It doesn’t take a genius to realize the efforts and performances of players such as Jimmy Clausen, Golden Tate, Brian Smith and Kyle McCarthy will correlate directly to the fortunes of Notre Dame this season.
But on every team and in every season there are a handful of “sleeper” players, the back-page guys who won’t spend much time in the headlines, but whose contributions might actually be the best gauge to the final win-loss record.
Following are five players that must have good seasons – and in some cases show marked improvement – for this to truly be a special year for Notre Dame. They are in no particular order.
Kamara finds himself under the radar entering 2009 with the breakout seasons of Tate and Floyd last season.
Talk about an enigma. Kamara set most of Notre Dame’s freshman receiving records then pulled a bit of a disappearing act last year when his production dropped by about 33 percent across the board.
Part of the slippage has to be attributed to the breakout season of Golden Tate and the emergence of Michael Floyd. But even when Floyd missed the Navy, Syracuse and USC games with a knee injury, Kamara managed only three catches for 34 yards in those three games. Not exactly seizing an opportunity.
With David Grimes gone and the secret out on Floyd and Tate, Kamara needs to return more to his freshman form and become a nice goal line option and a reliable possession type receiver for critical third-down situations. He’s the perfect fit for that No. 3 receiver spot.
Unlike Kamara, Brown has shown steady improvement throughout his career, and that improvement needs to continue again this season. Brown likely won’t dethrone McCarthy or Harrison Smith as a starting safety, but he will get plenty of action in nickel packages and against spread-style offenses – see Games 1 and 2.
The defense is going to have a much different look and a more aggressive style this season that will put more pressure on the defensive backs. With Jon Tenuta calling the plays, it will be a high-risk, high-reward approach in the front seven, and Brown has to be ready to carry his weight in man-to-man coverage.
There will be a lot of pressure on the secondary this season, and how Brown holds up will help dictate how much pressure Tenuta can throw at a quarterback.
The center in football will always be kind of the catcher in baseball. It’s sort of a coach on the field position, and Wenger has to do a better job of filling that role this year. According to a story by ESPN’s Ivan Maisel, as Charlie Weis was singling out some of his offensive linemen during a Notre Dame coaches’ meeting in March, when the list came to Dan Wenger, Weis called his center “a training room guy.”
That’s not exactly the vote of confidence you want to get from the coach during spring ball. Wenger probably fell out of favor with Weis when Syracuse nose tackle Arthur Jones worked the Irish center over and recorded 15 tackles, an incredible number for a nose tackle. Chris Zorich is a hall of famer and he never had 15 tackles in a game.
An offensive line is only as good as it weakest link and when the weak link is right in the middle of things, the roots of a problem are in place. Wenger doesn’t have to be an all-American but he needs to raise his game to a level we’ve not yet seen.
The kid just arrived on campus this week and he is already on the list as a player who will help mold the fortunes of the team. As the national defensive player of the year, Te’o has the ability to make an immediate impact at a linebacker position that has a number of potentially nice payers, but only one true superstar at this point in Brian Smith.
Te’o can help solidify this position for years to come and take some of the pressure off of a very young defensive line. That’s going to be the key. Because of his athleticism, Te’o will also give Tenuta some scheme and blitz options in that front seven that we haven’t yet seen.
Brian Smith wants to ad-lib some at the linebacker position some this season – and the coaches love that idea. The development of Te’o will have a lot to do with how much freedom Brian Smith will be able to play with.
There’s no secret why Ragone made this list. With Joseph Fauria out of the picture, the Irish desperately need to find and keep depth at the tight end position this year. They can’t rely on Kyle Rudolph to play almost as many minutes as Jimmy Clausen again.
Since his arrival, Ragone has been touted for his rare combination of size and speed to where he in theory could create even greater matchup problems for opposing defenses. His 2008 bio even celebrated the fact that he was then the fastest tight end on the roster.
But here we are in the third year of Ragone’s career and he has one catch for seven yards. Weis said Ragone was somewhat timid at times this spring, and that’s a good way to get injured again. Ragone has to get over being timid and start throwing around that Jersey swagger that made him such an attractive recruit. There’s no time to wait.
Those are the five lesser-known players that I see as key elements to a successful season. Their development and performance could be the difference in at least one or two games.
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