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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. Indeed to hire, you need Indeed. We talked about this yesterday, right? I think you guys had as much fun watching the show yesterday as I didn't do it. It was just a really fun show talking about the rankings because we put a lot of thought into it. We put a lot of thought into rankings. Like I go through all the schedules, I'm going to have my conference predictions coming out here over the next week or so, where I actually literally go through and predict every game so that way I can have records for everybody. And so we do put thought into it, but it's meant to be fun, right? We know that we're not going to get them all right. We're going to get some right. We're going to get some wrong. I always like to point out how I got it right that I had LSU in the College Football Play Off in 2019, but I think I also had Notre Dame, and obviously I was wrong on that one. I had Washington last year, but I think I also had Georgia on there last year. So those are things that we're going to get some right, we're going to get some wrong. It's meant to be fun. And the reason it was even more fun this year is because as we're kind of going through it, you're just like, then it's an hour talking like, "Dude, I really like this matchup for Notre Dame against this team and that team. We're in past years." It'd be like, "Well, it was a good run. It's going to end right here." And that's something to be excited about because there is a raised bar for Notre Dame right now, in my opinion. There certainly isn't my eyes, but I think it's also nationally. I think there's a shift in perception with Notre Dame, and when you look at where this team is, I think part of it is because of the unknown of Marcus Freeman, and there's this perception that Notre Dame is more talented than they've been in past years, which I think is true. That's why we see the five preseason All-Americans. I saw something yesterday on Twitter, and it was like picking coaches based on who's the best recruiter, who's the best at offense, who's the best at defense, who's the best whatever. And they had Brian Kelly as the most consistent, and they also had Brian Kelly as the choker. Now I don't know that that's fair to say about Brian Kelly. We've talked about that to call him a choker. I don't know that there was a lot of big games that Brian Kelly lost where he was the significantly better team, and they choked it away. I don't think that's a fair assessment, but to say he doesn't win big games is a very fair assessment. But I think the reason that's relevant to this is because how you perceive the head coach is going to be how you perceive a program. And for a long time, right or wrong, fair or not, Notre Dame was capped under Brian Kelly. That was the perception. They were only going to take you so far. Well, the perception of Marcus Freeman is they're adding more talent than they have in the past, not just in high school, but also in the portal. And when you look at this Notre Dame football team, there's some portal players that people are very fired up about nationally, not just in the Notre Dame world, but nationally. And it's funny. I get a lot of Notre Dame people that are very, they'll much poo poo kind of Chris Mitchell, for example, even had something to chat yesterday, I thought that I'd kind of dismiss Chris Mitchell, but you get, I got to see it. I got to see it. I got to see it. But every time I talk to someone who's not affiliated with Notre Dame, and you bring up Cole Chris Mitchell, they're very high on them. I talked about this. I was on with Cole Kabelick the other day from ESPN. I was on his podcast and I brought up Chris Mitchell. And he talked about how he'd seen Chris Mitchell in person doing a game. He's down in the field and how high he was on him. And obviously there's a lot of people excited about both Collins and Jane Harrison's a preseason second team All-American kick returner, Riley Leonard, RJ Open, Rod Heard, are all guys Jordan Clark or all guys of people are very excited about. So there's this perception that the talent has been raised. And so you look at this football team and it's fun to talk about, but it also means there's higher expectations. And when you look at this Notre Dame football team, you have to ask yourself, what's the ceiling? Not okay. Big picture for Notre Dame just in general is championship, right? That's the standard at Notre Dame, win a championship, compete for championship. And it is the standard and it should always be the standard in regard to what's the ultimate goal. But not every team is a championship team. Not every new Rockney team was a championship. New Rockney was a coach for 10 years, 10 or 11, at least over 10 years. And only one, I think two titles, frankly, he was a head coach for a decade, he won four titles. Or a procedure was a head coach for over, I think, 11 seasons. And he only won two titles. Lou Holtz was a head coach from 1986 to 1996, I believe, and he only won one title. So a lot of those great coaches that are legends that have statues that built Notre Dame, they didn't win a championship every year. But what is your, what is your ceiling as a program? What can you be if you maximize your potential? And this Notre Dame team, in my view, is one that I believe their ceiling is that of a title contender. That doesn't mean they're going to win it. I don't know if they're going to win it, I don't, can't read minds and I can't see into the future. Wish I could. That would be a little scary, but also pretty cool. But that's kind of, that's how I, you know, I just, I feel like this team has a lot of things in place that you look at and say, if they maximize their potential, they can go toe to toe with anybody. Now there are some other teams that can go toe to toe with Notre Dame if they play to their best. And that's what makes the postseason so fun, but this is a team that has the tools to make a deep run in the college floor playoff and by deeper, I mean winning at least two games. That's the, that's the, the sort of, it's not the ultimate ceiling, but it's the, it's the ceiling for, if they reach their full potential, they at least get here. Then after that, it depends on match ups and different things. And so that, that's, that's kind of where I see this team. And so what I want to do with these next two segments is talk about reasons that I'm excited or optimistic that this team can reach it's that potential right there that they can contend for a title. And then segment two, part two will be with that being the standard, what are five potentially stumbling blocks that keep Notre Dame from getting there, but we're going to start with the positive. And we're going to start with the things that, that to me are the five areas that I look at this football team and say it's because of this, that this team has a chance to make a deeper run and go toe to toe with the best teams in ways where past Notre Dame teams could not prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over 5 million active members prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Unlike other apps on prize picks, it's just you against the numbers. 