Notre Dame Linebackers and Cornerbacks Named Top 10 National Units

On3 has ranked Notre Dame's linebacking corps and its cornerbacks as Top 10 national units for the 2023 season

Notre Dame has been a program fueled by outstanding defense for years, but the 2022 Irish defense wasn't quite as good as previous units. The Irish were still a Top 25 caliber defense, but it never quite put together the consistent performances needed to live up to the standard needed for the Irish to be a better football team.

The good news is Notre Dame returns its entire defensive staff from last season, which means system and teaching continuity, and it also returns 14 players with at least two career starts and seven players with double digit career starts.

Expectations are higher for Notre Dame this season, and according to On3 the Irish should have two of the nation's best position groups on defense. In a pair of recent articles, On3 ranked the Notre Dame cornerbacks and the Irish linebackers as 10 of the best units among their peers for the 2023 season.

The Notre Dame cornerbacks ranked 6th nationally according to the On3 article.

"The Irish have one of the nation’s best corners — underclassmen or otherwise — in Benjamin Morrison, a former blue-chip recruit who was awesome as a freshman last season. Morrison was tied for second in the nation with six picks, returning one for a touchdown.

"Fifth-year senior Cam Hart is back and is battling fellow senior Clarence Lewis for the starting job opposite of Morrison. Hart has seen plenty of snaps the last few seasons, but mostly as a complementary piece in Notre Dame’s secondary.

"The Irish did bring in Oklahoma State transfer Thomas Harper to start at nickel, and they have some intriguing rotational options in sophomore Jaden Mickey and freshman Christian Gray."

I would rank Notre Dame's cornerback room a bit higher, but overall I don't have a major beef with the No. 6 ranking. My issue, however, is the lack of understanding of Notre Dame's cornerback room. The article reads as if the author doesn't have much familiarity with the players in the room.

Calling Morrison a former blue-chip recruit was puzzling, as On3 ranked him as a three-star recruit, and not one service had him ranked among their Top 300 players. On3 ranked him as the No. 342 overall player on their consensus list and they ranked 35 cornerbacks ahead of him. He received a Top 100 grade and a 5.0-star upside grade from Irish Breakdown, but he was far from a blue-chip recruit according to the national services.

The author's comments about Cam Hart were even more puzzling. Hart is not in a position battle with Clarence Lewis and he's far from being nothing more than a complementary piece in the secondary. Hart is a two-year starter and for much of the 2022 season was the team's best cornerback.

Here are the comments about the linebacker unit, which ranked 10th nationally:

"The Irish return their top three tacklers from a year ago in JD Bertrand, Marist Liufau and Jack Kiser. Bertrand was a team captain and the best of the bunch, recording 82 stops with a couple of sacks and 8.5 TFLs.

"What makes ND’s group interesting though are the young pups already pushing the vets for playing time.

"Athletic sophomores Jaylen Sneed and Nolan Ziegler figure to fit somewhere in the rotation, while the freshmen signees Jaiden Ausberry, Drayk Bowen and Preston Zinter — were on campus during the spring and emerged as potential factors on the depth chart."

This is a very fair analysis of the linebackers, and I appreciated his emphasis on the young talent for Notre Dame. If the Notre Dame linebacker unit is in fact going to be a Top 10 unit, something I wouldn't grade it to be at the moment, the younger players will need to make an impact.

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2024 Commit Rankings - Defense

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