Notre Dame Practice Report - Part One

Notre Dame held another fall practice today, and the Irish Breakdown staff was there to see the action. We were able to see the first five periods, and here are our thoughts on the Irish offensive line, linebackers and a defensive line note.

*** Senior center Zeke Correll impressed during drills. He plays with very good pad level, his power at the point of attack has improved and so has his foot quickness. I'm looking forward to seeing how he plays in team periods during the next full open practice. Junior Blake Fisher's foot quickness has taken a big step forward. He is really moving well through drills, playing with good pad level and he is finishing well from a technique standpoint. I want to see if he can play with power with the slimmer figure, but he's really moving well in drills. Much better foot fire coming off the ball so far than we saw last year.

*** I continue to be impressed with the foot quickness and power profile that sophomore Billy Schrauth shows at guard. He tended to lunge forward a bit at times once engaged in contact, but overall he was quite good today during drills.

*** Sophomore Aamil Wagner got work at right guard in yesterday's practice, but today he was working at left guard. Wagner is still a bit of a work in progress from a footwork standpoint, and Joe Rudolph focuses on that a lot with him. What also stands out is how athletic Wagner actually is. He's able to overcome that lack of consistent foot technique with a really good burst off the line. On one particular snap. they were running an outside zone track, and Rudolph told Wagner he needed to get more width, but even with that Wagner was able to easily overtake the guard and make the block.

*** Senior Andrew Kristofic continues to get work at right tackle. That's an interesting development, and I'm curious to see if that's just in drills or if he's also doing this in practice. What we don't know yet is if this is just cross training during individual drills, or if these moves are a bit more permanent.

*** Freshman Sullivan Absher mostly worked as a defender during today's drills, but I noticed a couple of impressive things about him. For one, he puts up a good fight and gives the OL a really good look. Number two is he's very, very long, a lot longer than I thought he would be. In the limited reps we saw he shows a good get off.

*** Junior Pat Coogan is a strong kid and Rudolph seems to like him a lot, but he doesn't move as well as the other linemen, that is also noticeable.

*** Today continued a week long trend of the Notre Dame defensive staff spending time on different aspects of forcing turnovers. Today they worked on stripping and then scooping. One defender would punch the ball out (literally), and then a second trailing defender would have to scoop it up without going to the ground.

*** Watching drills I continue to be impressed with the foot quickness of the Notre Dame linebackers. During today's drills I was more impressed with Preston Zinter and Drayk Bowen among the young players. Both went through the different drills with confidence, and their change of direction really stood out. Jaiden Ausberry also showed off really smooth athleticism, and I was also impressed with how well sophomore Tre Reader moved in drills.

*** Speaking of linebackers, today was the most "in control" that we've seen Max Bullough. Golden and Freeman both spend a lot of time around the linebackers, but more and more Bullough is taking control of the instruction, and he's impressive so far.

*** Got a chance to see the defensive linemen in action today, and a young player that stood out is freshman Brenan Vernon. His get off is really impressive and he's a lot longer than I expected him to be. He looks very confident working through drills and he has really powerful hands.

I'll have more later on the offensive skill players and the secondary.

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2024 Commit Rankings - Defense

2023 Recruiting Class Grades - Offense
2023 Recruiting Class Grades - Defense

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