Notre Dame football: Who will be the WR1 in 2021?
Young Guns: Xavier Watts/Jay Brunelle/Jordan Johnson/Lorenzo Styles
Let’s lump some guys who only have a couple of appearances and no stats recorded between them. They’re also all freshmen, at least in terms of eligibility. These are the current young core of receivers who are expected to step up and be the next group of wide receivers at Notre Dame.
So, can one of them step up sooner than expected and move into this role?
Yes, in recent years there hasn’t been a lot of wide receivers to come out of Notre Dame who played a lot as a freshman, and it’s easy to assume that they just won’t under Brian Kelly. But players like Will Fuller have played a lot as freshmen in the past, so it’s perfectly possible.
Xavier Watts made a couple of appearances in 2020, which was his academic freshman season, against USF and Florida State. Watts was a three-star wide receiver, according to 24/7’s composite rating out of Nebraska, though some ranking systems did have Watts as a low four-star recruit.
Notre Dame recruited him away from Nebraska, and at the time it was considered a major win for Kelly. What’s exciting about Watts is his speed and his athletic ability with the ball in his hands, which could mean he gets time on the return team too.
Jay Brunelle is out of Saint John’s in Massachusetts, and during his academic freshman year of 2020, he did not see any playing time. A three-star recruit, Brunelle brings good length at 6-foot-2 and 195lbs, and the Irish landed Brunelle ahead of Michigan and Boston College, among others.
He’s also listed as running a 4.56 40-yard dash and a 38.4 inch vertical.
Out of St. Louis comes Jordan Johnson, and like Watts and Brunelle, he is an academic sophomore. However, even if he wasn’t given an extra season of eligibility due to the pandemic, he’d still have taken a redshirt, after only playing against USF and Boston College in 2020.
He didn’t record any stats in those games, but the 24/7 composite on Johnson had him as a four-star recruit, and he was rated a five-star prospect by some services. He’s the type of player who could pick his school, be it in the SEC, B1G 10, or ACC, and he chose Notre Dame.
He should be the future of the position at Notre Dame based on potential alone, using his strength and coordination to take a major step forward.
Lorenzo Styles is an incoming, academic freshman from Ohio, where he was a four-star recruit by most recruiting services. In a key battle, the Irish landed him over Ohio State among others. He’s also, already, running a sub-4.5 40-yard dash, and while he might be raw, he’s got the athleticism to be great for Notre Dame.
It will be interesting to see if any of these players can crack the starting lineup, despite their youth, but should they have to and will they be given the opportunity?