Notre Dame X-Factors Must Thrive In 2023

Notre Dame will have a much different look on offense this season, that's for sure. The Fighting Irish have a new coordinator, a new offensive line coach, a new quarterback, there are some position changes and young faces trying to emerge.

We all know about veterans like All-American tackle Joe Alt, standout back Audric Estime, and of course quarterback Sam Hartman. We've talked about breakout players and much more this offseason, but if Notre Dame is going to truly get over the hump offensively there are some X-Factors on offense that must thrive.

These are players whose emergence could be just what Notre Dame needs to put the kind of elite offense on the field it needs to if the Irish are going to be a championship caliber football team. We broke those players down in our latest Irish Breakdown Podcast.

Here are those players:

CHRIS TYREE, WIDE RECEIVER - Tyree is a bit of an overlooked player by some despite the fact he enters the season as the top returning rusher and pass catcher on offense from a career numbers standpoint. There's no questioning his speed and home run ability, with Tyree already having a pair of 90+ yard touchdowns and two more 50+ yard touchdowns in his career.

Now a receiver, Tyree is finally getting the opportunity to become a focal point of the offense. Expect the Notre Dame coaches to find a lot of ways to get him the football early in the season, and he'll need to reward them for that faith. If Tyree steps up he adds a big time home run element to the pass game and run game.

Tyree becoming a force on offense has a major impact on those around him as well, as defending the outside receivers, tight ends and the run game become far more challenging if you have to key on Tyree out of the slot. Of course, Tyree needs to give defenses reason to game plan around him, and we don't yet know just how much of an impact he'll make. That's what makes him an X-factor. Tyree could have an enormous impact, but he still has plenty to prove.

JADARIAN PRICE, RUNNING BACK - Estime is clearly the lead back and I'm excited to see what Gi'Bran Payne can add to the offense as well, but Price is a different kind of player. Like Tyree, the sophomore from Texas adds big time home run tools to the backfield, assuming he's back to full speed by the time the regular season starts.

Price was an offensive star during the spring of 2022 before going down in the summer with an Achilles injury. We still don't know how healthy he'll be over the course of an entire season, but so far in camp he has shown that at least for now the explosiveness we saw the previous spring is still there.

Even if Estime and Payne are the top two runners, Price has the kind of home run skills that make the backfield incredibly dangerous, and he doesn't need the volume to do damage that other backs do. A breakout season from Price makes an already loaded backfield much more impactful, and diverse.

ROCCO SPINDLER, RIGHT GUARD - I thought about going with sophomore Billy Schrauth, but I already have a level of expectation for Schrauth. He'll have some brilliant moments, but he'll also look like a redshirt freshman at times. That means the right guard position has to be more steady. Senior Andrew Kristofic could be that man, but Spindler is the X-factor at guard.

Kristofic is a steady player, and he doesn't get enough credit for combining with Joe Alt to stabilize what was a poor offensive line in 2021. But Spindler brings a different style of play to the line, and one that could have a major impact on the Irish offense. Spindler is bigger than Kristofic and his style of play is about brute force. Footwork and conditioning have been issues for him in the past, but he started to surge late in the spring and he's carried that into fall camp.

If Spindler can win the starting job he adds beef and power to the line. If he can be a consistent player week after week it will take pressure off of Schrauth, and give the Irish line a powerful and beefy line that can hammer defenses in the box, forces defenses to condense, and open up more opportunities on the perimeter in the pass game.

HOLDEN STAES, TIGHT END - Junior Mitchell Evans showed what he's capable of in Notre Dame's bowl victory over South Carolina, and sophomore Eli Raridon is the unique talent that many Irish fans are waiting to see. But it's Staes that is the X-factor at tight end, and if he forces his way onto the field this season he adds an element Notre Dame didn't have at tight end in recent seasons.

Michael Mayer was a special player for the Irish, and the numbers he put up despite not having much help at times speaks volumes to his brilliance as a player. With Mayer and Kevin Bauman early in the season, and then Mayer and Evans combining later in the season, Notre Dame often put two tight ends on the field that were similar in style and usage. That played a role in why the second tight ends were so rarely targeted. Notre Dame's No. 2 tight ends caught just four passes in the regular season.

Staes is a much different player that serves as far more of a complementary style of player to Evans, Raridon and Bauman. Staes can line up all over the field, runs routes like a wide receiver, and shows impressive ball skills in practice. Putting him on the field as the No. 1 tight end in 11 personnel looks, or as a second tight end in 12 personnel looks, gives the Irish a tight end capable of stretching the field and running a completely different route package than we've seen out of the position in recent seasons.

OTHERS TO CONSIDER: There are several other players we could have listed here. In the breakdown video we discussed Tobias Merriweather as a possible X-factor. I decided to leave him out because we've spent so much time talking about him as a breakout player, and the fact that my expectations for Merriweather are already so high. That might not be fair to Merriweather, but that's where I'm at with him. Junior receiver Deion Colzie could also be a major X-factor if he's able to breakout this season. The light going on for Colzie could be scary for defenses, as it gives Notre Dame a 6-5 wideout with speed and a huge catch radius. In fact, Colzie could be X-factor No. 1, but I just need to see him do it before I go there. But it's hard not to get excited when you think about it possibly happening.

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2023 Recruiting Class Grades - Offense
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