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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. And to hire, you need Indeed. Reason number one, and this is really what it comes is it starts with me the way that I think, you know, I played and I coached the game. I always think about it from top down, coaching on down. And while we still have a lot of things we need to learn about Marcus Freeman as a head coach. He's only been head coach for two seasons. This is going to be year three for him. He hired, he's now hired two coordinators that are far more established and have much longer track records. And you look at the offensive coordinator higher the size off season of Mike Denbrock. You now pair him with Al Golden, who built one of the best defenses at college football last season. We hope that he can continue that here in year three. And you are now putting Notre Dame in the conversation of who has the best coordinator combo in college football. I don't think it's a no brainer that Notre Dame is that pick. Just like I don't think it's a no brainer that Ohio State is that pick. There's four or five schools we've talked about in the past that to me are in the conversation for best coordinators, not head coach that calls place coordinators in college football. And it's been a long time since Notre Dame has had that. And honestly, I don't know that I've been alive in an era where Notre Dame had that because in a lot of years you had situations where Lou Holtz was the play caller for Notre Dame on one side of the ball, sometimes two. So I mean, I'm too young to remember this, but like in 1888, right? I mean, so we'll have to kind of go back to that conversation. But when I look at this Notre Dame team, there's no doubt that this group, this duo of Mike Denbrock and Al Golden have an opportunity to become one of the best, the best Tannibs in college football. And that's something that certainly, certainly gives them a great starting point because let's be honest. There have been a lot of years where Notre Dame had a lot of talent on the roster, talent in certain coaching spots to say, you know what, this team can go toe to toe with a lot of people. You know, I think 2015 team is that way. That might be the most talented in their game team we've seen since Lou Holtz was head coach. It's in the conversation. You look at that team and the quarterback depth and talent they had there running back depth of talent yet will full or receiver and the other two starters were sub four or five guys. You had an offensive line that had four, first or second round draft picks on it and a fifth guy that would have been drafted had he not retired from football to go pursue another career. Your tire starting defensive line got played in the NFL. The only guy that didn't get draft, that didn't get drafted. Rome, Iraq probably had the best career of all of them. Yeah, Jalen Smith, who's one of the most special linebackers we've ever seen at Notre Dame. Cavari Russell, who was a high draft pick a cornerback, Cole Luke, a cornerback on that 2015 team. Max Redfield, Elijah Shoemate, Matthias Farley started like what two years from the Indianapolis Colts. He didn't start on the 2015. They're in defense. He was a veteran. So there's been years where they had that talent, that 2015 team at Mike Dembrockett, OC, you had Harry, he stand it on offensive line. So there were some places in place for that team to be dynamic. But what was the concern going into that year? I said it then. I say it now. The stumbling block for that team was going to be your strength coach and your coordinators, your defensive coordinator. Strength coach I don't know about with this team. Well, I don't know a lot about Lauren Lando and we're going to all find out together. But in 2015, you knew for a fact that they were going to have a problem. You were going to have to overcome your coordinator and if you're trying to overcome your coordinator, your chances of competing for a championship are not great. Not great. But let's just say hypothetically, let's assume this happens. Let's assume that in 2015 that Notre Dame goes to the college football playoff. Let's just say hypothetically that they would have somehow found a way to win to knock off Clemson at the end of that game in 2015. Tori Hunter scores that last touchdown, they call a little something different in the last two-point conversion play. That game goes a little differently at the end. Let's just say that that happens. And Notre Dame goes into Stanford ranked number two, whatever their ranking would have been. And they beat Stanford. They don't give up that last field goal at the end of the game. Let's just say hypothetically, that was the case. Notre Dame's what, number one seed that season, maybe number two, what was Bama's record that year? Do you guys remember, was Bama undefeated going into the, no, that was not an undefeated Bama team. They lost Ole Miss. So Notre Dame would have been the one seed. What is your confidence level that Notre Dame A would have been able to beat Oklahoma in the first round with Baker Mayfield at quarterback and then beat Alabama in round two with Derek Henry at running back with Brian Van Goerter as your defensive coordinator, a guy who had the literally the worst three-year stretch of run defense in Notre Dame history. What are your, what are the odds of that happening? I don't feel good about that. I know you all don't feel good about that because you had a stumbling block that was at your coordinator level. There were other years where you felt good about the defensive side of the ball, but you didn't feel good about the offensive side of the ball, right? It's been this back and forth. And this is probably the most confident I've been in Notre Dame's coordinators since 2018 and going into 2019 when you had Chip Long who I thought did a great job in 2017 at Notre Dame. You had Clark Lee replacing Mike Elko. I said back then, I felt that that was a good hire. But the difference now is even though I felt, I feel way better about this group than I did that. That was the last year I went into a season thinking that you had, you felt really good about both coordinators going into the season with Clark Lee going in his first year's coordinator, but he'd been the linebacker's coach under Mike Elko the year before. I thought he was going to keep going what coach Elko would establish and he did. And then of course Chip Long built on his success from 2017, felt great about that team going into 2018 from a coordinator standpoint, and what happened? That team went 12 and 0, made it the cost of all playoff, beat Michigan in a huge game at the start of the season, handled their business against everybody else. You beat a top 15 Syracuse team by 33 on the neutral field in November. You beat a ranked sit in Northwestern team on