Rakes Report #229: The boys of the NYPD choir were singing "Galway Bay," and the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day
Christmas Giving rolls on, as does a busy and critical stretch for the Irish roster.
~mandatory musical accompaniment~
Good morning, everyone. Wanted to begin by thanking those who have donated and/or shared the Christmas Giving GoFundMe link this week. It will be open through the new year as we try to hit the stretch goal of total points scored by Jackie Young in her high school, Notre Dame and professional careers. I also wanted to express my gratitude to everyone who came on the podcast over this past week (available on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your pods).
This is going to be a disjointed speed run through a bunch of different ideas and topics because when I started putting it together I was wary of breaking news throwing a wrench into any attempt at a cleaner narrative. Thanks for reading, thanks for donating.
Let’s start by addressing last week’s series of departures from the wide receiver room1. I think a really important rule for Decembers going forward is not to overreact to individual moves, even if they start adding up, until things have settled in early January and you have some sense of what the roster and coaching staff look like post-churn.* When you have a run at a position, it’s not necessarily fatal but it does ramp up the pressure in the transfer portal acquisitions, and failing that, on freshmen to produce immediately.
* Of course, settled is all relative here, because the portal opens up again after spring ball and you’ll remember Notre Dame had to go on an offensive coordinator search in February. We’re not following this sport because it’s normal and/or healthy.
Regarding Chansi Stuckey being forced out the day after Marcus Freeman said he wanted his staff to stay in place, not an ideal series of events. Whatever went down between them put Freeman in a weird spot where he was essentially being asked if he was keeping his offensive coordinator (and thus far, that seems to be the case) and then he ended up contradicting his answer when he wanted to replace the wide receiver coach shortly thereafter. There is still plenty of time for more changes to come on the staff, but that’s where we stand for now.
I thought Stuckey did a capable job over the last two years. Four individuals who had never played wide receiver at the college level before (due to either being a true freshman or a converted tailback) contributed this season, and Stuckey should get credit for that. He was also doing really well on the recruiting trail, as the 2023 and 2024 classes were strong. Should he get dinged for the lapsed development of Tobias Merriweather and Lorenzo Styles? Or course, although I don’t totally know how to allocate that blame. It will be interesting to follow his career going forward because there was a lot of praise heaped on him, some mixed results without veteran presences in the room (that part in no way his fault) and then the abrupt departure.
If you’re going to fire Stuckey with the room in that level of disrepair, you need to have a replacement ready, and Freeman apparently had one lined up in Mike Brown, who was coming off his first year in Madison under Luke Fickell. Brown had a great development track record at Cincinnati, basically a wide receiver Mike Mickens, which sounds great. I’ve seen concerns Freeman is leaning too much on his personal rolodex, but you’re going to have to point me to coaching staffs that don’t have a lot of guys the head coaches previously knew. Freeman has made good hires outside of his circle (Al Golden, Joe Rudolph), and had unfamiliar targets in mind for offensive coordinator with Andy Ludwig and Collin Klein.
But of course, just like Brian Kelly with Brian VanGorder, it gets a little dicey when you have a buddy at coordinator and have to make a tough call. We’ll hope this works out better for Freeman, because if Gerad Parker is retained as offensive coordinator there will not be a more high-pressure situation for a playcaller than opening on the road against a Mike Elko defense in searing heat in front of a military cult after an offseason of questions about whether he should have been retained. At various times over the past few months Parker showed enough promise I’m not writing him off if he remains in the position, but I would be lying if I didn’t follow some of the coordinator hires made by other programs with envy.
I was originally going to send a version of this Thursday morning but delayed thinking there might be some former personnel news. While that didn’t happen en masse, there are a few positive notes. First, Notre Dame has already added to the wide receiver room with Florida International grad transfer Kris Mitchell. I’ll refer you to Jamie Uyeyama’s write-up for all the details, but the short version is he’s a good deep ball threat that will upgrade the speed on the team. Now they just need to lock down at least two more at this position to feel comfortable.
To help replace Thomas Harper in the nickel, the Irish added Arizona State’s Jordan Clark, who was solid as a Sun Devil and is a nice option to have along with some of the defensive backs that will hopefully be returning for next season. Clark is the son of former Steelers safety Ryan Clark, and his commitment comes shortly after Ivan Taylor, son of former Steelers corner Ike Taylor, committed for the Class of 2025. The simulation is glitching a bit.
A quick hoops interlude for some plugs. If you’ve heard Sam Werner on the Report you are aware he knows more about the men’s program than anyone out there and is an absolute college basketball sicko (complimentary). He launched a new podcast last month covering the team, Three Point Jesus, and it will certainly be worth your time if you want to follow Micah Shrewsberry’s first season. On the women’s side, I’ve really been enjoying reading the recently launched Irish Alert newsletter. I assume most of those here are already familiar with the Dimes with Dara podcast but if not I recommended seeking it out on Irish Sports Daily hosted by the titular Dara Mabrey and our friend Greg Flammang.
