuff that he's talking about because essentially, let's just say they're in a two-by-two set, right? Two-by-two receivers on each side and you motion across to get to three-by-one, but you were going to blitz from the side that the three-by-one is coming to, you're not going to blitz an outside linebacker, a corner, a safety where now you have, you know, from two-by-one receivers to three-by-one receivers because that guy now has to cover that third-wide receiver that's come into motion to that side. And so that's sort of the stuff that Great House is talking about is you can negate or kind of counter these blitzes even though you don't know they're coming by motioning around like that. It's a lot on a defense in terms of eye movement, right? You get the eyes movement or sorry, moving, you have to maybe kill a blitz, reset the strength, get into a new defense and you have to do all this kind of in a split second in the defense or in the offense, it's just kind of ready to go now. So, you know, I've always been a big fan of motion. I think you know that in last season. I tracked some of that stuff because we thought that there was a lack of motion and we thought Nerdam's offense does actually perform better when they have moving parts, right? I don't think that's a Nerdam offense thing specific in general. It's across in the offense because what I was talking about, you have to reset, your eyes are moving, okay, now the ball is snapped. You love your dude, Mike McDaniel and you know, like that is something that he utilizes quite a bit down there. I mean, it's the easiest way to identify what coverage a defense is in, pre-snap, and it just allows a quarterback to be more comfortable what's going on and honestly too, it helps out wider receivers because you have, sometimes you have a combination route, are you running a route against men, are you going to sit down in the zone and if you're able to identify that pre-snap, it just makes everyone's job a little bit easier. So, what's the counter argument to this like because, you know, whether it was Jared Parker last year or even before that with Tommy Reese, you know, Reese might have motioned a little bit more but neither one of them were real high on the motion meter, right? Like, what's, like, why do you think that is, why do you think that they were resistant to doing that more than what they were doing, if you had to make your, you know, grand hypothesis, I guess, like an educated guess at it. It's a good question. So, there's really no argument against it is what you're saying because the thing, you get it because, like, the basic thing is it does exactly what you're talking about. It lets the quarterback, without doing anything, it lets the quarterback identify, are they playing man-to-man or are they playing zone, unless they're disguising it, you know, like that's, but that's hard to do, right, like, because of all the, you know, again, like the stuff that you went back and outlined. I think that the only potential, and again, this is just kind of reaching for something off the top of my head is, I think you can get into offensively when you're motioning around like that is you kind of, you start working against, you know, some, somewhat of the play clock, and so your internal clock is a little bit more rushed, and if a guy isn't hitting his landmark and you have to snap the ball early, it can throw off a play, right? Because when someone goes in motion, they still have to hit the landmark of maybe it's the hash, or maybe it's the numbers, or maybe, you know, it's getting to the end of the line of scrimmage, I think that's the only thing that you can potentially run into is maybe doing too much, and then again, it rushes up every inter-, everyone's internal clock, because you feel like you're a tick behind, or maybe a tick ahead, right? And so that's the only thing, it can kind of mess up maybe the synchronization of the offense if you're not hitting your landmark specifically. That's really all I can think of, but I mean, again, pre-snap motion to me is like, it almost should be incorporated every play, and look at, you know, McDaniel's, Reid, Andy Reid, I feel like a lot of the top offenses have a lot of motion majority at the time. I feel like what this is leading to is something that your audience was asking about on yesterday's show when you weren't here. Will there be more whiteboard in the near future? Will wanted regular whiteboard, Jesse drawing up plays on the whiteboard, and they wanted the whiteboard betting segment that was here last season. Did they really? Yes, they did. I think those are great things to get into when the season starts, because there are, you know, like, it's no longer about, this is what I think is going to happen, or there is hard proof of, you know, plays, design and that sort of stuff. So I think that's like a regular kind of season segment if you know what I mean. I hear you. I hear you. I'm just saying. I'm all for it. I wanted to throw that, I wanted to throw that out there. Salty, by the way, as I expected, very happy about this show, the finest I'd be happy hour show in recent memory, if not all time, says, I wonder why. I wonder what could be jazzing him up so much. So Jaden Graydow also had some thoughts on his own versatility, playing, you know, being able to play both the slot or outside as well. Yeah, I feel a lot more comfortable just playing all over the field, you know, understanding what the offense is trying to do, understanding what my job is, and what the purpose of the concepts that we're trying to run. It definitely helps me when I line up outside too, because I still know what we're trying to do and what the goal is for the play. So yeah, definitely just have a really good understanding of the offense right now compared to last year and just my job, what we're trying to do, and that just helps me be able to play fast and line up wherever I'm needed. I think a versatile Jaden Graydow is one of the keys to this offense, and really you can throw a phase on in there as well, because they're both primary slot guys, but both of them have played outside, I think Graydow is going to play all over the place. And just to be able to get, you've got two different body sizes, obviously, but you've got a lot of speed with both of those guys, and I think the more that those two can be on the field together with whoever they're out there on the field with at the same time, that's just going to be that much better for Notre Dame's offense. Yeah, I mean, this comparison is going to probably, you know, make ruffles and feathers of a lot of people, but that's fine. Jaden Graydow is playing the slot, and the outside is like the one and only great CD lamb. Look at how he produces, you know, in the Cowboys offense, his ability to be, you know, the slot receiver, the outside receiver, it becomes a matchup nightmare. They can put Jaden Graydow's, where they want to get the matchup that they want. And like he said, it not only helps the offense, but it helps him because he has a full understanding of why the play is designed, and when you have a full understanding of that, you can play faster and you can play more free, and when we're talking about the wide receiver position, all we want is a wide receiver that that plays fast and free. But again, that's like CD lamb was around like 10 receptions a game, it felt like every game and so like that's the sort of production that I'm going to be expecting out of Jaden Graydow's, if he's going to be moving around out of the slot, the outside receiver is it sounds like that's the guy that they want to schematically, you know, get open. And not only that, but it allows the defense to not lock