the road. You did what you needed to do with that football team in 2017 or 2015. No, I'm sorry. Yeah. No. 2018. Excuse me. 2018. Even more confident in the coordinators here because it's more established on both sides of the ball. With Chip Long, he had done some good things in Memphis and had a really good year in 2017, but it was still kind of, okay, I like him. He's going to do a good job. But how good is he going to do? And then with Clark Lee, I thought I said time, if you have the chops, you got the chops, and I thought he had the chops and he proved that as a coordinator, he had the chops. Has he, did he ever have a defense as dominant is the one Al Golden had last year? Nope. And, and so I, I, I look at these coordinators and I'm very, very optimistic that Notre Dame is going to be able to go into every game they play this year and say, from a, a game planning standpoint, a play calling standpoint, overall and in big moments, they finally have a coaching staff in place on both sides of the ball that give you a chance to win games. Well, let me rephrase it. You're not going to lose games, in my opinion, because you're not coached well enough or don't have enough experience or talent that position. I think Notre Dame is going to be able to go toe to toe with the best when it comes to a coaching standpoint at this season. And that has often not been the case in the name of the past when you look at it from the coordinators on both sides of the ball. Reason number two, talent. And there's really two ways of looking at this. You know, I did a show earlier this summer where I talked about, to be a great team, I believe you need stars. There aren't a lot of teams that have won at an elite level without stars. You could somewhat argue last year that Michigan didn't have any stars. I would push back on that. I do think Michigan had some stars on their team last year. They had some first team All-American type players, first round draft pick type players and that's probably the closest that we've seen, but you really need those impact high level first team All-American type of players. You can't win championships with just a bunch of good players. You're going to be better than maybe your overall talent should dictate. I am a believer in college football that the sum can be graded in the parts. It's something I've argued about Bama for years. I've said this for a long time. I felt for years Alabama's been getting players overdrafted constantly. There's been some guys that were legit stars. Everybody knew Derrick Henry was going to be a star. There's been guys like that. There's been a lot of guys drafted in round one that should have been drafted in round two, round three, or sometimes even lower, but they get drafted high because they played a Bama. What I always felt about Bama is they'd have their stars, but they would just have a lot of good football players and a lot of those good football players people thought were stars and really weren't, but even then they still had those stars at the top. You can go back to those teams that Alabama had one titles and they had star players. Clemson had star players, Florida State had star players. Why did Auburn win a title in 2010? It's one reason and one reason only. They had the ultimate star in the game in that year in Cam Newton. You have to have star talent. It doesn't have to be elite top five overall draft pick star talent, but you need college football stars to win championships and Notre Dame has that. Their high level talent is as good as it's been in a long time. Do they have the generational talent like a Jalen Smith, like a Quentin Nelson, like a Will Fuller that I don't know about that I'm not sure of, but they have stars and they have more than they've had in a lot of years and the only team that to me can come close to this team in regard to saying they had more high level stars 2012 and 2015. That's it. As far as since 2010, you can go back to like the Brady Quinn era and they've had some teams like that, but this team has that. You need that and you know, Riley Leonard can be a star. Talent wise can be a star. You've got two running backs that have star talent. You have, you know, do you have any receivers? I don't know, but you have a tight end that when healthy is that way. On defense though, you have more established stars. You have Xavier Watts, who is a unanimous All-American and was the Nagursky award winner last year. You have Benjamin Morrison, who's established himself as one of the top players in college football, certainly one of the top defensive backs in all of college football. You have Howard Cross who's coming back. I don't know that I would put Howard Cross in the star category. I had that debate when I talked about it before, but his production, his level of play is certainly garnered that type of status. And then there's potential breakout stars and I mentioned them on offense at quarterback and running back. I think there's some guys could be that at receiver. You know, Billy Shrouthe could be that guy at guard. Riley Mills could be that guy at defensive tackle is, does a Josh Burnham, does a Buba Cartreori, does a Drake Bowen, does a Jaylen Sneed, does Kingston Villanamah Assad, does do one of those, just Christian Gray, do one of those guys also emerge and become stars because a lot of teams at one championships had guys like that to kind of broke out and were key members of what they were trying to do. Notre Dame has way more established stars and then potential stars than they've had in a long time. Like some of the best teams they had, like 2012, I mean, you had your stars, right? You had Zack Martin, you had Tyler Eiffer, you had Stefan to it, Lewis Nix, Manti. After that, was there anybody else that you looked at and said, that guy might be a star? No, there's a lot of good football players. Theo Riddick was a good football player, not a star, TJ Jones, good football player, not a star, Capron Newsmore, really quality football player, not a star, Kavar Russell maybe could have been in that conversation, but there just wasn't a lot of that where this team has that top level talent, but a lot of other potential players that could be on the verge of becoming that type of player. And the same is true in 2015 with that team. So the town to the top is there. There's a second aspect to talent, however, and this is what is often separated Notre Dame from the top teams. You go back and look at 2022 and 2023. I contend that if you take the five best players in Notre Dame and stack them up against the five best players against Ohio State, it's very close. I've felt that about 2015 team for sure, the 2017 team, the 2018 team and the 2012 team for sure. And I'll take the 2011 team of, of Tyler Eiffert, Michael Floyd, Zack Martin, Mantiteo, and Harrison Smith and stack that up against anybody's five best players. The difference, however, is Ohio State, obviously the quarterback was a difference, but when you look at Ohio State, when you get down to players eight, nine, 10, 11, 15, 20 