Ten Reasons To Be Excited About Notre Dame Football In 2023

Notre Dame kicks off the second fall camp of the Marcus Freeman era on Wednesday, and the conversation about the team is quite interesting. For some reason there doesn't seem to be the excitement about this Notre Dame team as I've seen in past year.

I am not quite sure why that is, even though I have some theories, but whatever the reason, I believe Fighting Irish fans should be very excited about this football team. In a recent Irish Breakdown show I broke down the 10 reasons that I'm excited about the potential of this football team, and why Notre Dame fans should also be very excited about what this team can be.

Here are my biggest reasons for thinking this Notre Dame 2023 football team can be very, very good.

1. Experience - Notre Dame is a much more experienced football team than they were a year ago, and that is true in several areas. Obviously the head coach has a year under his belt, and that experience should be quite beneficial. We already started to see that, with Notre Dame overcoming its rough 3-3 start to finish 6-1 down the stretching. Notre Dame went 3-1 against Top 25 opponents during that final stretch as well, including a 35-14 win over then No.4 Clemson.

The Irish coaching staff is also more experienced from the standpoint coaches like Al Golden, Al Washington, Chansi Stuckey, Deland McCullough and Gerad Parker are in their second season with the program. That means all but three Notre Dame coaches are returning.

There is also plenty of experience returning (and arriving) to the offense and defense. Notre Dame returns 101 career starts from players in a Notre Dame uniform, and they add 45 career starts from Sam Hartman. That's 146 career starts on offense, and that's not even the most experienced side of the ball. Notre Dame also returns 149 career starts from defensive players in a Notre Dame uniform, and 31 more starts from transfers Thomas Harper (Oklahoma State), Javontae Jean-Baptiste (Ohio State) and Antonio Carter II (Rhode Island).

That's a total of 250 career starts at Notre Dame and a total of 326 career starts returning for the Irish.

2. Sam Hartman - Of course, Hartman is a big reason for the excitement. Notre Dame has obviously not had a quarterback with his experience and past production returning to the lineup since the Charlie Weis era when Brady Quinn and Jimmy Clausen were coming back from 3,000-yard seasons and were entering their third seasons as starters.

It goes beyond just Hartman's talent and production, it's that combined with the talent that he will be playing with. It's one thing to have a talented quarterback, but to have a talented quarterback to plug into a lineup with a lot of talent.

3. 2022 Finish On Defense - The Notre Dame defense caught a lot of flak for its performance last season, and in some ways it was deserved. Golden's first defense struggled in some key moments to come up with necessary stops that could have led to an Irish victory. We saw that in the fourth quarter against Ohio State, in the fourth quarter against Marshall, in the fourth quarter against Stanford and throughout the USC game.

If Notre Dame wants to be a championship team the defense must play better than it did a season ago, but there were a lot of stretches where it did just that. While the focus is on the games they came up short, there were even more moments where the defense played lights out. Just look at how it finished the season.

The stats above are from every game against non-option opponents (Navy) after the loss to Stanford. If Notre Dame can carry this performance into the 2023 season they could be an outstanding defense. The return of the entire full-time coaching staff, 12 players with multiple starts in a Notre Dame uniform, and three important transfers has me confident the Irish defense is going to be much, much better this season.

4. Offensive Line Potential - Freeman has stated his football team is going to be line driven, and this is especially true on offense. Notre Dame should be poised to be even better up front in 2023. Last season the line got off to a slow start, but by the end of September the unit was playing at a much higher level. Harry Hiestand rebuilt the foundation he established in his first stint in South Bend, and that's the foundation that Joe Rudolph is building on.

Of course, the return of All-American left tackle Joe Alt, talented right tackle Blake Fisher and center Zeke Correll helps a great deal. Notre Dame entered the 2022 season with just two players with 10+ career starts (Jarrett Patterson, Josh Lugg), and that number is three this season. There are also three other players on the depth chart with multiple career starts (Andrew Kristofic, Tosh Baker, Michael Carmody) as well as several talented younger players pushing for spots.

There is a lot of talent returning to the line in 2023 and the expectation is it will be one of the nation's best group of blockers.

5. Perimeter Talent On Defense - Go look at the national champions in the College Football Playoff era. Almost every single of them had really good to outstanding play at cornerback, and they had NFL talent at cornerback. Notre Dame's best team of the last decade (2018) also happens to have been the team with the best cornerback tandem (Julian Love, Troy Pride Jr.) of the last decade.

That's not a coincidence.

Having Cam Hart and Benjamin Morrison manning the outside cornerback positions gives Notre Dame a chance to put the nation's best cover duo on the field. If they can keep playing at a high level the Irish could have the kind of talent and production at cornerback to have an elite defense.

6. Depth Of Talent - There will be injuries this season. There will be some players who don't quite live up to expectations. That's why it's imperative to have very good depth, and far too often in recent seasons the Irish were not nearly deep enough to make it through an entire season unscathed.

This Notre Dame team is incredibly deep at almost every position outside of quarterback. Notre Dame returns 32 players with a start, 27 players with at least two career starts, 22 players with at least four career starts, and 12 players with at least 10 career starts, and that doesn't include Freshman All-American Benjamin Morrison.

7. Skill Diversity On Offense - One of my favorite aspects of the Notre Dame offense, at least from a potential standpoint, is the different type of talent the Irish return this season. You have power backs, slasher backs, big receivers, fast receivers, possession receivers, after the catch players, traditional tight ends, athletic tight ends ..... this unit has a lot of talent and potential. There is a lot to prove with this unit, but it isn't a talent issue, that's for sure.

8. Front Seven Potential - Like the offense, the front seven has a lot to prove this season, but there is a lot of talent and potential. We saw in the bowl game how well Jordan Botelho and Rylie Mills played in replacement of 2022 starters. That duo combined for 3.5 sacks in the game, and they are being asked to lead the defense in 2023. The Irish linebackers return plenty of experience, and the younger classes have even more God-given ability. There are great numbers inside, and although the edge position isn't in quite as good of a position from a numbers standpoint, there is plenty of athletic potential in the group.

Now we need to see if it can turn that potential into production.

9. Schedule Sets Up Well - Unlike last season, when the Irish kicked the season off with a national title contender, the 2023 schedule gives the Irish a chance to build up a little bit before their first big test, which comes in week three when they travel to NC State. That should allow the new coaches on offense, the new arrivals and the new starters to get up to speed.

Notre Dame's "big three" on the schedule is the same: Ohio State, Clemson and USC. Last season the Irish played two of the three on the road, and they lost both of the road games. This season the Irish get the Buckeyes and Trojans at home, and they have to travel to play the Tigers.

10. No Dominant Teams - Winning a title isn't always about how good you are. You could have had a great team in 2019, but you weren't going to beat Joe Burrow and LSU, and it would have been really tough to beat the Tigers and Trevor Lawrence in 2018. Those types of teams might emerge this season, but going into the season there just isn't that kind of team.

Also, the programs that are consistently ranked as the top programs (Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson) are all breaking in new quarterbacks. Beating those teams won't be easy, but it's a bit more doable this season when you consider the kind of team Notre Dame has coming back, and the kind of team that other teams are bringing back.

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Irish Breakdown Content

2023 Scholarship Chart
2023 Football Schedule

Notre Dame 2024 Scholarship Offers

2024 Commit Rankings - Offense
2024 Commit Rankings - Defense

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

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