And while we’re on non-football, congrats to Notre Dame alumna Becca Huffer for earning her way onto the LPGA tour. Awesome news and unneeded affirmation she’s considerably cooler than her older brother.
And while we’re on congrats, Xavier Watts won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the nation’s best defender without even being a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award, which goes to the best defensive back. The Nagurski award has been around since the early 90s and if you want to Remember Some Guys then I recommend checking out the list of winners Watts now joins, which includes Manti Te’o. Watts has said he’s playing in the bowl and will make a decision on the NFL after that. Here’s hoping he’s made an offer that makes coming back for another season anchoring the back end of the defense worthwhile.
Regardless of who ends up committing or not committing to Notre Dame from the portal, I was very heartened when Riley Leonard announced he intended to transfer and a lot of smart people immediately said he would be ending up in blue and gold. This was positive for a few reasons: The first is, just like Sam Hartman last year, the Irish coaching staff and NIL funds and whoever else needed to be involved were all working back channels like you need to if you want to compete at this level. The second and perhaps even better piece of news was that Riley Leonard is far into his undergraduate career but does not yet have a degree.
Why is that important? As we’ve discussed ad nauseam, the easiest players to get into Notre Dame via transfer were those coming off their freshman year or graduates due to academic concerns. In addition to Leonard, Clemson receiver Beaux Collins — a junior without a degree to the best of my knowledge — is also visiting. Now, I am making a potentially dangerous assumption that these visits are being set up with the understanding these players can all get in and there won’t be a last-minute rug pull. If that’s not the case, there would be few things more damaging to the program than leading talented players along, having them want to commit and then seeing it fall apart later because there was some hold up with a dean.
Notre Dame is not going to get every transfer target it sets its sights on because it’s a competitive market and you have to draw the line somewhere in potential bidding wars, but I’m pleasantly surprised by the aggressiveness and use of NIL so far. I don’t care if they choose to not broadcast how robust their effort is as long as players are adequately compensated.
I’ve seen some discussion about the importance of high school recruiting given the prevalence of the transfer portal and I want to very briefly underscore that it’s still so, so important. Look at the teams at the top of the polls and while they have some key transfers (particularly at quarterback) the bones of the rosters are via internal development. Many of the top picks are still going to be guys that show up, play early and depart after three (or if you’re very lucky, four) seasons, so you need to get them in the door first. The other benefit of a committed recruiting effort is even if a player enrolls elsewhere, if they start looking around in the transfer portal and have lingering warm feelings toward your school, it can’t hurt the cause.
If you’re relying on too many transfers, you’re opening yourself up to variance. Think of the 2021 Sparty team that won a Peach Bowl on the back of an excellent transfer class, tried to run it back with new additions and went 5-7. Or USC’s defense, or the specific randomness at Trojan wide receiver (they took Jordan Addison last year and he was a first round pick; this year they added Dorian Singer from Arizona — who was one of the top receivers in the Pac-12 in 2022 — and he finished with 23 catches). Next year’s Florida State team will be an interesting test case, as they crushed the transfer market for their recent run of success and are going to have to do so again because their high school recruiting has been fine but not spectacular.
If you’re going to fall out of the New Year’s Six, the Sun Bowl against a ranked opponent is not a bad place to land. Still processing the details of how exactly the ACC screwed Notre Dame out of the Pop-Tarts Bowl and the chance to victoriously consume a living mascot, a stolen opportunity from which it is likely we will never recover.
Some things I like about the Sun Bowl: It’s on CBS, the stadium is awesome, the crowd will be rocking and the opponent, Oregon State, has a ton of high-profile opt-outs to match the rearranged Irish depth chart they’ll be going against so it’ll be a fair fight on that front. These lower-tier bowls are now unique challenges for coaching staffs and I’m curious to see what Freeman and company can put together. The line is set a little over a touchdown in favor of Notre Dame, one of the larger spreads for any bowl, and 10-3 would look a lot better than 9-4 in the history books so while this game doesn’t really matter it also kind of does.
There are far more important things for next season that will occur in the coming weeks between signing day, transfer portal hunting and any coaching hires that need to be made but it would make things slightly more peaceful for Freeman if he notches his second straight postseason win. Hey, plus it’s a football game Notre Dame is playing in so I am going to be invested even if I should know better.
We’ll do another fuller update on roster (and staff?) changes once the dust settles because by sending this now I almost certainly guarantee a flood of news over the next few days. I will close by again directing you to the GoFundMe should you have any interest and please remember the great shirts are all still available for your gift giving with all proceeds going to the Center for the Homeless.
Chris Tyree, Tobias Merriweather, Rico Flores and Braylon James, to be specifc, in addition to their coach.