starters, they were always much better than where Notre Dame was in those same areas. I think Notre Dame has still got the star power, but the depth of talent is different on this team than it has been in the long time. And I think that's a big difference, big difference in the past because it's not just, oh, shoot, if Howard Cross isn't this, right? So like one of the questions Brandon Rouse had says, why not Cross? I think Cross is a very good football player. I don't think he's a star takeover games type of guy likes to fun to it was like Sheldon Day was in 2015. And I'm going to compare him to like the Aaron Donalds. That's different. Those guys were just super freaky generational guys. I just mean looking at the best players in elite guy like Howard Cross, if he was a star, has more than seven tackles for loss in two sacks with the way that he plays and half of that production came against Duke. He's a very good football player. Is he a takeover games week after week type of you have to game plan around him or you're in trouble kind of guy? I don't think so. But here's the thing, they don't necessarily need him to be because he's not, he's not a solo stall. He's not a solo standout. He's got Riley Mills as a sidekick, right? He's got Jason Onye and Gabriel Rubio eventually and Donovan Heynish and different players coming in with him behind him. So you don't, you don't need to rely on Howard as much this year as you did last year where last year of Howard just kind of played okay. And Riley just kind of played okay. Your defense suffered mightily. I don't think that's going to be the case this year. You're going to be more talented at defensive end. We got to see if the production matches are going to be more talented. You're going to be more talented at Viper now the Buba carte triore is into the mix. You're going to be more talented at linebacker even than you were last year. Now will you be as experienced? Will you produce as much? Will you be assignment correct? All very fair questions. But the talents there Notre Dame is right now Armo Mukam is battling to be your fifth defensive tackle. When Gabriel Rubio comes back, Armo is going to be battling to be your sixth defensive tackle. The last time that Notre Dame made the college football playoff in 28 or 2020 and you could go back to both times. You could go back to 2018 as well. There is no doubt, no doubt that Armo Mukam is in the two deep, no doubt. Now he's battling to be in the three deep. That's how talented Notre Dame is. There's no doubt that guys right now that we're looking at that probably aren't going to play would have been two deep players on the last two playoff teams and there's guys that are backups now that would have been starters on the 2020 team and the secondary. We look at cornerback and right now we're like, I don't know if Christian Gray is going to beat out Jayden Mickey. Here's the reality. Either one of them would have started opposite of Nick McLeod in 2020. Both of them would have started opposite Nick McLeod and so it's a much deeper team in regard to talent. There's talent at the top, the stars, and then what's your depth of talent. And the one thing that Ohio State, Michigan in recent seasons, say whatever you want to say about the cheating, but the NFL draft clearly bought into Michigan's talent because they had a bunch of guys pick this last year, Georgia, Alabama, teams like that consistently. Back when USC was winning a ton under Pete Carroll, they always had a ton of guys drafted. Why? Because it wasn't just your top four or five stars. They had NFL football players throughout their roster. They would have backups get drafted. Notre Dame used to have backups get drafted. Go look at the Lou Holtz era. They had backup DBs. Guys that started very few games were kind of sidekick type DBs getting drafted in the third, fourth, and fifth round, were Lou Holtz was the head coach in Notre Dame. That's how loaded they were. That's how loaded they were back then. And Notre Dame is not quite there yet, but they're getting really close to that at a lot of positions. There's a couple you could argue that they are. But they're much deeper than they've been in a lot of years. And that's important because I believe they have star power, but do they have the generational talent that some championship teams have had and may have this year? Do they have a quarterback? Riley Leonard is going to be, I think, the best quarterback I've had in several years. What is he, can he elevate a team the way that Deshawn Watson did, the way that James Winston did, Cam Newton did, I'm not asking to be those players, but being an elevator to where you're just so much better because he's your quarterback, we're going to find that out. I don't know that Notre Dame has a ton of that, especially on offense, but they have guys that could be stars, the next level of star. The one way to still be really, really, really good with that is that you've got, yeah, your top five may be slightly better than our top five, but our six to 20 dominate your six to 20. That's how you win football games. That's how you compete for a championship. And so that's why, and that's the number two thing for me. You could argue that's number one, but I still feel this, it's what I said before. You guys know what I'm going to say here. I hate the expression, this is Jimmy's and Joe's not CXs and those. I hate that. We have seen plenty of teams and loads of talent, not be very good at football. Why? That those Jimmy's and Joe's need to be put on the right path to maximizing their talent. And that's where coaching starts. So the coaching has to be the foundation and then talent has to get built on top of that. That's how you win. And that's the right, that's why Nick Saban won at Alabama. Yes, he had talent, but there's been teams with talent, teams that he beat that had more talent, in my opinion, than he had in teams that beat him that had less talent than he had because they had really, really good coaching. What could Ohio State do in 2014 against Bama that maybe a lot of other teams couldn't do? Yeah, they could match them talent for talent, but what else could that 2014 team do? They could coach with them with Urban Meyer and Tom Herman and Chris Ash and guys like that, they could coach with them as well. And that's a big part of it. So you need the foundation of the strong coaching. I think they have that at the coordinator level, certainly, but also the talent, this top level talent and then the depth of talent is important. Now more specific, both sides of the ball, another reason for optimism won't spend a ton of time here because it's obvious we've talked a lot about the individual players, but you look at it and say the defense, right? The defense is, I've said this a million times, I don't believe defense wins championships anymore the way it used to, but I have always said defense gets you to the show. Unless you've got a 2019 LSU offense, defense gets you to the show. Defense can get you to the semis. You want to win a