2015 starters lost: C.J. Prosise – 156 attempts, 1032 yards, 54.1% of snaps
Incoming freshmen: Tony Jones and Deon McIntosh

Photo: Robin Alam/Icon SMI

Tarean Folston was supposed to be the foundation that supported a very inexperienced backfield. Seven plays into the 2015 season, it was on to Plan B.

Folston, the team’s leading rusher in 2014, tore the ACL in his right knee on his third carry from scrimmage. C.J. Prosise, newly converted to the backfield, entered the game having amassed just 10 career carries.

Prosise turned out to be the first welcome surprise, shouldering most of the load left behind. Freshman Josh Adams turned out to be the second one, when Prosise was felled by injuries late in the year.

Now, in 2016, Prosise is gone – leaving a year early to chase his NFL dream – and Folston is back, but still recovering. Instead of there being an elder statesman and “everyone else,” Folston and Adams are competing for first team reps.

Coach Brian Kelly said Folston, Adams and sophomore Dexter Williams all have an important role to play in the upcoming season.

Dexter Williams (34) runs drills with his teammates during Notre Dame spring football practice inside the Loftus Center. (Tribune Photo/BECKY MALEWITZ)

“What we’re trying to do is really get Folston back into as much of a competitive environment relative to 11-on-11 team work,” said Kelly during his April 1 news conference. “He’s got some strengths. He runs the inside zone play very well. When we get into some of our spread offensive sets, he’s very, very good at keeping the ball inside the tackles and getting some box looks that are very favorable. He runs the ball extremely well inside where Josh runs the outside zone extremely well. Dexter has the speed that we’re looking for. It’s really all three of those guys and balancing their work over the past couple days.”

And although Folston isn’t back to 100 percent yet, Kelly has seen great improvement in the tailback – due, in part, to Adams’ emergence.

“He’s making great progress in the weight room and the realization that this game is one where you are being challenged now by some younger players has really been good for him. I think the competition has brought out the best in him,” the coach said.

Justin Brent, a five-star recruit, has been bouncing between wide receiver and running back. He has been splitting second team reps with Williams. Josh Anderson is a walk-on who received a scholarship last year. He played in the waning minutes of the season opening blowout of Texas and then wasn’t seen again. Tony Jones and Deon McIntosh will join the team after graduating from high school this spring.

The post Blue Gold Game Preview: The Running Backs appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

(Mike DiNovo/USA Today Sports)

Yes, I know it is quite early in the season to talk about the Heisman. No, I’m not trying to jinx the rest of Notre Dame’s season nor am I trying to put a hex on everything awesome that C.J. Prosise has done thus far. I am, however, wondering that if the national media is already shoveling loads of no-doubt-Heisman-front-runner praise onto Leonard Fournette, shouldn’t C.J. Prosise be right there with him?

In many Heisman watches, you will see Fournette right at the top and Prosise as either an afterthought or not even mentioned. I didn’t think much about that situation until I saw this:

https://twitter.com/ISDUpdate/status/648868945093484544/

You did not misread that. C.J. Prosise is neck-and-neck with Fournette. And before you say “but Tex, Fournette has played one less game” (LSU vs. McNeese State was cancelled), you should realize that Prosise has only one more carry than the beast that is Fournette.

The next logical line of reasoning is to start comparing who they played and how their performances stack up. I decided to break down how they did each game and what the current rank of each rushing defense that they faced to get a clearer picture.

C.J. Prosise

Leonard Fournette

The biggest difference that jumps out is that Fournette is getting the ball a hell of a lot more than Prosise is each game. This shouldn’t be too surprising as Brian Kelly has said on many occasions that he doesn’t want his converted WR taking more than 20 carries each game if possible. Even with that limit imposed, Prosise is doing an incredible job in keeping up.

The strength of defenses faced, and resulting performances against them, should probably be filed as “too soon to compare”. I was rather surprised to see Virginia and Georgia Tech rated as high as they were based on their most recent games, but Syracuse stuck out like a sore thumb. Going back into their schedule, you will see that they held powerful Rhode Island to 4 yards and their second impressive defense performance was against lowly Wake Forest.