into tendencies when you're moving guys around like that because they know, okay, this guy's in the slot, he's lined up here and we can maybe anticipate, you know, this sort of route almost. So it makes the defense's job a lot harder. But to me, it shows that he's a supreme talent because you're not, you're not just moving around anyone and doing, you know, doing that sort of stuff. So again, I think that bodes well for the Jaden Graydow's stock going into this season. Yeah, you know, and like Chris Mitchell brings obviously a lot of speed with him. Now again, we've, we've only been out there in snippets to see the offense. But like right now, what I'm going back and forth on with Chris Mitchell, it's like, is this guy going to be Chris Brown, is he going to, is he going to be a go route guy, is he going to be Will Fuller, you know, it's probably somewhere in between, but I would slide closer, you know, to Chris Brown right now, you know, just a guy who can, you know, kind of get out there in the seam and, and go and take, I mean, he's going to take a safety with him, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that frees up more people underneath, right, a lot of yak yards. Because again, you've taken the defensive backs out of the picture, but with his speed, you have to respect it. And also he's getting to that point faster, right? So that means the defensive back has to vacate their zone that much faster as well. Right. And again, that's why I think that guys like Great House and Faison are going to be so, so critical for this team, because I think that these two are along with Bo Collins are going to be the ones who end up with more volume, I think, in terms of the receptions this year. We didn't get to talk to Bo Collins today, but we got to talk to both Faison and Great House and Jaden Thomas was, was out there from the wide receiver room as well. So finally, final thought here, Great House and Faison, speaking of those two, they're the top two punt return options right now. And it hasn't been, you know, completely settled. I think that I would slide my chips toward Faison probably if, you know, if I had to. Well, especially if they've got, you know, Great House playing. Exactly. That much on offense. Exactly. But, you know, they both did a good job from what we've been able to see. Haven't seen a ton, but they both get to field punts from Australian punter James Rendell when they're back there at this, you know, during fall camp. So Rendell Mitchell is the best receiver in the video game. Okay. He's the fastest guy. Yeah, that's right. It's like throw the ball up and let the fast guy go get it. There's still a difference between the video game and the real game, but so I'll let you hear what each of these guys, Great House and Faison have to say about fielding punts from James Rendell. Here's Great House first. It's interesting. It's kind of got like a diagonal spiral to it. Like usually it'll go end over end or it'll be like a like full spiral, like a pass, but like his like kind of like diagonal, it's weird. He's got some weird spin on it, but, you know, just like being a returner for me. I know that other returners are going to have a hard time fielding the ball. So that's definitely good for our offense. So that's Great House on James Rendell's punts. Here's Jordan Faison. He could do it differently. I mean, he has the rugby kicks where he's rolling out and kicking in and then he could be straight up kicking it at you and spiraling, so it makes it way harder to read the punt as coming off. And then that affects how the ball comes down and where it comes down as it makes it difficult for the part returning and that's going to be huge for us this season. So what impact do you think that that has potentially just when you hear those punt returners talk about the way that ball comes down to them? I think that means a lot of Peters, a lot of Peter calls as a punt returner where meaning that they are not going to want to be fielding those hot kind of diagonal, you know, ground balls because that's a potential for a muff punt, you know, a turnover, those sort of things. So I think, you know, that sort of stuff is going to be on film at some point. And I guarantee some special teams coaches are like, we don't even want you to touch the ball, right? If you can't catch it in the air, we don't want you to try to field that ball because of how it's, like you said, it's not end over end where it's just a nice kind of, you know, where it's hopping up and bouncing straight in the air and you can kind of just get underneath it. You have to field it like it's a ground ball. And you know, you got to get your chest over and kind of knock it down type situation. And so if you can get that ball to kind of be, like he's saying tunneling diagonally like that, again, I think you're going to see a lot more Peter calls out of punt returners where they just don't even want to deal with it, right? And so knowing as I help that, but it helps a lot of that, that kick and roll or that extra yardage that that punters are able to get as well. And so these guys are vacating, you know, he might be able to add an extra, what, like 10, 15, 20 yards at the end of the punt, if you can get that ball to really start tunneling, you know, diagonally, like they were talking about. I also think that there's a really good chance because like these guys are talking about sort of the difficulty and the uniqueness of the way that ball comes down and we got to see that on the first day of camp when we saw some of those Rendell punts. And that's really the only time that we've got to see them there. They're more than two weeks into camp right now and they're talking about how unique and how difficult it is, you know, when that ball is coming down on them, imagine being a punt returner on these other teams. You don't get to experience that, like you can watch it on film, but it's still different when it comes down. I think we're going to see potentially a lot of muffs and or, you know, thumbles by punt returners this season, trying to field those balls in addition to the kind of stuff that you were talking about. Agreed. So again, like it's like, you know, everyone's excited about Thor and I think there's a lot of reason to be excited about Thor because the other thing they talked about is just how consistent this guy is and his ability, you know, to pin you deep with his punt, like he's very accurate with these accurate and consistent with his punts, you know, in terms of like inside the 15, inside the 10 yard line, all that different kind of stuff. It's not just a big leg guy. He's very technical, very accurate. So I think it's just going to bring a completely different element to another musical team. So I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do. I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do, because I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do. I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do. I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do. I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do, and I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do. I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do, because I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do, because I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do, because I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do, because I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do, because I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do, because I think it's going to be a really good thing to be able to do, because I think it's going to be a really great thing to be able to do. (upbeat music)
