Notre Dame Is Long On Talent, Short On Experience At Wide Receiver

Notre Dame’s wide receiver room is long on talent but short on experience, but the unit thriving is key to the team's 2023 success. The good news for Notre Dame is the presence of a talented and far more proven cornerback room should prove to be a much-needed daily test for the wideouts.

Offensive coordinator Gerad Parker knows that being able to win against the Notre Dame secondary will be a challenge, but the more it happens the more he'll know his unit is ready to thrive.

"You evaluate it on win/loss,” Parker began. "There’s only one way to evaluate it, and the quicker we win more than we lose, you’re starting to get to a point where we can have some big-time short-term and long-term success.

"You can see some of those strides coming together, our guys have already made strides," continued Parker. "You can see where they come from and where they've built from in practice one, but now we’ve got to do it until practice six. Then we'll have to do that after that. But, in a very quick answer, there's only one way to evaluate success, and that's won/loss, and then getting lost in the process of it.”

Junior Jayden Thomas is the team’s most productive returning receiver after hauling in 25 receptions for 362 yards last year. In the spring the Irish staff decided to move running back Chris Tyree into the slot, which adds speed to the rotation. Thomas and Tyree are important for Notre Dame, but the Irish also need talented sophomore Tobias Merriweather to be a breakout player.

Merriweather caught just one pass last season before missing the final month of the season with a concussion. He returned for the bowl game, but Merriweather didn't catch a pass in the game.

"Get lost in the work,” Parker began when asked what Merriweather must do to reach his potential. “Keep working. That’s the truth. I know this, it’s not thinking about having future success, it's not hoping that I have future success. If he just works, his talent and abilities are good enough to have a very successful year. I believe that, we believe that, and he knows that. If he just works and he continues to improve his craft, his body will take over.

"I think he's in a place where he expects to play well, and I think he knows that he's earned the right to,” Parker continued. "Does that make sense? His ability to line up, play fast and know what to do now. When you own that, that provides confidence, and the talent takes over.”

Merriweather isn't the only young player that will be counted on this season. Freshman Jaden Greathouse finished the spring with an 11-catch performance in the Blue-Gold Game, and he's carried that strong performance into fall camp.

"He's a very confident guy, in a very good way,” Parker said of Greathouse. “.... He's extremely confident, so the ability to have confidence at a young age really helps. Then, of course, talent and ability, but I think that for him, he's changed his body some. You can see him being slim (at 204 pounds, down from 213 in the spring), where he can be slimmer and trimmer.

"Then his prep on knowing what to do, and now knowing how to do it," continued Parker. "I think there are a lot of things he did well, based off of just good play and feeling the position. Now he knows it, and he knows how to do it better. I think you see that in the first two days.”

You can tell Parker has a lot of faith in the potential of this group, and now that unit needs to reward him for the faith he is showing in them.

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