We can certainly take some initial impressions away from each game; however, we may be a couple of weeks out before the numbers start to level out. What we can say for sure is that it is rather clear that neither Prosise or Fournette find themselves struggling no matter who they are facing. Both backs had their “worst” game at the beginning of the season. Since that point, they’ve been on another level.

There is one other factor that really got me thinking about Prosise and his too-soon Heisman chances: he’s doing on this on a team with weapons like Will Fuller and emerging freshman backs Josh Adams and Dexter Williams. Fournette on the other hand is the LSU offense.

To double check my hypothesis, I calculated just how much each offense was dependent on each back.

C.J. Prosise

Leonard Fournette

While each player is getting a similar percentage of all rushing attempts, Fournette is clearly the focal point of the LSU offense, getting nearly 40% of all touches. Not only that, Fournette is clearly the only one having any consistent success on LSU’s offense as he is responsible for over half of all their yardage and touchdowns.

So here is where the subjective part of any Heisman/MVP discussion comes in. Do you lean towards the guy that is clearly the only one doing anything for his team? Or do you give some love to the stud making a huge impact on a team of studs with limited touches?

Let me know which way you lean, but, either way, I can’t tell you how happy I am that we can even think about having this conversation in September.

The post Should C.J. Prosise Receive Front-Runner Heisman Hype? appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

For the first time in a long time, I found myself downright pissed at Notre Dame at halftime.

The 35-20 lead that the Irish took into the locker room might as well have been flipped. The effort was uninspiring. The offense sputtered far too often, including a terrible interception due to, of all people, Will Fuller trying to catch the ball with his body and not his hands. The defense looked lost, giving up three consecutive UMass drives for touchdowns, including a one-play, 78-yard drive that made Marquis Young look like Leonard Fornette.

I wanted Brandon Wimbush to start the second half. C.J. Prosise should have only needed his impressive 100+ yard first quarter before he took a well-deserved rest for the remainder of the game. Nyles Morgan should have been flying around the field while Jaylon Smith and Joe Scmidt were carefully bubble-wrapped on the sidelines. The Irish looked to be on pace for such a performance for most of the first quarter, but everything just seemed to fall apart.

Then the second half happened and everything was great again.

This game reminded me of so many other non-ND games that I have watched before. You take a top-ten team against a ridiculously weak opponent. The top-ten team falls on their face and, by halftime, you start to entertain the notion of a huge upset. More often than not, halftime is where such thoughts remain and quickly die as said superior team figures it out and just trounces their opponent like it was nothing in the second half.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted a Notre Dame team to come out with a similar response. It seemed to be all or nothing with the Irish. If a blowout was going to happen, it went wire-to-wire. If there was a struggle, that too went wire-to-wire.

Something finally clicked against UMass, as the Irish dominated UMass 27-7 in the second half, mostly played by backups, to finish the day with an impressive 62-27 victory that covered any spread Vegas conceived comfortably.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3afbWJ5ufQ

By the time the final whistle blew, you could take your pick on impressive and historical stats that the Irish managed to compile. They scored 60 points for the first time since 1996 against Rutgers (man, that school is still taking in the shorts these days) and their 457 rushing yards on 51 attempts for a 8.96 yards/rush average (hell yes, I’m bolding that sexy stat) where the highest since they ran over Boston College in 1996 for 426 yards.

More run the damn ball goodness: Notre Dame has rushed for over 200 yards every game since the Music City Bowl against LSU. The last time the Irish did that was in 2000 under Bob freakin’ Davie when the Irish did it six times in a row (sidenote: I’m now cheering hard for this team to topple that mark now that I’m aware). Notre Dame also came close to having three rushers go for over 100 yards and probably would have if Wimbush didn’t stumble on one of his runs in which he had nothing but green turf ahead of him, finishing with “only” 92 yards.

C.J. Prosise led the day with 149 yards on 15 carries, notching two TDs. He now has 600 rushing yards this season with 495 in the past three games which is the most in a three game stretch since Julius Jones in 2003. Prosise is also the first ND back with three consecutive 100-yard games since Darius Walker in 2005. He was almost outdone by freshman Josh Adams who had 133 yards on 13 carries and a 70 yard TD.

