JotCast | Notre Dame Football Live Chat July 26, 2024

Notre Dame Football Live Chat July 26, 2024

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Eric Hansen

12:58

Notre Dame has offered scholarships to five tight ends in the 2026 class - Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6 and 8 in the Rivals positional rankings. Of those, they have the most traction with No. 8 JC Anderson of Mt. Zion, Ill., who has visited but was not at Thursday's Grill & Chill. The tight end in 2026 who was is Gavin Mueller, a really intriguing but unrated prospect from Illinois. He will be making his high school football debut after starring in basketball, but he has been piling up the offers this summer and performing impressively in camps. ND has not offered yet, but may here as he gets into the season. ... I don't think Mike Denbock is going to give up on recruiting elite receivers. He did an excellent job of that wherever he's been, including at ND last time, when his evaluation and recruiting skills landed him Will Fuller.

12:50

Tight end recruiting is intriguing, because there's so much projection that goes into that evaluation with players often arriving having played another position or being a different size. A good case is Mitchell Evans, who was the No. 26 tight end prospect in his class and is now arguably in the top 3. He was a high school quarterback. The last time ND recruited Rivals' No. 1 TE prospect was Brock Wright in 2017. Cole Kmet was No. 3 in the same class. Michael Mayer, by the way, was No. 3 in his class. Among current TEs on the roster, Eli Raridon, at No. 5 in his class, is the top-rated. Now to your questions ... (more)

Tom Kennesaw, GA

12:40

Eric, ND has generally been considered TE U by many fans and media. Historically we have done a great job in developing our TE's into great players rather than recruiting the #1 or #2 ranked TE, although we have had our share of those high ranked ones too. For 2025 Flannigan is well regarded and rising in his evaluation. With Grill and Chill this weekend are you aware of any key 2026 TE's we are after?? If our WR's don't progress as hoped this season do you think Denbrock will go to a more TE oriented offense later in the season?/ Thanks for all your hard work!!! Go Irish!!!

Eric Hansen

12:39

In no way do I think that's the case. Maybe quite the opposite. Notre Dame goes to the portal less than many schools, and the three transfer WRs on the roster all would be gone before any of those players -- Derek Meadows, Tanook Hines and Dylan Robinson -- shows up on campus. Additionally, seniors Jayden Thomas and Deion Colzie, might not exercise a fifth-year option from a redshirt year. So, there would be plenty of opportunity to compete for playing time for a 2025 wide receiver recruit.

12:34

And here's one of those questions ...

Rich-Key West

12:34

Do you think the wide receiver recruiting this year has been hampered by the portal signings? Potential signees striving to play early not seeing a clear path with the upper class portal recruits.

Eric Hansen

12:34

To your wide receiver recruiting question, there's some other questions in the queue that will push me for a more detailed answer, but to your facet of it -- no, that wasn't the reason.

12:33

Thanks Mike. We may try to get Bob to be more of a regular during the season. The response to him as been great. So, thanks for the feedback. ... Because the relationship with position coaches is so central to recruiting, losing one during the process is going to be an adjustment for most recruits. Marcus Freeman has tried to mitigate that by being the leader recruiter from start to finish, as opposed to being a closer. But Chris O'Leary's departure did affect two of the safeties in this class -- Ivan Tayler, who has since decommitted and JaDon Blair, who initially was taken aback but is now all in on Mike Mickens. It doesn't appear it was ever an issue with Ethan Long. And as far as the 2026 class, the No. 1 safety in that class, Blaine Bradford, was on campus for Notre Dame's Grill & Chill recruiting event, and the Irish are very much in the mix for him. (more)

mike kraus c.m ca.

12:27

I really enjoyed your YouTube show with B.Morton. Did losing Chris O' Leary play into losing several recruits recently ? Hate to ask this but I still have a ''DONTE MOORE '' Hangover. Could the reason ND lost 3 REC's is they know D. knight ain't coming to ND ?

Eric Hansen

12:26

It was good to see Bauman as a featured player in the promo video for the Shamrock Series uniforms. ... The only was Bauman would/could leave the roster at this juncture would be a medical retirement, which I don't anticipate at this time, but it could happen. He can't hit the transfer portal until December, at which point he'd have one year left. This will be a very interesting camp for him if he can be and stay healthy (and he was on track to be earlier this summer). Lots of talent there and lots of bad luck so far with injuries.

12:24

Hi Len. I'm curious to hear from you how Marcus Freeman's talk went at the event in your area that you planned to attend ... Kevin is definitely someone I'm going to ask about on Wednesday at our first press conference of the preseason and after the first training camp practice. The grad senior tight end does have this season and next eligibility-wise because of his COVID exemption. Notre Dame is actually down to three such players with a COVID year option after this season. The others are Xavier Watts and Tosh Baker. And it's really doubtful Watts would use his. (more)

Len from the Jersey Shore

12:20

Hello Eric!!!!!!!! Any update on Kevin Baumann? He is a Jersey Shore guy. His career has been riddled with injuries. Any chance he leaves the ND team and saves his last year (or two) of eligibility to use elsewhere with the hope of considerably more playing time?

