Notre Dame Has A Guard Battle That Is Deeper Than Expected

Notre Dame and offensive line coach Joe Rudolph have a pair of offensive line competitions to settle during training camp. The battles for the right and left guard starting jobs began during spring practice and they are continuing in the first week of camp.

Sophomore Billy Schrauth emerged as the presumed favorite on the left side during the spring, with Andrew Kristofic at the front of the depth chart on the right when spring practice closed in April. Rudolph spoke about where things stand after five days of practice.

"I think ,ideally, you want to find five guys that could go out and play and then have the next guys ready,” Rudolph said of his rotation preference. "There have been times when maybe it was in (our) best interest for different reasons to play multiple guys at a position, but it's not what I would lean to or look to at the jump. But yeah, that competition's very well real.

"Billy Schrauth and Pat Coogan, very real at the left side," continued Rudolph. "Aamil (Wagner), can he factor in? Tosh (Baker), can he factor in? What's in the best interest for those guys. You want them to play great football. You also don't want to put them in a spot where it doesn't help us, you know what I mean? They've been all approaching it the way you would hope.”

Baker and Wagner have both primarily worked at tackle in the past, but their names came up on Monday because both were getting work at guard during the five period part of practice that was open to the media.

"(We) kind of coming through the spring wanted to see if either Tosh or Aamil would take naturally to the guard position,” Rudolph explained. "Trying to help them to get some reps there is what you got to do, right? You just have to get them in there, and so we'll do that within these first two weeks of the spring.”

Kristofic got work at tackle on Monday as well, but his primary concern is fending off a training camp push by Spindler to win the right guard job. Rudolph discussed what he needs to see from those two in order to ultimately win that competition.

"I told them I said number one thing, I'm looking for three things; one, you've got to be accountable,” Rudolph explained. "You've got to be able to control the controllables like penalties, assignments, linemen assignment, you know the detail with things. Secondly, you’ve got to win at the point of attack. (We need) guys that can flat out win and create opportunities for the back. Win at the point of attack and in the protection game.

"Then three, guys that can play in a way where they make guys around them better," continued Rudolph. "... We kind of detailed things up that way and how we look at it, what we talked about as a group but that's what it comes down to. You can hit a landmark, you can have your hands in, you can do all those things, but if you can't win or punch a hole in that defense, then you're going to have a problem. There's going to be a lot of plays kind of mushing in there but the guys that can find a way to win at the point, those are these guys you (have) to feature and keep helping to grow.”

Spindler is a junior who played in 12 of Notre Dame’s 13 games last season, primarily in a special teams role as part of the PAT/Field Goal team. He has yet to start a game in his first two seasons. He was consistently behind Kristofic during the spring, but he finished the spring on a strong note, and he's carried that into fall camp.

"I've told Rocco this, the first four days of spring he spent all four days on the ground,” Rudolph said. "We laugh about it now because he's added tremendous growth, and at the end of spring he was flat out winning at the point of attack, and that's why he's fighting for this race. He's really picked up in a good place, coming into fall camp, which makes it a great competition.”

Those battles will be quite interesting to watch over the next month, and the winners will be tasked with hitting the ground running when the Irish kick the season off against Navy on August 26th.

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