What Returns: Notre Dame Backfield
Notre Dame returns a great deal of experience to its backfield in 2020, especially at the quarterback position.
Before we dive into more thorough evaluations of the position groups heading into 2020, let's take a look at the experience and production that returns to the roster this season.
Between quarterback and running back, Notre Dame returned 4,561 total career yards and 41 total career touchdowns (passing, rushing, receiving) to the 2019 backfield.
Heading into 2020, Notre Dame's backfield returns a combined 7,443 total career yards of offense and 81 total career touchdowns.
QUARTERBACK
At quarterback, starter Ian Book returns with 23 career starts under his belt, and Notre Dame is 20-3 in those starts. Two of those three losses were to teams that finished the season ranked in the Top 10.
With Book having another full season under his belt the Irish are quite experienced at the position, at least in the starting lineup. Book enters the season with a chance to become Notre Dame's most statistically prolific quarterback not named Brady Quinn.
RUNNING BACK
The loss of Tony Jones Jr. to the NFL sapped the backfield of its most efficient running back, and as you can see not having Jones return drops the yards per carry average way down, which is due partly to the fact C'Bo Flemister was used as a goal line back at times last season.
The overall returning production from the 2019 roster and 2020 roster is otherwise quite similar. Notre Dame's 2018 backfield returned just 873 rushing yards, 41 receiving yards and nine total touchdowns and that group was part of a 12-0 regular season.
Notre Dame's 2020 backfield returns 1,303 total yards (rushing, receiving) and 15 total touchdowns, compared to just 914 total yards and nine touchdowns to the 2018 backfield.
Senior Jafar Armstrong is the most experienced and proven back on the roster. He has all four career starts at the position and returns with 505 career rushing yards and 256 career receiving yards to go with eight rushing touchdowns.
One thing to consider is that the total rushing yards that returns to the 2020 roster - irregardless of position - is much greater than it was in 2019.
The 2019 roster returned 495 career rushing yards and four touchdowns from the quarterback position and 25 yards from the wide receivers.
The 2020 roster returns 1,065 career rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns at the quarterback position, and the wide receivers return an additional 245 yards and two more scores.
Add that all up and the 2019 roster returned 1,625 career rushing yards and 17 career touchdowns.
The 2020 roster returns 2,315 career rushing yards and 25 career touchdowns.
Notre Dame has been linked with Stanford grad transfer running back Trevor Speights, but from an experience and proven production standpoint Speights does not move the needle.
Speights rushed for just 363 yards and one touchdown at Stanford and caught just seven passes for 54 yards. He averaged just 3.8 yards per rush.
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