Eric Hansen

12:20

So, there's a commitment there, but maybe those games are not played at the same points in the season, maybe Stanford counts toward the five-games-a-year ACC commitment. ND is largely scheduled to the middle of the next decade with a few holes to fill. The viability of the ACC holding together will affect things. Pete Bevacqua also likes the Shamrock Series concept, but isn't married to it being EVERY year. My sense is unless the committee really reacts extremely one way or another to scheduling -- leaning into aggressive scheduling or not rewarding it at all -- Notre Dame will continue down the path that's similar to what it's been ... not including this season, which feel abnormally soft.

“What I will say about both of those series — the Notre Dame-Southern Cal game is one of the great matchups in the history of sports,” Bevacqua said. “It’s fundamentally important to us that we continue that rivalry, and we know that USC feels the same way.
“We also want to continue the Stanford rivalry. It’s had a great history of its own, and universities like Notre Dame and Stanford, we need to play each other. It's great to play each other. It’s important to play each other. Two top-ranked academic universities that also happen to put a real emphasis on athletics.
“Again, the exact times and locations and when that will happen, that could vary over the course of the next decade, but we start with the principle that we absolutely want to continue to play Southern Cal every year. We want to continue to play Stanford every year. And we don’t think they agree — we know they agree.”

12:16

Since 1998, with some rare alterations, the Irish have played one of them at home in October and the other one in the regular-season finale after Thanksgiving on the road, alternating sites each year.

12:15

Scott, what was your Venmo account ID again? ... seriously, thanks for the compliments. ... The Lincoln Riley comments regarding the future of the USC-ND series were very fair, not that he is the decision-maker in that process, but I think it's realistic that all teams, including Notre Dame, will be open to recalibrating scheduling philosophies based on how the College Football Playoff Committee weighs scheduling into the CFP 12-team formula (and likely eventually 14-team format). Let me first share what new athletic director Pete Bevacqua had to say in a one-on-one interview with me that ran in a wide-ranging three-part series that ran this spring. This is about both the USC and Stanford series:

Scott, Greenville, SC

12:09

Eric! I hope you're having a very enjoyable summer! These chats along with the Football Never Sleeps are so informative for the Irish fanatics. Thank you for taking the time to share wisdom, humor and insight into ND football. No real questions regarding the team but I read a clip from Lincoln Riley and the possible future of USC and ND games. It made me think about future scheduling. One thing that has always been a staple of ND football are the superb opponents we play ever year. With the new conference alignments, I'm curious about future games. My hope is to see a couple SEC and BIG - whatever you call them, not 10 - games. Do you see a new road map of games, outside the ACC and Navy games? Just FYI, big fan of the team and you! Be safe and I look forward to reading you articles when practice opens.

Eric Hansen

The "No Drinking" rule will not be strictly enforced this week, except for me.

Here are the rules:

12:08

12:07

PLEASE include your NAME and HOMETOWN along with your question. If you use "Guest" or "A Voice Crying From The Wilderness" as you name, I'm going to need to see some ID to authenticate.

As far as this week's chat ...

► Finally, we’re all in on Notre Dame football preseason camp. And Darin Pritchett and I are together each week on Wednesday and Thursday on Weekday SportsBeat (96.1 FM, 960 AM, live streaming at wsbtradio.com). The re-emergence of the show on 96.1 FM is new this week. The weekday shows run from 5-6 p.m. ET. You can download episodes as podcasts.

12:06

► No Inside ND Sports Podcast this week, with Tyler James on vacation. On the most recent Inside ND Sports Podcast, Notre Dame women’s basketball star guard Olivia Miles joined us. The 2023 All-American missed last season as she recovered from a knee injury, but she’s getting back in gear for a comeback year. She discussed the timeline of her recovery from the ACL injury, what she learned about herself while sitting out, scouting reports on newcomers Liatu King, Liza Karlen and Kate Koval, if she ever considered transferring, the keys to success in sharing a backcourt with Hannah Hidalgo, how head coach Niele Ivey helped her through this process, her confidence in her knee, how she's expanded her game and more. The podcast can be listened to via SoundCloud or on your preferred podcast platform including: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Podbean and Pocket Casts.

► If you missed the last episode of our aspiring-to-be-viral Notre Dame Football YouTube show, Football Never Sleeps, it keeps its shelf life long after the live presentation. We are in a bit of an irregular pattern there until but we’ll soon move back into our normal Monday at 7 ET time slot. Right now we’re working around vacation time and guest co-host availability. The latest edition was Wednesday night with former Notre Dame O-lineman Bob Morton as my guest co-host. We’ll have a special recruiting-oriented one on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET with longtime recruiting analyst Tom Lemming, of the Prep Football Report, as my guest co-host. Remember, if you miss the live show, you can catch up anytime on YouTube.

12:05

► The chat is back in weekly mode, with training camp starting on July 31. It may not always be on Wednesday through training camp, due to practice/interview conflicts, but it will be weekly. The next one after today will be Saturday, Aug. 3. I’ll definitely settle into a Wednesday routine by late August.

Some quick programming notes:

12:04

Welcome to Notre Dame Football Live Chat. the "Training Camp is Almost Here" Edition.

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