Over the weekend, UND.com took a closer look at the skill position battles during spring practice. Let’s take a closer look at their closer look as we over-analyze their most recent practice report.
With the Irish halfway done with their work before the Blue-Gold game, we’re starting to see more and more of the team’s identity reveal itself.
0:07 -- A sensible V-neck sweater for Jack Nolan, who is going to need to replace that Adidas wear come summer. I think we need to force Jack to have the best garage sale ever. (I’m starting this up on Twitter today. Tell @NDJackNolan you’d be interested.)
0:16 -- Polar Vortex. In addition to being the face of ND athletics, he’s a better meteorologist than the crew we have out here in Los Angeles. Did Jack mention that Loftus is Notre Dame’s indoor football practice facility?
0:22 -- To the drills. CJ Prosise (20) and Matthias Farley (41) do some hand-checking.
0:24 -- Chris Brown (2) gets a free, inside release on Rashad Kinlaw (26).
0:28 -- Will Fuller (7) looks like a smooth operator here, beating Cole Luke (3) on an in-cut.
0:32 -- Nice job by Eilar Hardy (4) breaking up a pass to Tarean Folston (25) after the ball hit his hands.
0:42 -- Cam McDaniel (33) gets his chance to break the squad down.
1:02 -- Everett Golson and Malik Zaire take turns throwing to walk-ons.
1:07 -- Jalen Brown (21) doesn’t get a good jam on Corey Robinson (88) and Big Bird adjusts to the under thrown ball and makes the catch easily.
1:11 -- Everett Golson rips an inside post throw to Prosise who makes the catch on Brown. Perhaps we were all just a year early on Prosise breaking out in this offense. He’s a big, physical kid.
1:12 -- Red Face Alert: If Golson tries to float this ball over the middle of the field in a game, you’re going to see a TV camera focused on Brian Kelly really quickly. Golson dangerously floats a ball to Ben Koyack that Joe Schmidt breaks up.
1:16 -- Prosise makes a nice catch on Matthias Farley.
1:18 -- Folston looks smooth catching this pass out of the backfield.
1:20 -- Zaire winds and fires to Amir Carlisle (3) for what looks like a simulated touchdown.
1:24 -- Brian Kelly watches some form tackling drills as we see former Irish captain and current graduate assistant Kyle McCarthy coaching ‘em up.
1:29 -- BVG and Bobby Elliott work some flow drills as Jaylon Smith shows some nice hip swivel.
1:35 -- Zaire misses his intended receiver.
1:43 -- Chris Brown gets a step on KeiVarae Russell (6) with a nice stutter step and makes an excellent catch for a touchdown. Not sure who made the throw but it was on the money, too.
1:51 -- Great play by Matthias Farley, getting a hand on the pass to break it up before Ben Koyack could get to it. But that’s a roughly 35-40 yard missile that Golson flicked off his back foot.
1:53 -- Torii Hunter Jr. (16) hits the jets and blows right by walk-on Connor Cavalaris.
2:00 -- Nice big bodied move by Koyack, breaking away from Austin Collinsworth (28), who really didn’t have a chance.
2:05 -- That’s Farley again, this time in run support. That’s the kind of “outside in” crash into the box tackling that Kelly was talking about when making the move.
2:07 -- Great touch by Zaire on the roll, floating a pass over the defender and into Mike Heuerman‘s (9) arms. The rising sophomore is an interesting test case for this offense. He’s not big enough to be a mauler on the line of scrimmage, but could be a really tough match up in space.
2:11 -- Golson fires a rocket on the role to Brown, who can’t quite come up with it.
2:13 -- Golson hits Will Fuller at the pylon, beating Jalen Brown to the outside for a touchdown in red zone drills.
2:18 -- Nowhere to go for Cam McDaniel into the teeth of the Irish defense.
2:23 -- Farley getting his hands on Prosise doesn’t stop him from making the catch and winning the 1-on-1 battle.
2:30 -- Hey there, Greg Bryant (1). Don’t think we didn’t see that fancy one-handed grab you made. Or that you broke away from Eilar Hardy and got up field for some more yards.
2:32 -- Corey Robinson is getting mugged by someone here.
2:34 -- Max Redfield (10) breaks up a pass heading for Carlisle.
2:39 -- See that 6-foot-5 gazelle trotting down the field, Irish defense? That’s Corey Robinson. You’re going to want to cover him. Robinson rolls into the end zone for a touchdown to end the highlights. (It looks like Rashad Kinlaw fell down and Elijah Shumate was hung out to dry as he came over late to cover.)