Observations from Notre Dame football fall camp practice No. 6: Offense

Charles Jagusah did as much as he could on the workout front in Notre Dame’s “pit” of injured players on the grass field adjacent to the Labar Practice Complex on Tuesday morning. It was a sobering, somber dose of reality for all in attendance at the Fighting Irish’s sixth fall camp practice session.

The Fighting Irish’s would-be left tackle for the 2024 season and beyond had his right arm in a sling. Coaches and teammates would obviously have loved for him to be on the field in full pads instead of in the pit in shorts and a t-shirt, but that won’t occur until 2025 because of a torn right pectoral muscle in an injury suffered this past weekend.

Here’s more on Jagusah’s situation, the fallout from it and everything else Blue & Gold observed from the Notre Dame offense in roughly half an hour of practice viewing Tuesday.

• Let’s just get right to it, the thing that everybody wants to know. Notre Dame freshman quarterback CJ Carr was not at practice Tuesday. Sound the alarms … NOT. Kidding, kidding. A Notre Dame spokesperson told Blue & Gold Carr is out with an illness and will be fine.

• Now, the answer to the question everyone actually wants to know. This is not that surprising either; yes, with Jagusah going down, graduate student Tosh Baker and junior Aamil Wagner, previously competing with each other for the starting right tackle position, are now the two projected starters at the tackle positions. Baker was running with the ones at left tackle while Wagner was with the ones at right tackle.

• Rounding out the first-team Notre Dame offensive line, junior Ashton Craig was at center, senior Pat Coogan was at left guard and junior Billy Schrauth was at right guard.

• The second-team offensive line was, from left tackle to right tackle, freshman Anthonie Knapp, sophomore Sullivan Absher, sophomore Sam Pendleton, senior Rocco Spindler and junior Ty Chan. Heralded freshman Guerby Lambert was with the third-team offensive line at right tackle.

• It was an up-and-down day for Baker in his first day taking over for Jagusah. He looked fine in individual drills, obeying all of Notre Dame offensive line Joe Rudolph’s many orders during run-blocking installations. Those included, “Perfect fit!”, “Straddle that inside leg!” and “Find his belt buckle!”

• Rudolph was really trying to get his guys to be tight with their intentions. No wasted movements. He was particularly unsatisfied with a rep from Chan and Absher. He told them, “Your hands are terrible. Do it again. We’re not looking for that. We should have perfect hands in this drill.” For what it’s worth, Baker didn’t seem to have any problems with hand placement or physicality in the run-blocking drills.

• When the first-team offense ran an 11-on-0 tempo walkthrough drive, though, and it came time for quarterback Riley Leonard to initiate some hard counts in it, Baker moved on the very first clap of Leonard’s hands. That was a clear indicator of some jitters and unfamiliarity with being on the left side of the line.

• After Blue & Gold got done watching Notre Dame’s offensive line for most of the media viewing period, the Irish offense spent a periods throwing red zone passes in routes on air. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock was really coaching up pass-catchers to get to their spots even though there weren’t any defenders to tangle with. Tight end Mitchell Evans made an impressive one-handed catch on a corner route. His position mates Eli Raridon and Cooper Flanagan looked good running the same route as well.

• Leonard under-threw senior wideout Jayden Thomas on a short back-pylon fade that would have gotten into some traffic trouble in a real game. He corrected himself on the next throw and put a dime into senior Deion Colzie’s hands on the same route. That would have been over the corner’s head and difficult for a helping safety to get to.

• Freshman Micah Gilbert had the ball go off his fingertips and incomplete on the same route seconds later. Again, it was a pretty good ball by Leonard, similar to the one Colzie caught. Leonard and Gilbert tried to connect again soon thereafter, and a slightly overthrown ball went right through the target’s hands. It probably could have been caught. For as good as Gilbert looked in the spring, he might be hitting a bit of a freshman wall early in fall camp. Better now than if Notre Dame needs him to produce in September.

• In the final period open to the media, the Notre Dame offense ran some simulated, stationary plays from the middle of the field. This was more about Denbrock calling out a play and Irish players being able to run to their spots and get lined up quickly. No matter what happened on the play, which was run against ghost defenders (offensive players or coaching personnel posing as defensive players), the offense heard and order from Denbrock and got into the requisite formation to walk through the ensuing play. Blue & Gold obviously won’t detail cues and signals within the Notre Dame offense, but there seem to be a ton of them and the players seem to be picking them up well just one week into camp.

• Of note, sophomore receiver KK Smith caught a pass from Leonard during this session and received praise from Denbrock for the route he executed. Sophomore receiver Jaden Greathouse was sent in motion from the slot as a scary decoy on the same play. Look for a lot of pre-snap motion in Denbrock’s Notre Dame offense.

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