What we learned about the Notre Dame safeties in 2024 spring practice
Every time you saw jersey No. 0 during Notre Dame spring practice, it was an instant sigh of relief. A deep breath that equated to, “Oh yeah, the Fighting Irish still have that guy roaming around the back end of their defense. That helps.”
Helps tremendously.
Think of an alternative universe where Xavier Watts entered the NFL Draft, where he would have assuredly escalated Notre Dame’s draftee total from seven to eight, and was not in the picture for this 2024 Notre Dame defense. The Irish would have surely needed to hit the transfer portal for a true safety, but there would have been no guarantee the guy they got would have been as good as Watts. Slim chance, actually. Watts won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy as the nation’s best defensive player last year. He’s that good. And he knows it.
“I’m a veteran now. I have to know exactly what I’m doing,” Watts said. “I need to know exactly what everyone else is doing and be able to command the defense. Just taking that progression from right now to last year and having a totally different mindset.”
How good are the guys he’s sharing the field with as safeties? We learned a little bit more about them this spring.
Adon Shuler could be a starter as a sophomore
We didn’t see a lot of Shuler as a true freshman; just 52 defensive snaps spread over five games. We saw a ton of Shuler in the spring; he lined up with Watts as a starter in every practice the media saw. He’s physical, twitchy and confident. Good qualities in a safety.
He’s gotta work on run fitting and tackling to tackle, not just to hit, but those things come with time and more reps. He’s getting plenty of them lately to keep improving.
“The big thing with Adon that you admire is like he’s just not going to be outworked,” Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden said. “He’s just got that blue-collar mindset, and he’s always in the building. He’s always trying to be better. He’s ultra-competitive. He loves the game. He’s fun to communicate with. So yeah, I mean those are all those are all great traits. You need those things to be a good safety, and he’s going in the right direction, and we’re excited about that.”
Is Rod Heard II going to push to take Shuler’s place, or is the Northwestern transfer better suited to give Notre Dame cornerback depth after the transfer portal departures of Clarence Lewis and Micah Bell? If it’s the latter, which is now a serious possibility, Shuler’s stance as a potential starter is getting sturdier and sturdier.
Exactly where four-star, No. 296 overall recruit in the class of 2023 wants to be.
“Adon has been getting a lot more locked in mentally,” Watts said. “He’s been asking a lot more questions. He’s been taking it a lot more seriously.”
Luke Talich and Ben Minich are serious reserves
Notre Dame did not do a whole lot of safety rotation in 2023. Watts played the most defensive snaps at the position at 708. DJ Brown logged 595 as his accompanying starter, and Ramon Henderson worked in with 304. The drop off came after that with Antonio Carter II logging the fourth-most safety snaps … with 72.
Brown, Henderson and Carter are all gone. Shuler is next in line, but he can’t make up for what Notre Dame lost all on his own, especially if Heard does play more corner than safety. Who’s going to help him? Fellow sophomores Luke Talich and Ben Minich. They worked in tandem with the twos backing up Watts and Shuler all spring.
Watts said Talich and Minich have been “locked in.” Golden said there’s been a learning curve for Talich, a former walk-on, but he might have more upside than Minich and even Shuler. Once he gets it all figured out, he’s got the most impressive build of any of the Notre Dame safeties to utilize at 6-4, 210. None of the others are taller than 6-0 or weight more than 201 pounds.
Notre Dame hasn’t had a safety with that size since Kyle Hamilton. That’s far too lofty of a comparison for Talich, but there is some resemblance in terms of the way the two play the game.
“Luke’s smart and he cares,” Golden said. “I think the biggest thing with Luke is how quickly can we get him to transition from knowing it to playing with his heart to playing with energy and doing all that. And that’s a tough little journey for a lot of guys, and everybody takes it at a different speed, if you will. And that’s the journey we’re trying to help him through right now — to have it go from his head to his heart, so he’s not thinking as much, so he’s not worried about this, or ‘if they do that …’ Just go play.”
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