So far this offseason, Marcus Freeman has aggressively turned over his roster. The defense was excellent in 2023, but the offense held the Fighting Irish back in big games, so Freeman dove headfirst into the transfer portal and came back with a new starting quarterback, Riley Leonard, and three new wide receivers.
Freeman also saw some quality talent leave through the transfer portal, but with Mike Denbrock back in South Bend and calling plays for Freeman’s offense, the Irish look like they’ll be a College Football Playoff contender in 2024. In 2023, they finished 9-3 in the regular season, and No. 16 in the final CFP rankings, so they’re knocking on the door of the top 12.
Yes, Chris Tyree, Rico Flores, Tobias Merriweather, and Braylon James have transferred away, but Beaux Collins, Kris Mitchell, and Jayden Harrison are a much better trio than Sam Hartman was throwing to last year. The holes on the offensive side have mostly been plugged, so two of my three potential replacements are on the defensive depth chart.
The roster isn’t perfect and there are a few positions where Freeman should look to make a change, either internally or externally. The transfer portal is cooling off again after the coaching changes at Alabama, Washington, and Arizona, but there is still plenty of time to make some final tweaks before next season.
In his fourth season at Notre Dame in 2023, Lewis wasn’t technically a starter like he was in 2021 when he played 832 snaps, but he was one of the primary options at slot corner, playing 191 of his 236 snaps there. Lewis’s snap count has dropped each season since 2021 and it should continue to fall in 2024.
Lewis survived in coverage, only giving up 14 catches on 24 targets. He allowed just one touchdown, only 9.6 yards per catch, and had four pass breakups and one interception, but his weaknesses show up in the run game.
He primarily played on pass downs, but still was on the field for 92 snaps against the run and finished with just eight tackles and missed five. A player who is constantly near the line of scrimmage, even if it’s a 6-foot 200-pound nickel like Lewis, needs to help in the run game and he just didn’t do that consistently enough.
Jaguash came to Notre Dame as a highly-touted offensive tackle prospect and the prize of the 2023 recruiting class for Marcus Freeman. Notre Dame has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it can take five-star ingredients and cook up dominant offensive tackles, but Jaguash may need a bit more time in the oven taking over the left tackle spot.
Jaguash played two games as a true freshman, first against Stanford with five snaps at left guard, then he was given a shot at left tackle for the entirety of the Sun Bowl against Oregon State. Joe Alt and Blake Fisher both sat out, which allowed Jaguash to audition for the starting spot next season, but it didn’t go great.
In the Sun Bowl, he allowed two pressures and a sack per Pro Football Focus. Now, PFF isn’t always perfect, but they are a whole lot better than anyone average Joe watching the game, including the one writing this. PFF’s pass-blocking efficiency stat measures pressure allowed by an offensive lineman on a per-snap basis, with weight toward sacks allowed. Jaguash posted a pass block efficiency of 93.5 in the Sun Bow, which would have ranked him last among 220 eligible offensive tackles in the country.
It was an incredibly small sample, Jaguash didn’t show enough in his one start to go into 2024 as the starter, at least not without Freeman either bringing in competition or having an internal competition.
Botelho worked his way up from primarily playing special teams in 2022 to starting on the edge in Notre Dame’s viper position. He finished the season with four sacks and 32 total tackles across his 428 snaps, but Freeman may want to have an open competition for Botelho’s viper spot this offseason.
While he was productive in terms of sacks, sometimes that can be a misleading stat for an edge rusher. Botelho was four on the defense in pass-rush snaps, with 228, but only applied pressure to the opposing passer 18 times, which was sixth most on the unit. That’s a pressure rate of just 7.9%, while Howard Cross III, who played on the interior offense line, managed 39 pressures and a pressure rate of 11.4%.
Cross was a second-team All-American, but it is much tougher to rush from the interior than the edge. Javontae Jean-Baptiste, who is headed to the NFL and was Notre Dame’s other edge rusher is a more fair comparison. He posted 39 pressures and got pressure on 12.9% of his pass rush snaps.
2023 was a solid season for Botelho, but it was far from spectacular. In 2022, he managed to post 18 pressures in just 77 pass-rushing snaps. Botelho is best used in a smaller role, not starting down-to-down for the Irish.