Matt Hegarty’s unexpected departure opened up a job along the offensive line. With fifth-year center Nick Martin back in the middle, Hegarty choosing to go somewhere else to play center opened up the competition at left guard.
Sophomores Alex Bars and Quenton Nelson were pegged early by head coach Brian Kelly as the two likely candidates to fill the left guard job. And one-third of the way through spring practice, Notre Dame’s head coach has seen nothing that leads him to believe that the two first-year competitors won’t be ready come September.
It’s just a matter of how he’ll pick just one for the job.
Both highly-touted redshirt freshmen are as good as they came into South Bend advertised. Yet they both bring a different style of play to the game.
Here’s how Kelly described his two freshmen, and where they stood moving forward in the battle for the left guard job.
“I would probably handicap it in this respect. Quenton Nelson is extremely explosive, strong, and can overwhelm a defender,” Kelly said of the 325-pounder. “Alex Bars is extremely efficient and technically so far above the normal redshirt-freshman. Technically he’s so good.
“You have two guys here, one who physically at times can be dominant, and one who you think he’s a junior, that he’s been in the program three or four years.You turn on the film and to me, it’s going to be hard to make a call because you like what they both do at that position.”
If Ronnie Stanley didn’t return for his senior season, it’s likely Bars would be playing left tackle right now. But Stanley’s return keeps Notre Dame’s best offensive lineman on campus, and allows Bars to fight for the final open spot in the starting lineup before likely shifting outside in 2016.
While Bars isn’t the prototype that Kelly and offensive line coach Harry Hiestand look for in an interior player, he’s too good not to play. Kelly was candid about making sure that both Bars and Nelson are going to play in 2015.
“They’ll have to both play. They’re going to have to get in the game,” Kelly said. “It might be that Bars plays some tackle, too.
“If he’s the guard he’s the guard. We don’t see Q as a tackle right now, but they’re just guys that are going to have to play. They’re both going to see some playing time for us.”