Who are the leaders of the 2024 Notre Dame football offensive line?

As if saying goodbye to Joe Alt, Blake Fisher and Zeke Correll — yes, Correll included — was bad enough for the Notre Dame offensive line going into the 2024 season, the Fighting Irish will be without the heir to Alt at left tackle in Charles Jagusah now too. He’s out for the year with a torn right pectoral muscle.

Jagusah’s absence, in addition to the departures of the other three, make it awfully scary to wonder, who’s the leader up front for the Irish? Who isn’t afraid to bark out commands, not just the ones that routinely come from the center on the field — which was Correll’s job for two seasons (23 games) as the starter, a duty that now belongs to junior Ashton Craig — but the ones that come when apathy needs to be avoided and invigoration needs to be injected on the sideline, in practice on a hot, sunny South Bend morning or in the weight room when the sun is still coming up before a long day of classes?

Potential left guard starter Rocco Spindler named five folks; himself, fellow senior left guard starting candidate Pat Coogan — who’s got his head nudged out way ahead of Spindler’s in that battle, like an Olympic sprinter leaning toward the line — projected left tackle starter Tosh Baker, entrenched right guard starter Billy Schrauth and Craig, who has taken it upon himself to hold up his end of the leadership bargain given the position he’s in.

“I’m communicating everything,” Craig said. “Just trying to be able to be that voice for the O-line and trying to just have everyone on the same page. You have to be vocal.”

Craig has only started three games in his Notre Dame career. Same with Schrauth — and Baker, for that matter, as an offensive lineman. He has a fourth career start as an extra tight end for the Irish’s first offensive play against Ohio State last year, but that’s it in four seasons for the fifth-year senior.

Coogan started all 13 Notre Dame games last season and was the only offensive lineman on the roster who could say that. Spindler started the first 10 before his knee injury gave way to Schrauth, who clearly took his three-game opportunity and ran with it. But has he taken a leadership role too? Is he in a place where he came demand adherence to details and dedication to development when he’s still developing himself?

Leadership doesn’t have to be vocally expressed. It can be by example. Schrauth has realized that at the very least. He’s giving out free visuals on how to stay healthy. Health is of the utmost importance for that particular Notre Dame position group, after all.

“Every day, you’ve got to work on it, just like anything” Schrauth said. “Once you think you got it, you don’t. You got to keep working at it. Getting in the training room getting in the tubs, getting with the training staff, stretching out, all of that, all the little stuff, it’s really important.”

Still, he and so many others along this Notre Dame offensive line are young and still figuring things out. That’s just reality. Experience doesn’t pop up overnight. It comes with stacking solid performances from week to week throughout the course of an entire season.

Again, only Coogan among Notre Dame’s offensive linemen can say he’s done that in wire-to-wire fashion. Perhaps it should come as no surprise he knew how to handle the moment when Jagusah was injured in the middle of Aug. 3’s practice.

“It’s a sad moment because we see our guy walk off in terrible pain,” Coogan said. “We reload, which his what [Notre Dame head coach Marcus] Freeman has been talking about for the whole summer here, the whole camp. We reset, we take a deep breath and we’re like, ‘All right, let’s get back to work.’

“That’s just the nature of the game. It’s a beast of a game. And that’s what happens. We took a deep breath, looked each other in the eye and said let’s move forward. We know Tosh is going to step up and he’s going to play well for us.”

Speaking of Baker…

“I think the guys see him as a leader,” Notre Dame offensive line coach Joe Rudolph said.

The ability to lead is there in everyone. Some tap into it more than others. Unearthing is dictated by personalities, playing time and so much more. Jagusah had a lot in his favor on that front before the injury. Now it’s up to Baker and everyone else to be tone setters and, well, leaders. Plain and simply.

“It’s the next man up mentality,” Coogan said.

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