Notre Dame Football: What Trevor Speights adds to the Irish backfield

Notre Dame football added another graduate transfer to the list. This time, it’s former Stanford running back, Trevor Speights.

Notre Dame football added to the running back room on Thursday. Trevor Speights announced his decision Thursday, choosing Notre Dame over Rice. This is the outcome many including myself expected as long as Notre Dame pushed for it. After red-shirting his freshman season, Speights played two seasons with the Cardinal and tallied a total of 95 carries for 363 yards. While these numbers aren’t going to blow you out of the water, they are still solid stats to have. For a full breakdown of Speights’ stats, click here.

So what does Trevor Speights bring to the table?

While Speights does not necessarily have the numbers in college yet, during his senior season of high school, he rushed for over 3100 yards on 233 carries. If that doesn’t impress you, I’m not sure what will. For a more detailed view of Speights’ high school stats, click here.

He also brings a veteran presence to the running back room. Yes, Jafar Armstrong could be considered a “veteran” but he has yet to prove himself and was originally a wide receiver when he first came to Notre Dame. Other than that, the Irish have juniors C’Bo Flemister and Jahmir Smith, red-shirt freshman Kyren Williams, and true freshman Chris Tyree.

Yes, it is a crowded room. No one in it has truly proven themselves, but there is a lot of potential. With the addition of a veteran who can help lead these younger backs, that potential can turn into production. So even if Speights doesn’t see the field much, he will be a great addition as long as he prepares the other guys and helps set them up for success.

With the addition of Speights, some might start to wonder if there will be a position switch or a transfer of someone else likely one of the two junior running backs, if one were to happen. There have been rumbles that Armstrong could switch back to wide receiver, as well. Time will tell, but until then Irish fans should be happy about this addition and excited for what’s to come.

Speights has two years of eligibility remaining, which also allows him time to find his role in the system. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that he finds it sooner, rather than later and its one with a positive impact. He is coming off a season that he sat out due to an injury, but has said and is confident that he is back to 100%.

This is the second offensive graduate transfer that Notre Dame has picked up: Ben Skowronek, a graduate of Northwestern, and a wide receiver with quite a bit of production. During his career at Northwestern, Skowronek raked in 110 catches for a total of 1417 yards. For a breakdown of his stats from each season, click here.

This is the most production out of any wideout on Notre Dame’s roster. Similar to the running backs, there is a lot of youth and not a whole lot of production out of Notre Dame’s current wide receivers. However, unlike the running back position, this group is thought of very highly and look to be very talented. A couple guys who should see a large increase in production this year are Braden Lenzy and Kevin Austin.

Both defensive grad transfers look to be big time contributors on the Irish defense this season, and while the offensive grad transfers have the chance to do the same, the main reason they were brought in was to provide leadership to a couple of position groups that were full of youth.