championship? You better have an offense, but defense is going to take you a very long way. And this defense is what to me can determine if you're going to be able to avoid upsets. If you're a team that relies on outscoring people, if your offense has any kind of off performance, you're going to get beat, more often than not against good teams. Defense is what helps you avoid slumps if you have an elite defense. It's not the end all be all as we saw last year, but when you have a top level defense, that gives you a great chance to be a very good football team. And I do believe this Notre Dame defense has a chance to be that little bit of turnover this offseason, not something that should impact the team a whole lot. You obviously lost Crystal Leary. Mike Mickens takes over the entire secondary, you've got Max Bullas now as a full time coach, how golden is still here, how Washington is still here. A lot of those guys are now going into year three, right? Mike Mickens is going into year five, so he's 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, year five for Mike Mickens. Max Bullas going into year two at Notre Dame. So you, Marty Biage is helping out, he's going into year two. And we saw what kind of jump year two was for a lot of coaches last year. We saw what kind of year two jump we saw even from Mike Mickens and what we saw from him in 2020 compared to 2021, where the secondary got a lot better in 2021 compared to where it was in 2020. Not completely there yet. And then obviously going into year three, it took a much and even bigger jump than it did before. So you've got that continuity on defense coaching wise. You've got star power coming back on defense on all levels, right? I mean, you've got the quarter, the defensive lineman. I look at cornerback as kind of level two to a varying degree. A lot of people count at level three, that's fine. It's not something that I would say that you're wrong. I just look at it differently. The way that Notre Dame plays, I look at it differently because they do so much man. You've got Benjamin Morse in there. And then of course you've got your star at safety and save your Watts. You've got a lot of experience coming back at very important positions. Another thing you guys, there's certain things I say a lot. And the reason I say those things a lot is because they're important. They never change. There's there's something that that is always true, in my opinion, in college football. If you're going to be a team that if you unless you have a 2019 LSU type of team on offense, if you want to be a championship contender, you've got to be great right up the middle on defense, detackle, inside backer, safety. But you've got a six year senior coming back at nose tackle and a fifth year senior coming back a detackle. They're multi year starters. You've got a will line backer that's going into his sixth year that's been a three year starter. And you've got an all American safety coming back and he's now joined by a fifth year senior that's that's had over 2000 snaps and football, a football the last two years at Northwestern. I believe I'm correct on that. Let me just. It's not, I think might be the last three years, as soon as I said that, I was like, wait a minute. That's a lot of snaps. That's what his number was. I know he had over 2000 the last three years, but maybe it was the last two years because I know he had 853 last time I rod heard, he had 853 it's the last three years he's had over 2000 last three years I knew that didn't make a lot of sense. This is a kid that had 853 snaps in the big 10 last year, 745 snaps in the big 10 year before that and 468 snaps year before that he's got 2,270 career snaps. And he is now the sidekick to save your Watts at that position. So you've got a lot of experience right at the middle. And then also you mix in, you know, now Jason Onye is a senior. He's got, you know, now more time in that Donovan Heines is now a junior. They're both older. You've got a Don Schuler, Drake Bowen or the sort of that young talent, but you're not asking your sophomores to be the guy in a way that you have in the past because yes, Drake Bowen has to do a lot. Lotus, Kingston, Villama, awesome. So will Jaylin's need, but they're going to have that 60 year senior leadership and those, those tackles right in front of them for a lot of that void on the edge on the perimeter. You've got a fifth year senior in this six year senior at your two edge positions on defense. You've got a junior as your boundary corner who's now a three year starter. So you've got a 60 year senior at nickel mixed in with a lot of young talent. And that's where I start to have a lot of optimism because it's this really weird. They're either a fifth or six year senior or a freshman or sophomore. There's like very few juniors that are like, you know, you've got, you've got a Burnham and you've got, you've got Morrison and you've got Jaylin's need, but outside of that, a lot of your depth charts like, you know, Mickey, a lot of your depth charts, fifth or six year guys are freshman or sophomores and a lot of places. And so there is that unique blend, but you have so much experience that your defense should be in position to continue building on what it established last year. And that's kind of where I look at it and start to get a little bit excited about what this football team can be because the defense has a chance to be so, so special. I think that's another reason that I'm optimistic that this team has a chance to be a championship contender in 2024. Reason number four, offensive weapons. This is one that's probably the most debatable amongst the fans and it's understandable because there's a lot of fans that especially folks that have been are my age and older or slightly younger sort of in this generation of fans that got a taste of that that greatness that we saw under Lou Holtz and any older fans, even more so, like they saw it under divine and era and all that type of stuff. But like for my age, I was 10 when Notre Dame won the last national title and I remember it. I still remember watching the USC game that year at my friend, Jameson Jennings house. They had one of those big satellite TVs with a big old huge satellite in the backyard watching Tony Rice and rocket and Stance Magala with the pick six and all that type of stuff. I remember that very memorable time in my life as a Notre Dame fan was when I kind of first became a Notre Dame fan and so, but so, but it's been kind of bitter since then. Yet a couple, you know, great years under coach Holtz, 89 was a great team, 93 was a great team, but by and large, it's been a lot of disappointment and especially on the offensive side of the ball as of late and the receiver position has been incredibly disappointing as of late. Notre Dame has not had a receiver drafted since 2020. They have not had a single wide receiver drafted since 2020. They haven't had a first round draft pick at receiver since 2016. We're getting close to a decade since Notre Dame has had a first round draft