General team info

[SeekNDestroy]

I love our D next year.

The secondary will be great again.
The Linebackers will be elite.
The DE position will be special with Traore, Young, Burnham & Thomas.
Rubio is solid & Hinisch will gnaw people’s kneecaps.
They just need one more stud DT that is a difference maker. Without having to spend money on a QB or DE, they should be able to get a pretty good DT.

Hinish just needs to get hooked up with Pat Kuntz’s um, trainer. Kuntz went from 270lbs his 1st and 2nd year to 300lbs his 3rd year.

 

[SeekNDestroy]

I love our D next year.

The secondary will be great again.
The Linebackers will be elite.
The DE position will be special with Traore, Young, Burnham & Thomas.
Rubio is solid & Hinisch will gnaw people’s kneecaps.
They just need one more stud DT that is a difference maker. Without having to spend money on a QB or DE, they should be able to get a pretty good DT.

Any chance they slide Young inside?

 

[slick7410]

Name	Height	Weight	Years left in '25
Sean Sevillano Jr.	6'1''	320	4
Armel Mukam	6'3"	302	3
Devan Houstan	6'4"	297	3
Cole Mullins	6'4"	265	4
Brenan Vernon	6'5"	262	3

Definitely need a stud from the portal.

Also, we do have 5 interior players currently in development in the program (not playing much now). Ideally in year 3 for Mukam, Houstan, Vernon - there is at least some depth snaps in there; all were pretty well thought of coming in. If they go after 2 that will be an answer I suppose.

 

[fightingirish26]

Also, who's to say what happens with Bryce Youngs physical development this off-season, he's still very young and might just keep naturally stacking on lbs.

 

[SDIrishFan]

Name	Height	Weight	Years left in '25
Sean Sevillano Jr.	6'1''	320	4
Armel Mukam	6'3"	302	3
Devan Houstan	6'4"	297	3
Cole Mullins	6'4"	265	4
Brenan Vernon	6'5"	262	3

Definitely need a stud from the portal.

Also, we do have 5 interior players currently in development in the program (not playing much now). Ideally in year 3 for Mukam, Houstan, Vernon - there is at least some depth snaps in there; all were pretty well thought of coming in. If they go after 2 that will be an answer I suppose.

Need an impact DT in the portal.

Hard to count on any of those 5 guys next year when they've played virtually no minutes this year.

 

[IAIrish]

IMO, they'll need 2 DT transfers next year. Hopefully at least one of them has more than 1 year of eligibility left. We can't just keep bringing in guys with only 1 year left to play.

They'll need 3 imo if Onye isn't back. The only reason to want guys with multiple years of eligibility is to increase the talent pool as there just isn't a lot of Braden Fiske's out there (nfl caliber 1 year mercs).

I wish we would've seen some flashes from Mukam, Houstan or Sevillano this year. Knowing one or more of them would be absolute contributors would be one of the few missing pieces in next year's D.

At this point, Hinish the younger is who he is, which is a whirling dervish good for 10 snaps of chaos. Any more than that and his lack of size becomes a negating factor. He's past the point of trying to stack weight on and hope he can be as productive imo ...

 

[ND7983]

Any chance they slide Young inside?

I personally think Young can play anywhere he wants.
But I don’t know if they will slide him over or not?
But there was talk that Burnham could slide inside on passing downs.
It would be ridiculous to have Young & Burnham inside, with Traore and Thomas/Botehlo? on the outside, all rushing the passer on passing situations.

 

[PolishDomer]

I'll say this about Marcus. He usually gets his teams up for the bigger games on the road than the ones we should win no problem. Navy game they jumped out early and never looked back. And a &m is starting to look like a bigger win every week. I'm getting to the point where I'm more worried about the northern Illinois games and the power 4 games against shitty teams like Georgia tech and Stanford

Based on that philosophy, need to schedule OSU, Michigan, Oregon, Penn State plus Alabama, LSU, Georgia...win those games and we are #1 forever LOL

 

[dankgesang]

I'll say this about Marcus. He usually gets his teams up for the bigger games on the road than the ones we should win no problem. Navy game they jumped out early and never looked back. And a &m is starting to look like a bigger win every week. I'm getting to the point where I'm more worried about the northern Illinois games and the power 4 games against shitty teams like Georgia tech and Stanford

 

[NDFAN2008]

10-2 probably the goal for next season considering all the turnover on D + Riley. Almost definitely should be enough to get a playoff birth with that schedule.

Turnover on D? We should be deep at Vyper and DE, Linebaker deep, we have Rubio at DT, Hinsh, Onye, we need some of the young guys to step up but they’ll target a transfer too. Safety Schuler is back and we got a great DB class coming in.