Adams wasn’t the only freshman to find the endzone against UMass. The aforementioned Wimbush had a TD run. Dexter Williams found paydirt. And C.J. Sanders returned a punt for a TD (shockingly, out of what appeared to be a punt safe call) which was the first Irish punt return for a TD since Golden Tate in 2009 and the first in ND stadium since Tom Zbikowski (!) in 2006.

Oh, and that Will Fuller guy got another TD reception, the 22nd of his ND career. Minor footnote.

Even with the second half freshman party, the game wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Despite Cole Luke pulling down the first INT of the season for the Irish on a Mathias Farley tip drill, the secondary had very little to hang its hat on. For quite a bit of the game, UMass receivers consistently burned Irish DBs in one-on-one coverage, which is ever-so concerning with Clemson and Southern Cal right around the corner.

I’m honestly not sure what the issue is here. Brian VanGorder could be trusting his DBs too much against inferior opponents and blitzing more than he should. Both Virginia and this game against UMass had borderline disaster moments against the pass. Perhaps the blitz rate slows down against Clemson next week (although with freshman all over that O-line, I doubt it), but even then, when the Irish drop into zone, the windows appear to be so large that I’m pretty sure I could complete a pass.

Make no mistake, the Irish are getting pressure even if the sacks aren’t coming very often. However, it appears that opposing QBs (Swoopes excluded) are able to find their open receiver quickly than BVG would like.

Whatever the issue is, I’m hoping there is another SWAG team that BK has up his sleeve that can help fix it. While Clemson has shown some holes in their game, the Irish simply can’t afford to let Deshaun Watson pick them apart and place all the pressure in the world on DeShone Kizer on the road.

But all-in-all this was a game that would drive you to drink out of anger and joy. I both hated and loved this game. At the end of the day, the scoreboard reading CFB fan/pollster will chalk this up as a dominating ND victory against a vastly inferior opponent which is exactly what the Irish want. The silver lining to the terrible moments of the first half will give Brian Kelly and staff more than enough ammo in the next week of practice.

EVEN BETTER: no one had a season ending injury. There were some injuries before the game as Tyler Luatua was held out with a concussion and Corey Robinson suffered a knee sprain during warm-ups and will have an MRI to confirm there is nothing more serious. Ronnie Stanley gave us all a scare as he went down after being rolled up on, but Kelly stated after the game it was only patellar tendonitis and not major.

(By the way, big ‘ol h/t to UND.com for all of the awesome historical information for this game.)

The post Notre Dame vs. UMass 62-27: The Game I Hated and Have Always Wanted appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

The five-star gun show won’t appear until the season is well under way. (AP Photo/South Bend Tribune, Robert Franklin)

Bad things happen in threes. On the day that Everett Golson announced he would transfer from Notre Dame, Bo Wallace announced that he would not be enrolling at Notre Dame. After the one-two punch on that fateful day in May, we’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop and fill the offseason trinity of pain.

Yesterday morning, that shoe came crashing down as Irish247 announced that a source confirmed Greg Bryant would be suspended for the first four games of 2015 for the ever-so-specific “violation of team rules.” There was some smoke about something like this going down even back to the spring, but nothing of substance seemed to come of it. Personally, I just wrote such scuttlebutt off as someone trolling during the offseason to see if it would stick.

Either way, that day is now here and Bryant is gone until Notre Dame visits Clemson.

The good news is that Bryant isn’t a starter and you could argue that C.J. Prosise showed enough at RB in spring ball to, at the very least, give Bryant a run for is money at his spot on the depth chart. The better news is that Byrant is still enrolled at Notre Dame and reportedly has no plans to transfer. The bad news is that this is a five-star recruit that we’ve all been waiting to have a breakout year and riding the pine for four games certainly doesn’t help that cause.

And of course, the further bad news is that this is another crappy offseason story for Notre Dame. Granted, it’s rare for any major college program to survive an offseason without something happening (an issue that Moons is investigating for tomorrow), but that doesn’t make it suck any less.

Still, in an attempt to find a silver lining, file this under “let’s hope correlation equals causation”: in the 2012 offseason, Notre Dame had offseason issues with a quarterback and running back battling for depth chart supremacy. Tommy Rees and Cierre Wood found themselves suspended to start the year and Everett Golson and Theo Riddick took their opportunities and ran with it all the way to a national title berth.

