Explaining three key quotes from Notre Dame safeties coach Chris O’Leary
Notre Dame safeties coach Chris O’Leary met with the media Tuesday morning. Here are three key quotes from his press conference with added context from BlueandGold.com.
On Notre Dame looking to the transfer portal this summer
“It’s evaluating this spring how ready our two-deep was to play on the big stage and push for a national title. That’s the decision we’re making. Beyond that, we have numbers that we want to get guys to develop. We’re always evaluating that situation. I’ve told them we might look in the portal in May. It just depends. That’s a fluid situation.”
BlueandGold.com: This is the new nature of roster management in college football. What happens in 14 spring practices and a spring game is not a surefire predictor of what a team’s depth chart is going to look like at a certain position in the fall.
Notre Dame doesn’t have a wealth of depth at safety. It’s not a knock on the players the Irish currently have there if O’Leary looks to the portal to bolster what he’s working with. Elite teams have depth at every position. Head coach Marcus Freeman speaks of roster enhancement over and over again. That messaging certainly trickles down to his assistants.
On Kyle Hamilton helping out with the Notre Dame defense
“He contributes. We took a couple things from watching the Ravens film. We have a couple tidbits there. He’s in probably two meetings a week with us. He’ll chime in watching the film and then he’ll be out here in practice giving pointers. I always make the young guys go with him on the sideline and get some extra pointers.”
BlueandGold.com: It’s pretty awesome to have an NFL player enrolled in school for the spring semester and to be able to have him lend his time to help with the current players so much. Hamilton had a fantastic rookie season with the Baltimore Ravens. He’s another year wiser. That wisdom is being shed on Notre Dame’s defensive backs.
If given the choice of having Hamilton hang around or just letting him move on entirely, you take having him around every single time. The brotherhood at Notre Dame is not overstated. It’s real.
On Sam Hartman’s deep ball challenging the Notre Dame safeties
“It has been great. There’s nothing better for us in practice. You get concerned when you go through a camp and don’t see any balls go over your head because it gives you a little false confidence. You get in games, and that thing’s going up. It has been awesome for us to see the ball go down the field and coach it when it goes over our head and be able to see us make plays down the field.”
BlueandGold.com: This is exactly what you want to hear. Period.
That’s the case for a number of reasons. One, if O’Leary is being genuine, it means what reporters saw in a fully-open practice on April 1 is not completely indicative of how the Irish have looked in two week’s worth of spring practices now. The ball is going down the field. It’s making the Notre Dame wideouts better just as much as it’s making the Irish secondary better.
Notre Dame has some teams on the schedule in 2023 that likes to take shots downfield, Ohio State and USC being the headliners of that grouping. The best way to prepare for offensive powerhouses like that is to have one of the best long-ball throwers in the country testing the defense regularly in practices.
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