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All right, welcome back in McElroy and Cubelike in the morning. It is 731 a.m. Tuesday, August 6th right here on jocks. 94.5. Appreciate you guys tuning in. You can always listen on the app. Download it in your app store. iPhone, Android. It's free. Listen to us on the go. All the podcasts going to be there. Tell your home smart speaker to enable the jock skill. Listen to jocks. You just
back to school getting the kids ready every morning getting that routine just say listen to jocks when you get up and when you head downstairs and i'll always appreciate you guys listening in birmingham on 94.5 fm uh some college football news outside of the coach's poll going to compare and contrast a couple of teams there as we move on some recruiting news for auburn yesterday uh 2026 db wayne henry commits out of saint francis academy in baltimore he joins uh
Blake would be and Brian Deese as the third player to commit to Auburn out of St. Francis. So another good get for Hugh Freeze and his staff, a four-star offensive tackle from Mobile. Cardiff Cardiff Swift has committed to USC six, six to 85 previously was committed to Auburn now committed to Southern California. So a big offensive line commit in the state of Alabama now heading out to USC and
So a lot of recruiting news is going to continue to go around. We'll talk about all that. I definitely want to let you hear what Harbaugh had to say earlier in the week, or excuse me, yesterday, about the situation at Michigan. But we've got to talk a little bit of Notre Dame now as Brian Driscoll joins the show. And Brian was listening to your podcast, watching you guys on YouTube yesterday in the airport after this news comes down of –
A player that you don't want to lose at this point in camp, specifically if you're a Notre Dame football team that has question marks along the offensive line and then your starting left tackle goes down, how easily repairable is this given that Notre Dame does have a little bit of extra time in camp before they kick off the season?
Well, that's the big thing. You know, if there's a saving grace in this and you never want to lose a starting offensive lineman, especially one as talented as Charles Jackasol, but the timing of it is the ideal scenario. I mean, when they lost Blake Fisher in 2021, it was right before halftime against Florida State.
And you've kind of got to figure out, okay, what do we do now and over the next few games? And obviously it took them about five weeks until they figured out, hey, let's put Joe Walt there. And it worked out pretty well. But the timing of it is ideal from that regard. But, look, it's never good to lose your starting left tackle. I don't care what point in time of the season it is. It's never good to lose your starting left tackle.
especially one who's 6'7", 330 athletic and is a kid with elite talent. So it's certainly going to be a blow. The good news is if there's one position where Notre Dame can usually overcome a loss, it's the offensive line with the way that they recruit that position.
Brian Driscoll joining us on the Viserat Hotline, owner of Irish Breakdown. Find him on YouTube there. Always a good watch talking about Notre Dame football at CoachD178 on Twitter is where you can follow him as well. Around the tackle position, because we just expect Notre Dame is going to be really good at tight end.
Been really good at running back for as long as I can remember as well. Outside of Riley Leonard, to be able to help that position, whichever way the Irish go, how do you view that heading into this? Because you're probably going to need that against A&M anyway with the pass rushers they're throwing at you. Where is Notre Dame for that perspective heading into this season?
Well, I think that's one of the reasons it was even, well, I guess another blessing for getting Mike Dembrock because you're bringing in an offense that I think is geared to be able to handle that kind of loss with the scheme, right? It's an offense that's going to allow them to have some RPOs, which is going to be something you can utilize to attack a pass rush. It's an offense also where you've got a dynamic quarterback in Riley Leonard, and you're going to bring in a read zone offense when you're coming off of a season in which
Mike Denbrock's quarterback ran for 1,100 yards. I don't expect Riley Leonard to put up the numbers that Jay Daniels did, but philosophically, schematically, there are certainly things that he already has kind of baked into his offense that can allow you to manipulate the edge a little bit. You've got a quarterback that can throw on the run, allows you to kind of move the pocket a little bit. So you're going to have to do some things between moving the pocket, running your RPOs,
read zone, and then also you're going to have to max pro a little bit. You've got those big old tight ends. You can use 12 personnel. Use that to max pro a little bit to try to protect that left side at the offensive tackle position because you weren't going to be able to ask Charles Jagasol to go out there and say, hey, block Nick Skowartson and those guys for 60 minutes. You were going to have to help them too. You're certainly going to have to do that now that you're missing one of your starting tackles.
Brian Driscoll with us, Irish Breakdown. Find him on YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. What are we hearing about Riley Leonard? I know it's Saturday was what, first day in pads? So we're not too far down the road here. But what are the whispers? What are the thoughts of just kind of how he's taken to Coach Denbrock's offense?
Quite well. The big thing for Riley is he missed a lot of time with the receivers during the spring, being out with the ankle injuries. So there's still some got-to-get-on-the-same-page stuff where he'll throw a post route and it's just about a foot off of where it needs to be. And when you get more time with those guys, then you hit that throw. But what I've heard is the further camp has gone on, the more comfortable he's getting with the players around him. They've got a brand-new receiver look as well. They've got a transfer from Florida International, Marshall, Clemson.
And, you know, so there's a lot of guys trying to get on the same page. The biggest thing that I've heard about Riley that's a positive from the late summer workouts and then going into fall camp is –
He's really improved his consistency hitting the deep ball. And that was probably my biggest need for improvement from him going back to the Duke games. You know, there's weeks like he had against Kansas in 2022 where he just lit Kansas up, throwing the ball down the field. And then there's other weeks where he wasn't hitting the throws he needed to make down the field. So the improvement there is going to be a big thing. As you saw last year, Cole, from Mike Denbrock's offense, he likes to throw the ball down the field, whether it's backside digs, you know, post routes, the slot fades. He likes to get the ball down the field.