pick at receiver. They haven't had a first or second round draft pick at running back since I think Reggie Brooks and Jerome Bettis, I believe, is the last time that Notre Dame has had a running back. They've had a lot of third round draft picks, but I don't believe I'm actually going to look that up because I do believe it is so, so, Audrey was a fifth round pick last year, Kyron was a fifth round pick, Dex was a six round pick, CJ Procyce was a third round pick, Theo was a six round pick, Julius Jones, 2004 was the last time that Notre Dame had a second or first round draft pick at running back. Prior to that, you have to go back to, you had some full 1997, you had a full back and Mark Edwards, Ray Zellers is a full back in 1992. You've got to go back to all of it in 1993, 1993 when Jerome Bettis was taken in the first round as Notre Dame had a first round draft pick at running back and Reggie Brooks was a second round pick that year. So yeah, there's a lot of, you've got to show me. Now I do think there's more optimism amongst fans at running back because we haven't seen the high level like, oh my gosh, Jerome Bettis, Reggie Brooks, you know, elite game takeover game, elite running backs, we've seen some really good running backs that have gone on to play in the NFL. So there's a little bit more optimism there, but at receiver, I understand quarterback, I understand some of the skepticism and it's not fair and not overly productive, but as fans, we're going to look at things and say, well, because Sam Hartman didn't pan out and because some you may feel a certain way about Jack Cone, that equals Riley Leonard is not this, okay, that's not really productive and those two things have nothing to do with each other. But I understand it. I really do. And it's like, yeah, we've been here before, you know, you guys liked Sam Hartman last year, true, but not like this guy. And as I said before, I had to kind of talk myself into feeling good about Sam Hartman. Riley Leonard's a different deal. We've been praising him as a great player since before he even we had any clues going to be in the portal. But I understand that skepticism. I need to see it in another name uniform. Wide receiver. As I mentioned, or Chris Mitchell, there's a lot of with Chris Mitchell, why played at Florida International? I want to chat yesterday and people trying to, you know, talk down success. Yeah, well, I did it in this conference USA. Okay. Well, what about when he went on the right against an SEC team? Well, yeah, but they weren't very good. Okay. But how about the fact that he outperformed, you know, Malik neighbors and Brian Thomas against that same defense? Well, yeah, but, but, but, but, but he only has six touchdowns, but there's all this talking down of the transfer receivers by it. Not all. I mean, my guy, Tommy Guns is constantly talking to me. He is to both Collins, what my man Salty is to Jayden Gray House, right? Like what Vince was to Cam Hart, you know, like he is all on board. So I mean, there's certainly some and I think there's some optimism, but there's a big chunk that sort of have this. Yeah, but I need to see it mentality and you know what, honestly, that's fair. That's completely fair. And I don't even have an issue with that, but here's where I'm at on it. Okay. I'm actually excited about this talent because for two reasons. It's similar to my overall talent that I talked about at the team. But when I look at this offensive unit, quarterback's a little different because your two next best talents are young, unproven players and Kenny mentioned CJ Carr. When I look at the running back room, you could lose your top two running backs and still have two very talented young, but very talented players on the field. So long as you have one of your top two studs, you've got a stud. And when you look at receiver, I think Chris Mitchell's got a chance to be a very good football player. I think that, I mean, look, we've seen how many highlights have we seen from Notre Dame putting out of Chris Mitchell catching a deep ball on one of the starters. Guys, these are received. These are corners that do not give up deep balls. We have two years of evidence of them not giving up deep balls, right? But we keep seeing Chris Mitchell running by him. Okay. Well, that there's the reason for that. No, both columns is looked as good as he looked. Jane Greathouse continues having a great off season. Those are reasons to be optimistic, but it's not just that. It's that you don't need Chris Mitchell to be that for your receiver room to still be really good. You don't need Jane Greathouse to become a breakout star for this receiver room to still be really good. You don't need both columns to tap into his top 100 high school potential for this receiver room to be really good. Now, if they all three miss, okay, it's going to be harder, but even then you have Jordan Faison, you have Jaden Harrison who's a preseason All-American as a Kirker Turner. You have KK Smith, you have Jaden Thomas who going into last year, the coaching staff felt was their best receiver. You've got a five star freshman at Cam Williams. You've got a talented, talented wide receiver in your freshman class also in, in Micah Gilbert and Logan Saldate. I mean, the depth of talent is the key to where, as I said in past years, you were always like one or two guys had to be good if they weren't your screwed. That's really where you really have to be. And I don't buy the notion that you have to have a star there. There's a lot of star receivers. Ohio State had the biggest star in college football last two years and how many championships did they win? How many big 10 championships did they win? None. Right? I mean, hey, Marvin Harrison had never, as a starter, never won a postseason game at Ohio State because they lost to Georgia two years ago and lost to Missouri last year. He didn't even play in that game. You look at LSU, Malik Knabers and Brian Tomp, best one, two punch in all of college football last year. What did they win? Nothing. National championship team last year, their best receiver was a tight end and their second best receiver was Roman Wilson. Not really a star. So I would argue, Georgia in 2021 didn't have a star, Brock Bowers was going to be one, but I don't believe he was a star at the time. But here's the thing, I will say this, if you're not going to have a star, you better have a lot of really good players. And that's where I'm coming from with this Notre Dame football team is you have to be a team that can throw waves of people at defenses or you better have a star or two. And this Notre Dame football team can throw waves of people. They've got, they've got guys running reported four threes and four fours that are second and 13 right now, a receiver. That's how talented this group is. Jordan Faison was known as best receiver at the end of the season last year. Jordan Faison right now is not a starter at Notre Dame. Not because he played lacrosse just because that's how loaded they are at that position. Jane