Notre Dame Wide Receivers Are The Ultimate Key To An Offensive Explosion

The Notre Dame wide receivers playing to their potential is the key to the Notre Dame offense reaching its full potential

Notre Dame's recent success, which includes a pair of College Football Playoff appearances in the last three seasons, has been primarily fueled by the defense. That unit is expected to once again be a strength, but Notre Dame needs to take the next step as a program, and the offense making a big jump is the key to that jump.

While the quarterback position and the offensive line get much of the attention and focus, the key to the Notre Dame offense developing the explosiveness needed to become a dominant unit is the wide receiver unit playing to its full potential.

Notre Dame has plenty of talent returning and there is a lot of speed and athleticism at the position. What it lacks, however, is the proven production and injury history needed to provide the buzz, or optimism the unit's talent would otherwise generate.

The wideouts playing to their full potential accomplishes a number of very important objectives.

1) They give the offense the big play pass game production it lacked in 2020 - Notre Dame's 2020 opponents had no problem loading the box against the offense, and they did it for multiple reasons. One was because the backs and offensive line were the unit's strength, but the other was teams simply did not fear Notre Dame's ability to stretch the field. There were moments when the wideouts made them pay (Nov. 7 win over Clemson), but more often than not the wideouts were nothing but possession players, and the pass game took a major back seat to the run game.

Players like Kevin Austin, Braden Lenzy, Lawrence Keys, Xavier Watts and Lorenzo Styles Jr. all bring home run ability to the offense. Notre Dame needs at least two of those players to become big-play weapons, and if they do opponents will have to defend the Irish offense much different than they did last season.

2) They take pressure off Michael Mayer and the running backs - The wideouts becoming big play weapons takes a lot of pressure off other positions. Opponents would have to pay greater attention to the perimeter of the offense, which makes it a bit more challenging to build the defensive game plan around shutting down tight end Michael Mayer or the talented running backs.

If at least one wideout becomes a volume pass catcher - I'm looking at you Kevin Austin - it makes life even more difficult on the defense when it looks to slow down that player, Mayer, the backs and the other pass catchers.

3) They take pressure off the offensive line - Notre Dame's offensive line won't be as good as last season's unit, and it won't have to if the wide receivers play to their potential. Being more impactful on the perimeter in the quick and screen game, and being more impactful with the vertical pass game forces defenses to spread out their alignments. Defenses that play as tight to the line as they did last season, and defenses that put the numbers in the box that they did last season will find themselves paying a much greater price against a wide receiver corps with perimeter playmakers.

The result is the line getting in more favorable number and leverage advantages and gives the offense the weapons to exploit defenses that to condense their looks. If the wideouts don't play to their potential it forces the offensive line to be dominant in order to establish the run game.

4) They allow Jack Coan to maximize his skills - A big reason why I'm so high on Jack Coan is his accuracy and decision making. That becomes an even greater asset if he's surrounded by playmakers at wide receiver. Notre Dame didn't have an offense in 2020 that really had the weapons to dominate in space, or that could exploit perimeter isolations, both at the quarterback and wide receiver positions.

If the wideouts play to their potential Coan's accuracy, decision making and guts as a passer will take over the offense, which will make the Notre Dame offense extremely difficult to stop, no matter who is on the opposite side of the ball.

Be sure to check out the Irish Breakdown message board, the Champions Lounge

Irish Breakdown Content

Notre Dame 2021 Roster
Notre Dame 2021 Schedule

Notre Dame 2022 Commits Big Board: Offense
Notre Dame 2022 Commits Big Board: Defense

2022 Big Board: Running Back
2022 Big Board: Slot Receivers

Notre Dame 2022 Scholarship Offers

Notre Dame 2022 Class Big Board
Notre Dame 2023 Class Big Board

———————

Become a premium Irish Breakdown member, which grants you access to all of our premium content, our premium message board and gets you a FREE subscription to Sports Illustrated! Click on the link below for more

BECOME A MEMBER

Be sure to stay locked into Irish Breakdown all the time!

Join the Irish Breakdown community!
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown YouTube channel
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown podcast on iTunes
Subscribe to our Irish Breakdown Rumble channel
Follow me on Twitter: @CoachD178
Follow me on Parler: @BryanDriskell
Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook

Sign up for the FREE Irish Breakdown daily newsletter