2026 Fall Camp Thread

Irish#1

Irish#1

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Domina Nostra said:
The offense could fall short of expectations and end up being mediocre, at least for the first few games. But there is no world where this defense isn't very, very good, very, very quickly. There are just too many pieces. It would be a failure of epic proportions.

Our weaknesses on defenses would have been considered perfectly acceptable in other years. Only the DTs, the second corner position, and the nickel have the potential to underwhelm. But in each of those cases (1) the floor isn't that low, and (2) the DC can very easily compensate with excellent LBs, excellent safeties, super-athletic DEs, and the best corner in the country.

I just can't worry about the defense at all.
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I think the defense will be fine and the offense will be fine.
 
NDhoosier

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Guys, we know this defense is going to be good. If the offense won, that is a good sign. Honestly, most of thought that the offense was going to be pretty darn good this year to begin with.. at least I did. A returning starting QB that is a Heisman frontrunner, an improved OL, and a deep/talented WR corps. I expected the offense to be much improved from last year.
 
FightingIrishLover7

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IrishFanForever23 said:
ISD said was a lot of mental errors in the scrimmage and ST wasn’t great with kickers missing kicks.
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arrowryan

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NDFAN2008 said:
I see many people don't even have our RB room as top 15 in the nation they'll learn quick.
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Even the guys at II basically doubted Aneyas Williams all offseason.

Their biggest argument was “well there’s no way he can replicate what Love and Price did”. Yeah no shit!

They acted as if Williams didn’t take full advantage of the limited opportunities he had. I always thought he played really well. I’d even take it a step further and say he had a better CFP performance than Price, especially the PSU game.
 
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NDFAN2008

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arrowryan said:
Even the guys at II basically doubted Aneyas Williams all offseason.

Their biggest argument was “well there’s no way he can replicate what Love and Price did”. Yeah no shit!

They acted as if Williams didn’t take full advantage of the limited opportunities he had. I always thought he played really well. I’d even take it a step further and say he had a better CFP performance than Price, especially the PSU game.
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Is there any backs in the country that can replicate what Love and Price did? lol... Williams averaged 9.3 yards per carry last year on 24 carries. Garbage time or not those are still huge numbers. Williams in 2024 average 6.4 YPC as a Freshman on 34 carries. I'm going to go out and say that Williams averages around 6.3 YPC and will end up with around 1100 yards in the regular season. I think Williams is gonna be RB 1 and they'll rotate guys to figure out number 2. I wasn't as high on James last year as he didn't look all that great in the limited time he got. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the Freshman end up taking over the 2 or 3 spot.
 
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NotKoon

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arrowryan said:
Even the guys at II basically doubted Aneyas Williams all offseason.

Their biggest argument was “well there’s no way he can replicate what Love and Price did”. Yeah no shit!

They acted as if Williams didn’t take full advantage of the limited opportunities he had. I always thought he played really well. I’d even take it a step further and say he had a better CFP performance than Price, especially the PSU game.
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It really is remarkable how little respect he is getting. In the aftermath of the playoff, the general sentiment was there was no way they’d be able to keep all 3 RBs. There was serious debate about who would you rather have back Williams or Price. IIRC, I think the majority was higher on Williams. Now suddenly he’s supposed to be a massive step down
 
Domina Nostra

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Crazy Balki said:
With all the respect in the world to Al Washington, I'm fully confident that the DT product this year is going to be excellent. Charlie Partridge holds that much of a high regard in my book.

It's also very telling that you had some tangibly stout options to start and all the buzz is that Mukam is getting reps with the 1s with Onye. Partridge fought hard to get him back from the portal, and something tells me we're going to see that unfold this season.
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I tend to agree with you on DTs. Especially if Onye lives up to his potential, they could be extremely good. But I do think they lack a guy that one guy they usually have that has played at a high-level consistently across and entire season and can be built around. (Maybe that's Brewu?)

So if turns out that they are a little more pedestrian than we expect, no one is going to say, "How on Earth did Mukam, Gray, Onye, Hughes, and Brewu fail to dominate after everything they'd done in previous years?" We would just read it as over-enthusiasm from Spring and Fall camps.

That is the not case with LB and Safety. They absolutely have been great so should remain great. There are very objective reasons to expect very big things at CB and DE too, although it isn't quite as proven. But DT has enough question marks going into the year that it can't be chalked up as a shock if they are good but not great.
 
Domina Nostra

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NotKoon said:
It really is remarkable how little respect he is getting. In the aftermath of the playoff, the general sentiment was there was no way they’d be able to keep all 3 RBs. There was serious debate about who would you rather have back Williams or Price. IIRC, I think the majority was higher on Williams. Now suddenly he’s supposed to be a massive step down
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I agree that the lack of love for AW is wild. I am old enough to remember the staff trusting freshman AW on mnay third downs, despite having JL and JP on the roster.
 
Dale

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Crazy Balki said:
With all the respect in the world to Al Washington, I'm fully confident that the DT product this year is going to be excellent. Charlie Partridge holds that much of a high regard in my book.

It's also very telling that you had some tangibly stout options to start and all the buzz is that Mukam is getting reps with the 1s with Onye. Partridge fought hard to get him back from the portal, and something tells me we're going to see that unfold this season.
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I don’t think we have “1s” at DT. We will likely see very even PT between the 5 up until BYU, then we can see if anyone starts to separate. IMO Onye might end up closer to 5 than 1 by end of season. We have Brewu and 4 other guys.
 
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FOTY977

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Domina Nostra said:
I agree that the lack of love for AW is wild. I am old enough to remember the staff trusting freshman AW on mnay third downs, despite having JL and JP on the roster.
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I’ll take a Missouri RB with a chip on his shoulder all day long. Higher rated than Kyren Williams coming out of HS, proven big game experience, low mileage after a year sitting behind and learning from 2 first rounders. Look out.
 
Domina Nostra

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Dale said:
I don’t think we have “1s” at DT. We will likely see very even PT between the 5 up until BYU, then we can see if anyone starts to separate. IMO Onye might end up closer to 5 than 1 by end of season. We have Brewu and 4 other guys.
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I agree on not having proven 1s. But we have 5-6 guys who have obvious 1 potential.

I think Onye finally emerges this year.
 
stlnd01

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Dale said:
I don’t think we have “1s” at DT. We will likely see very even PT between the 5 up until BYU, then we can see if anyone starts to separate. IMO Onye might end up closer to 5 than 1 by end of season. We have Brewu and 4 other guys.
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And that's fine. There is no unit where depth matters more than DT. We have a bunch of guys you can count on. Rotate them and keep them fresh and healthy.
 
Dale

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stlnd01 said:
And that's fine. There is no unit where depth matters more than DT. We have a bunch of guys you can count on. Rotate them and keep them fresh and healthy.
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Yup. Under discussed is also people normally divide the schedule into easy and hard part. The schedule is also very stylistically broken up. Wisconsin (1), Rice (2), MSU (3), Stanford (6), BYU (7), Navy (8) are all gonna run the ball heavily. Miami, Cuse and SMU 3 pass attacks to finish. Which I think stands to benefit guys like Mukam and Gray needing to come into their own in those games to begin the season.
 
NDdomer2

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Question regarding concerns on RB -

1) was it ever reported that we were reaching out to portal RBs?
2) have we ever had a glaring hole/concern about a position group that the staff didn't try to address in the portal?
 
RudyVerse

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RB is the least of my worries. There’s really no easier position to replace if you’ve recruited well and have some upper class men.

Great RBs rarely return unless they’re 5* sophomores and have no choice.
 
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