Notre Dame Football: 5 takeaways from the 2021 Blue-Gold Game

Notre Dame Football: 5 takeaways from the 2021 Blue-Gold Game

You Can’t Build an Offense Around the Tight End

This Spring, there has been a lot of discourse about the Irish offense. Most people agree that you can’t win college football games at the highest level without great wide receivers, at least not anymore. Offensive coordinator Tommy Rees doesn’t seem to agree with that, as he has said that he’s confident building around a tight end on offense.

That tight end being Michael Mayer, and after all, when Rees was the quarterback the team was built around Tyler Eifert.

There are just a few issues there, though. Firstly, this sounds like a veiled admission that the wide receiver position is going to continue to be an issue going forward. That’s not good for an offense who simply couldn’t provide anything explosive last year.

Secondly, we all remember when Rees was the quarterback. Eifert was great. The offense was not. In fact, the offense is what held Notre Dame back during the 2012 season.

The simple fact is that it’s fine to be a run-first offense who likes to use a tight end threat. Of course, you’ll need an excellent offensive line to do so, but that’s generally not a problem at Notre Dame (though, the Irish offensive line gave up a lot of sacks during the Spring Game, so things might be difficult).

You just need to offer a deep threat from the wide receiver position as well. This is how you can stretch the defense out and force them to respect every level of the field.

During the Blue-Gold Spring Game, this became evident. Notre Dame struggled to run or throw the ball, and while Braden Lenzy made a few nice plays, the offense was left in neutral all game long. This might have something to do with the defense, but it comes down to a simple reality. You can’t build your team around the tight end in the modern era. It simply won’t work.