Yes, I am well aware this situation is completely different as Everett transferred and Folston is easily the top back for ND right now, BUT DAMMIT I’M TRYING HERE.

Anyways, and in all seriousness, Bryant staying at Notre Dame should be treated as more than just a sidenote in this situation. Count me in among the hopeful that believe Bryant will indeed live up to his recruiting hype. Count me in as further hopeful that Bryant will come back after his suspension ready to make an impact. And even if he doesn’t, the worst case scenario is that Folston and Prosise tear it up in Bryant’s absence with two hungry freshmen, Josh Adams and Dexter Williams, waiting in the wings and Bryant may struggle to get carries in that crowd.

Let that simmer for a while. Despite this hit to the depth chart, Notre Dame has four options in the backfield (and they likely won’t have to use the freshmen either).

With all that said, please let the end of the offseason come swiftly and without any more bad news because I’ve had my fill and it’s not even July.

The post Cruel Summer: Greg Bryant Suspended for Four Games appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Note: the assorted thoughts below may or may not always include analysis from the game.

I should be drunk right now…

So my first taste of #DadLife during football season came early. In lieu of tailgating (aka having an excuse to drink at my house at 8 or 9 am), I spent my morning moving furniture out of our guest bedroom to begin the conversion to a nursery.

I managed to finish the process about 30 minutes before “kickoff”; however, the first drink that I consumed was water. In fact, I only consumed one beer the entire game.

What is happening to me? Send help.

Oh hey, our QBs are dancing

SupermanTDJesus captured this wonderful moment from the pre-game in his highlight reel. We’ve heard that the QB competition is about as friendly as it could be and I’m not sure anything proves this more than our QB duo dancing a jig.

And now, they shall dance forever!

The QB competition went as expected

I wasn’t expecting either Everett Golson or Malik Zaire to really grab the starting QB spot after Blue/Gold. Kelly said the competition would likely go until August and even if either of them had a terrible day it could be chalked up to something they’d need to work on during fall camp.

Needless to say, that (thankfully) didn’t happen and both QBs put together solid performances. I still believe that this is Golson’s job to lose, but, after seeing what happened against LSU, it just seems dumb to not give both playing time throughout the season.

That Zaire bomb though…

Straight football porn:

https://vine.co/v/ezTUDnErQD1

PEW PEW

Not sure if offense great or defense terrible

Here’s the annoying part of every spring game. When something incredible happens, you marvel at one side of the ball and then start to get worried if that great thing only happened because the other side of the ball is terrible.

Generally, I lean towards thinking that the offense usually has the advantage in these types of scrimages. Plus, some of those guys really are that good. That bomb that Will Fuller was wide open on? That’s going to happen to a lot of DBs and not just poor Nick Watkins.

Still, after some of the nightmares that happened in 2014, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly concerned.

Jerry Tillery is going to be a monster

I can see why Kelly gushed over him most of the spring. After making a position change and just a bit of spring football under his belt, he looked like a natural on the D-line. He didn’t make any huge plays, but he’s going to give a lot of offensive lines nightmares and I can’t wait to see what happens when he gets even better.

Welcome to the backfield CJ Prosise

Prosise is just one of those guys that needs to get the ball feed to him. He looked great in the backfield and will serve as a great compliment to both Tarean Folston and Greg Bryant. Added benefit: Prosise is likely going to continue driving those two to stay on top of their game so they don’t lose carries. Everybody wins.

No one got hurt!

Save for one slight scare when Nyles Morgan needed to be checked out, everyone left the Blue/Gold game in one piece. Really, that’s the biggest victory you can ask for.

Dan Hicks had to read my stupid blog joke

Dan Hicks has called play-by-play for an NFL playoff game. He’s been one of the voices for the Olympics and is now the voice for Notre Dame football home games. And now, he can add this to his resume:

https://vine.co/v/eztzrYXpYEw

I’m still laughing.

I think this is better than winning the #NDCallThePlay contest. The most absurd thing that I could think of made it on TV. Dan Hicks had no idea what he was reading/seeing and I can only imagine the look on Doug Flutie’s face too.

This might just be the highlight of my blogging career.