Harrison was this team's leading receiver last year, not going to be a starter, might not even be number two at that position. Jane Thomas was Notre Dame's best receiver last year before he got hurt. He's not, he's definitely not going to be the number one guy on this team. And he may not even start that this team is loaded with talent there. And then of course you throw in the fact they have the talent running back, talent quarterback, they actually have the talent to go out there and be a really, really explosive offense. Now, do they have to put it together? Yes. Am I saying right here that Notre Dame is going to be an elite offense this year? No, sir. No, ma'am, I am not. Am I sitting here saying that I am, there's no doubt in my mind. They're flat out. They're going to go out there. They're going to do this, this, this, this, I'm predicting this, this, this, and this. And if you disagree with me, you don't know what you're talking about. No, sir. What I'm saying is simply this. This part to me is not arguable. This is the deepest group of offensive skill talent that Notre Dame has had in over 20 years. May not be the, they may not have a Jeff Samarja on this roster. They may not have a Will Fuller on this roster, but what they have is a deep group of players that are really talented athletes. And when you have that, the margin for error for you from week to week is significantly better in your advantage, is significantly smaller. Or actually I'd say bigger, you have a much bigger margin for error because if your whole season is wrapped around, we need number 10 to be, to do here what he did at Florida International. Well what if you have a team that can lock him down? What if he's got a little minor hammy? What if he's just not playing well in that game? You're in trouble. Or man, we need Jane Greyhouse to be a stud for Notre Dame if they're going to be this team. And if he struggles, they're in trouble. That's been the case for a lot of Notre Dame offenses in recent years. Well, what if they play a team that's got a great nickel? What if he's got a hammy? What if he's not playing well? What if they double team him and took him out of the game? You're in trouble. And when teams could take Michael Mayer out of the game, Notre Dame was in trouble. When Kevin Austin had a bad game, Notre Dame was in trouble. You go along the line down the list of these players. If Chris Mitchell's not playing well, or if he's getting double teamed, all right, that's cool. You've got backups and going, you've got Jordan Faison, if you put in a game, you've got KK Smith, you can put in a game, you can put Jane Thomas out there, you can put Jane Greyhouse out there. Right? If you look at Jane Thomas set up in the past years, if Jane Thomas is set up, completely screwed your boundary depth chart. Now, if he doesn't step up or it gets hurt again, you got both Collins. You've got Mike Gilbert, you've got got, you can put Cam Williams over there. You've got plenty of options that you can go over there, Jordan, Jane Greyhouse could go over there and he'll be better positioned to play that this year than he did last year. The point is, if you double team one of those weapons, if you're, if your game plan is we're going to stop Mitchell Evans, we got to stop Jayden Greyhouse, we got to stop both Collins, we got to stop Jane Thomas, we got to stop Chris Mitchell, whoever that may be, the answer is then, okay, but then how do you stop that guy? And then also how do you, how do you do that and stop Riley Leonard or Jeremiah Love or Jadarion Price? Okay, you're going to double team Jayden Greyhouse because he's coming off of a nine catch 150 yard two touchdown performance against whoever. Okay. Cool. I just wanted to stop him and Mitchell Evans, how are you going to defend the outside against Chris Mitchell, both Collins, Jayden Thomas, how are you going to handle Jayden, Jeremiah Love, Jordan Price, come on the back, how are you going to handle, how you going to handle Riley Leonard, right? Like you can't stop that many players, just can't. And that's what makes this team to me potentially dangerous, that they got to prove it. But when you look at those offensive weapons, when you look at that talent, it certainly gets you fired up, very fired up about how good this team could be. I mean, I made a comment the other day, I, I mentioned Mitchell Evans is my team MVP for offense or my offensive MVP. I feel that this team is completely different when Mitchell Evans is in the game compared to when he's not in the game. And I'm someone who is very high on the Leer Eli Raritan and Cooper Flanagan, those guys, but immediately as soon as I said that you had people in the chat talking about Eli Raritan. And I'm kind of like, I'm not going to argue with you, but to this point, that kind of makes the point, right? Like, okay, you lose Mitchell Evans, that sucks. But you've got Eli Raritan that you can bring in and you've got Cooper Flanagan that you can throw in there. There's not a lot of teams that can do that. There's not a lot of teams that can, can, can lose this player and you've got another athlete coming up. And that's what's different about this Notre Dame team. It's the margin for error is very, is much, much wider and they're speed all over on this offensive team. Now they just got to put it all together. And then my fifth reason why I believe this team is set up to make a run is the schedule. Not the way that some of you think I'm going to go with this one. I'm talking about it from this regard. I think the schedule is challenging, but not unnecessarily so. I think that this schedule has a nice mix of road in a way. You're never home too much. You're never on the road too much. You don't have the back-to-back gauntlet that you've had in other seasons as well. And that is a very important piece to this. I don't believe that this year's schedule is inferior to last year's schedule when you look at it from a one to 12 standpoint. I don't. Is there anybody in this year's schedule as good as Ohio State? Maybe not. I think it's the least abatable. But I can understand why people don't think Florida State is. I would disagree with that. But I think top to bottom, this schedule is every bit as good if not better than last year's schedule. It's debatable, but it's at least in the conversation. But here's what, and that's just looking at the 12 teams. Here's what may last year's schedule more challenging, however. Not opponent-wise, not harder. I actually think opponent-wise, this year's schedule is a little bit more challenging than last year's schedule, but here's the difference. Last year, five out of six games in consecutive order were NC State on the road, Ohio State, at Duke, at Louisville, home against USC. You had that one little central Michigan thing in there, no buys in there, and then that four game stretch of Ohio State, Duke, Louisville, USC, two of those games on the road, all four of those games at night. So while the, we could debate the 12 versus 12 discussion, and I'm going to say