And for this offense to work the way it needs to, Riley's going to have to make sure he continues developing in that regard. My understanding is that the receivers are maybe a little ahead of schedule, not just the transfers, but maybe the younger group of receivers. Are they exceeding expectations thus far from what you're hearing?
Yeah, Jaden Greathouse really just continues to be a bright spot for that receiving core. Obviously, the transfers are a big part of it, but that's three guys, and I think only one of them right now is guaranteed to start. That's Chris Mitchell at the Zeke position. Jaden Greathouse has looked tremendous in the slot. They got Jordan Faison back this summer after he spent the spring winning a national championship with the lacrosse team.
And Jane Thomas is finally healthy. So that blend of the returners and the transfers has certainly helped them. And then the two young players in the sophomore class that I mentioned, and then there's a freshman that's really pushing the veterans in the boundary position. That's Micah Gilbert, a young man out of Charlotte. So the depth at the receiving core is so much better than it was a year ago. They're a lot more experienced, and there's just more dynamic athletes in this group than we saw a year ago. They had a lot of possession guys, a lot of slot guys last year.
you have a little bit more of a mix with some vertical players on the outside. So getting those young players to really step up this offseason to go with the transfers is really what Notre Dame wanted and needed for them to have a pass attack that's going to actually make teams have to respect it next year, which they didn't really do last year in the big games. Yeah, Chris Mitchell can get it. I had a couple of his games at FIU last year, a big play receiver specifically down the field. He'll be a big addition.
All right, so there are some Auburn fans that are getting a little bit excited about a potential flip. And I know recruiting is not necessarily your expertise, but you're aware of what's happening and some of the noise that's being generated around quarterback Deuce Knight that's been committed to Notre Dame for some time. Steve Wilfong has predicted that he will flip to Auburn. Do you foresee this happening? Is this just a given that he's going to flip, or is this maybe going to be a little bit more contested than some Auburn fans may believe?
I think it depends on who you talk to. When you talk to different sources, they tell you a little bit of a different thing. I think right now, that's what it's looking like is going to happen. Notre Dame's obviously fighting like crazy to try to keep Deuce in the class, and they've had him...
committed for almost a year, and I think that's what they're kind of banking on is the relationships of, hey, we've been building this thing around you and those type of things, and hopefully try to convince them to stay in the class. But right now, if I had to make a prediction, I don't really do that, but if I had to, I would say that right now it's leaning towards Deuce making that decision. But I'll say this, Cole, if he hasn't made the flip by the end of the week,
then Notre Dame is going to feel like they've got a shot to keep him in the class. If he does flip, I think it'll be now. If he doesn't flip by the end of this week, I think we'll see him carry this into the fall and take some visits, and then that gives Notre Dame a little bit more of a puncher's chance to try to keep him in the class.
I'm interested finally, Brian, and this is a little bit just however you interpret it, sort of open-ended, but Notre Dame comes in at seven in the coaches poll. Some of these teams, I think that we feel very similar to groups of pods of, I don't know, four, six, eight teams, whatever it is, and you just got to find a place to slot them.
I'm interested in not only your opinion on where Notre Dame is for you, but kind of some of the teams around them. Based on all of that, just how did you feel about Notre Dame being seven based on maybe the two, three teams ahead of them and the two, three teams behind them?
I was comfortable with them being seven. I'm going to have them at six in my preseason poll, so I think seven is a good spot because Notre Dame still has a lot to prove. You know, I think if you look at their record last year, 10-3, and you look at the teams ahead of them, Ole Miss and Alabama, they both won more games than Notre Dame did last year. They both have a lot coming back to
So Notre Dame's going to have to have a lot to prove. I was actually surprised that Notre Dame was ahead of Penn State. I thought Penn State was going to be ahead of Notre Dame. I don't think that they should be. I think a lot of those Big Ten teams scheduled for success last year in their non-conference, Penn State being one of them, and they struggled in some of the bigger games as well. But I think seven is a comfortable spot. I said, look, Cole, if they're anywhere between seven and ten, I think that's a fair place for Notre Dame to be because they are a very good team. They are talented.
They do have a lot of new transfers coming in, but they're still a team that has to go prove that they can go play in those big games, those big moments, and win more of them than they have in recent seasons. But they've got a lot more love this offseason than I anticipated, and it's really kind of doing damage to that Notre Dame fan mentality of that there's a bias against Notre Dame with all the love that they're getting in the preseason. I think ESPN had them fifth.
So, you know, I think that says a lot about the kind of talent that Notre Dame has assembled and a lot of the faith that people have in Marcus Freeman. And then, of course, I think that Mike Denbrock hired this offseason to go without Golden as people thinking like Notre Dame can now go toe-to-toe coaching-wise with people. And maybe that means that they're going to finally be able to get the most out of this roster.
I think the key word you said there, Brian, was but. Because after you get past two or three, you can say a lot of nice things about a lot of these teams, and then the but comes. And we've got to start talking about the question marks we have, or is this guy going to work? Is this guy going to fit? Is that scheme going to be okay? What's it going to be like losing that coach or that assistant or that coordinator? And that's what makes it fun. Really appreciate your time today. Great stuff, great insight, and hopefully we can do it again soon.
Thanks for having me on, Cole. Absolutely. Brian Driscoll joining us on the Buyer's Right Hotline. Iris Breakdown, that's where you can find his work. YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. They do a great job talking Notre Dame football. Brian, he brings the X's and O's as well. They're a fun watch. They're a good listen. Go check him out on Twitter, at CoachD178. And you can find out anything you need to know from a Notre Dame football standpoint. All right, I mentioned we were going to discuss...
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