The post Assorted Thoughts from the 2015 Blue/Gold Game appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Yes, you read the title correctly: The Subway Domer has pulled a recruiting coup for the IBG and NDNation has joined the fold.

For the post Blue/Gold Game edition, we got the first crack at asking questions of Mike Coffey, aka El Kabong, of NDNation. He, in turn, has asked his questions three of Kieth Arnold of Inside the Irish who will eventually have Subway’s answers up. And you can find my answers over at The Subway Domer this week. Eventually, we will have the Strong and True blog back in the fold once they find someone to fill Josh Flynt’s shoes.

Without further ado, here are Mike’s answers to my questions:

1) Needless to say, the offense struggled mightily, especially in the red zone. Do you feel that this a sign of future offensive struggles or a chance to praise the Irish defense?

I believe it’s neither.

The Spring Game is a difficult thing to analyze.  We ND football fans haven’t seen a meaningful snap in three in a half months (or more, depending on how you felt about the bowl game) and won’t see one for another four months.  We’ve got a jones to see the players in action in a game-like atmosphere at the location we all associate with great games, and the Spring Game gives us that.  Trouble is, given the familiarity the players have with each other’s abilities, the general knowledge of the plays being run, and the well-known tendency of coaching staffs in general (and this one in particular) to play things close to the vest in a non-competitive situation, it doesn’t give us much else.

No doubt the defense “showed” more than the offense during the scrimmage.  Maybe they were more motivated.  Maybe they took advantage of the temporarily poor OL depth or the larger number of dinged-up players on offense.  Maybe Chuck Martin didn’t want to show off too much in a situation that didn’t matter.  Maybe our defense is really really good and when our offense goes up against a less-talented group, it’ll be their time to shine.  Maybe the the red-jersey rules limited Everett Golson in ways we won’t see when Temple comes to town.

In the words of Edward Nygma, too many questions.  Guessing which (if any) of the possibilities are true is just that — guessing.  We know we had a good defense last year, and nothing that happened Saturday showed us any different.  We know the offense had its issues last year at times, and nothing that happened Saturday showed us any different.  Unfortunately, until that first snap on August 31st, that’s what we’re left with, and I don’t want to color the perception of what happens at and after that snap with judgments based on guesses.

Given the caveats of answer #1, I was interested in seeing a couple things.

The OL was low on bodies, so I went in expecting them to have problems.  I thought they performed relatively well given the limitation, but certainly wasn’t wowed.  I would have liked to see their ground game performance more, as that’s what I expect will drive the success or failure of the unit next season.  I enjoy ND being able to redshirt freshmen offensive linemen to allow them to grow and get more seasoned, but it’s possible we won’t have that luxury this year.

Given the change in depth at the position, I was also interested in comparing Malik Zaire to his competitors, both physically and (to an extent) emotionally.  I found him to be very refreshing in both aspects.  I thought his passes had good power and accuracy, certainly moreso than Andrew Hendrix.  He seemed to exhibit a reasonable confidence for a freshman.  It remains to be seen if we’ll see him behind center at any point, and I’d expect Brian Kelly and the staff will do their utmost to preserve a redshirt year for him.  Having said that, however, if Golson has the improvement we all expect, it’s not a given he’ll be behind center for a third year in a row, and perhaps some experience for Zaire will leave ND in a better position for 2014.  If they don’t, Rees once again was his workman-like self, and while he has his limitations, I wouldn’t be prepared to throw the season away if the situation meant extended time for him at QB.

As I noted above, Zaire’s performance made me interested in seeing what he’ll be able to do, especially on the ground to keep defenses honest.  C.J. Prosise certainly is more than serviceable at a position of need.  I liked George Atkinson, but if he doesn’t learn to keep those pads down, he’ll miss more time this year.

But I would say the guy who stood out for me was Chuck Martin.  Even though he’s the OC for an offensive-minded coach, he’s putting his stamp on the game plan.  He probably never will run the ball as much as I’d like, but he’s shown he respects the need for (at least a semblance of) balance.  For a guy who spent most of his time on the defensive side of the ball prior to ND, that’s a great thing to see, and had Brian Kelly’s chat with the Eagles gone a different way, I’d be comfortable with Martin at the helm.

The post Irish Blogger Gathering: Spring Fling with NDNation appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.