it's not as easy as some of you think it is. My guy, Aunt VR, love him as a poster. He was pushing back on the notion of the sketch. He thinks the schedule's a lot softer. I think it's not softer. We can have that back and forth, and it's like there's points to be made on both sides. What is not debatable is when you take it away from the one to 12, and you look at the way it was put together, last year's schedule was much harder to work, to manage through than this year's schedule is in my opinion. Last year's schedule also did not have a buy until October 21st. You went and played in Ireland, you played at NC State, at Duke, at Louisville, you played Ohio State at home, USC at home, before you played a, you had your buy week. It's not the case this year. It's a little different this year. You start to season off on the road, not quite as far as Ireland, but it's far, three or next four games are at home, then you have a buy, and your only road game after A&M is a bus ride to West Lafayette, Indiana. You don't hop on a plane again until the middle of October, almost two months. Notre Dame won't have to get on a plane to go play a football game. I guess they could maybe charter a 20 minute flight to West Lafayette, but I would imagine it's going to be a bus ride. And so that's a much, much more manageable slate. Then you get into the late part of the season, you have that first buy in October, first week of October, then you play three games, two of them are away from home, right? So that's one of your only two back-to-back road games at Georgia Tech and then Navy in East Rutherford. Neither of those are, a lot of us that flown us out then know that that Atlanta flight's not a brutal flight, but it's still a road game, and then you've got, you've got to go to Jersey to play Navy, but then there's another buy. And then you're home for two more weeks before you finish the season in New York and then out in LA. So there's a, it's a challenging schedule because there's quality opponents. It's a challenging schedule from the, from the standpoint of you've got some back-to-back road game situations, you've got to go play some tough teams, you've got to go on the two of your three best opponents, arguably are, are road games, because you could argue that your three top opponents are Texas A&M, four, eight, and USC. Some may argue Louisville. I'm fine with that. I think certainly Louisville is going to be a challenging team this year. Let's just go with the three ranked teams. You play three teams that are pre-season top 25, two of them are on the road, beginning, but here's the thing. Once at the very beginning of the year, one's at the very end of the year, right? And so you, as Kenny Moore said, the schedule's not soft, but it's more manageable. That's it. That's what I'm getting to, Kenny. It's, it's set up much better. The bizer in a much better place, the, the where teams are placed, you don't really have a strong back-to-back situation. Like here's the, here's, it's A&M Northern Illinois, Northern Illinois Purdue, Purdue or Miami, Miami and Louisville, Louisville and Stanford, Stanford and Georgia Tech, Georgia Tech and Navy, Navy and Florida State, Florida State and Virginia, Virginia Army, Army USC. Which one of those back-to-back games makes you say, boy, I don't know how you survived those two back-to-back games? There's a chance that the toughest back-to-back games, Notre Dame plays all year, is either Army and USC or Florida State and Virginia, much more manageable, much more manageable. And that is something to me that I look at this football team, and the reason that matters now more than it ever has is because in order to win a championship, you've got to then play four more games at the end of the year. Three of them, most likely, are going to be away from home. Like you're going to need to be fresh and not have to go through the typical gauntlet that's harder to recover from than Notre Dame has gone into the past. And that's the difference between this schedule and others that maybe didn't always put Notre Dame in the best position to be successful. My pushback on teams that want to schedule softness, don't schedule soft or schedule smarter, right? And I think Notre Dame with this schedule has done that. The only thing that I would somewhat nitpick, and I've said this before, is I would prefer that they flipped Northern Illinois and Texas A&M. That's the only difference that I would want to make. And I think there's probably some coaches in Notre Dame that would disagree with me on that, because they don't want A&M to see anything that they're doing, just like A&M doesn't want Notre Dame to see anything they're doing. They may actually say, "Hey, let's just get this game over with, we'll get the extra week to prepare for it." Then we can go and get into our get right schedule. Okay, cool. It's debatable, right? And not wrong, I just personally, my personal preference is I kind of like to have a game at the very beginning that's kind of like, "Okay, let's get going type of thing for me." That's where I'm at with the schedule. So I think reason number five for me, that this Notre Dame team has a chance to go on a title run is scheduled. So to recap, the coordinators are a reason to be excited. The talent at the top plus the depth of talent is a reason to be excited. The defense should once again, be an outstanding group. Number four, your offensive weapons are as deep as you've been in a very, very long time at every single skill position. And then number five, your schedule is challenging enough to be prepared for the post-season, but not so challenging that you're worn out for the post-season, or you've got some really tough spots where you're going to stub your toe unnecessarily because of the gauntlet you have to go through. You don't have that this year. And I think that's something that's very important when you look at the makeup of this Notre Dame football team. So those are my reasons to be optimistic. Next, I'm going to talk about potential stumbling blocks. That'll be the final segment of today's show. Before we get there, folks, hit that like, hit that subscribe, hit that notification bell, share this podcast, give us a five-star review, and if you've not done so, join the message board at boards.orsbreakdown.com. Great community intel. I'm going to completely revamp over the next year or two our content production, which is going to focus on more unique content just for the board that I'm going to be doing, especially post-game stuff with some videos and different things like that. You are not going to want to miss out on that at all. So you definitely want to check that out and see what we have to offer. Boards.orsbreakdown.com. Let's give it a look, I think you guys are going to love what we're doing over there. [music], so we're going to be doing this. [music], so we're going to be doing this. [music] We're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search "match" with Indeed. 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