 

[NDMatt91]

Listening to II insider today, talking about next years DL depth, and they had very ominous statements about Onye not being back. Didn’t shut the door but it didn’t sound good. Wonder what he did…

Just listened to the podcast:

-Prister believes they need 2 DT's from the portal and maybe even a 3rd DT
-Prister hasn't heard a lot of positive things about Houston
-O'Malley: "Realistically, you need someone better than Rubio and then someone almost as good as Rubio."
-Prister: "None of the guys coming in are plug and play. They've recruited themselves into this situation. Al Washington has recruited himself into this situation."
-Prister thinks Onye might be done

I think next year is a put-up or shut-up year for Washington on the recruiting trail. He needs to bring in probably 3 blue-chip DL recruits at minimum, with at least 2 of them being pure DT's. He needs to hit a home run with the 2026 class. He can't take anymore projects, particularly at DT, and can't bank on bringing in more 250-ish pound DE's and try and turn them into 300-ish pound DT's.

 

[317Irish]

Turnover on D? We should be deep at Vyper and DE, Linebaker deep, we have Rubio at DT, Hinsh, Onye, we need some of the young guys to step up but they’ll target a transfer too. Safety Schuler is back and we got a great DB class coming in.

You don’t consider losing All Americans Morrison and Watts along with Cross, Mills, and Kiser to be considerable turnover?

 

[fightingirish26]

You don’t consider losing All Americans Morrison and Watts along with Cross, Mills, and Kiser to be considerable turnover?

That's standard turnover for a top 10 program

 

[calvegas04]

So bad recruiting by the staff

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

Why so much talk about next season? Must be bye week blues

 

[ND7983]

Why so much talk about next season? Must be bye week blues

Because all the podcasts that cover ND are discussing the young players who could get more time with 4 games left (and still Redshirt), and their ability to play next season.
That’s standard this time of year with a bye week.

 

[NDMatt91]

So bad recruiting by the staff

To be fair, II pretty much only called out Al Washington's recruiting on the defensive side. They praised Mickens.

 

[stlnd01]

You don’t consider losing All Americans Morrison and Watts along with Cross, Mills, and Kiser to be considerable turnover?

I see Moore and Grey, Shuler, and a whole fleet of good young LBs and I think we'll be fine. Also Traore on one side and Young on the other. The only spot on the D where we don't just reload might be interior DL.

 

[SDIrishFan]

I can’t see Traore or Botello being healthy to start the year…

Or Craig

 

[Giddyup]

Yeah but did you stay at a holiday inn last night….

 

[stpeteirish]

I can’t see Traore or Botello being healthy to start the year…

Or Craig

all torn ACLs. Standard recovery is 12 months. Botelho and Craig hurt vs Purdue, Traore vs Louisville. So yeah, probably not back until 3rd or 4th game.

 

[GowerND11]

all torn ACLs. Standard recovery is 12 months. Botelho and Craig hurt vs Purdue, Traore vs Louisville. So yeah, probably not back until 3rd or 4th game.

In 1998 it was 12 months. Today it's more like 6-9 months. They can possibly do non contact drills/some kind of conditioning by the spring.

 

[NDFAN2008]

Also, who's to say what happens with Bryce Youngs physical development this off-season, he's still very young and might just keep naturally stacking on lbs.

I brought this up maybe he gets moved inside

 

[IrishFanForever23]

all torn ACLs. Standard recovery is 12 months. Botelho and Craig hurt vs Purdue, Traore vs Louisville. So yeah, probably not back until 3rd or 4th game.

12 months for ACL is not the normal recovery anymore. Also, if I recall correctly one of the podcasts said it wasn't ACL for Botelho and was a different ligament, so his recovery could be different.

 

[IrishSpartan]

ACL is more like 6-8 months these days. Treatments and surgeries for this procedure have become so much better in the past 10 years.

 

[SDIrishFan]

Except we have Mitchell Evans who is 12 months out from his, and still doesn't look explosive. Yeah he's played all year, so his "recovery" was like 9-10 months, but he's spent the last 2 months "trying to get up to speed".

Maybe not as big of a deal for Craig, but it is for Traore. If Botelho isn't ACL, that's great news.

 

[Terry Jillery]

Anyone know how our recruiting the past few years stacks up to our recruiting leading up to 88? I’m too young to know.

 

[ulukinatme]

I'll believe Pat Narduzzi can put back to back good seasons together when I see it.

Very true, only problem is Narduzzi hates Notre Dame with a passion and he'll sellout anytime they play us just for the chance at an upset, even if it means tanking the rest of their season. It's a way bigger game for Pitt than it ever is for us.

 

[Crazy Balki]

Very true, only problem is Narduzzi hates Notre Dame with a passion and he'll sellout anytime they play us just for the chance at an upset, even if it means tanking the rest of their season. It's a way bigger game for Pitt than it ever is for us.

And look how that has worked out for him:

2023: L 7-58
2020: L 3-45
2018: L 14-19
2015: L 30-42

The only game that has been even remotely close was 2018. The other three were blowouts (ND was up 42-17 with less than 5 minutes before Pitt got 2 garbage time TDs).

 

[ulukinatme]

And look how that has worked out for him:

2023: L 7-58
2020: L 3-45
2018: L 14-19
2015: L 30-42

The only game that has been even remotely close was 2018. The other three were blowouts (ND was up 42-17 with less than 5 minutes before Pitt got 2 garbage time TDs).

There was a time not so long ago where almost every Pitt game for an extended period was decided by one score. Pitt does love to play the spoiler role, Narduzzi just hasn't had great luck with it lately.