Notre Dame Football: Spring Practice Intel

Notre Dame has now passed the halfway point in spring practice as the program gets closer and closer to its April 22nd Blue-Gold Game. Irish Breakdown has worked the last two weeks to gather as much intel from as many sources as possible to see how things are going so far this spring.

Over the last week we've published two intel pieces based on what we've gathered, with a feature on the offense and another on the defense. The intel pieces were published on the Champions Lounge, which is our premium message board. Here are those features:

Notre Dame Spring Intel - Offense

Notre Dame Spring Intel - Defense

Here is a sample of the intel feature, which focuses on the continued emergence of junior defensive tackle Jason Onye.

"I continue to hear that junior Jason Onye has been outstanding all spring, and that has been consistent with all of the sources I’ve spoken with. Onye has always been an athletic player but he lacked size and feel for the game, due to him only playing football for two years prior to arriving at Notre Dame. He’s over 290 pounds but hasn’t lost any athleticism, and his burst off the line has actually improved. The biggest reason for Onye’s improvement is that he’s really figured the game out more. His technique is better, he is showing a better feel for the game and he’s learned how to consistently bring it every rep and every practice. Onye is making a ton of plays this spring, and if that continues into the fall the expectation is that he’ll not only be a key rotation player, he’ll be expected to be a force up the middle."

There are a ton of updates about different players on the Irish roster. We talk about the strong spring battle at quarterback between Sam Hartman and Tyler Buchner. The spring breakout of wide receiver Tobias Merriweather and the emergence of sophomore guard Billy Schrauth are more topics of discussion on the offense. Some notes on Chris Tyree and his willingness to move to wide receiver are more examples of what we discuss about the Irish offense.

On defense, we talked about a lot more than just Onye on the defensive line. We discuss the spring spring from transfer Javontae Jean-Baptiste, the adjustment of Rylie Mills moving inside and other interior defenders.

At linebacker, we discuss about whether or not Marist Liufau is showing improvement, a spring breakout from sophomore Nolan Ziegler, what role classmate Jaylen Sneed is working towards and the play of standout freshmen Drayk Bowen and Jaiden Ausberry. On the back end, we discuss what we are hearing about freshman cornerback Christian Gray, a breakout from Xavier Watts and what we are hearing about senior Ramon Henderson and transfer safety Thomas Harper.

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