Notre Dame left Provo with a lot of questions, and the widest one may be the group that was supposed to be one of its strengths.
Against BYU, the Irish’s wide receiver usage was strikingly narrow. Jaden Greathouse and Jordan Faison logged 79 snaps apiece, Micah Gilbert was right there with 78, and Mylan Graham got only 2. That was the whole story at receiver on Saturday night.
And that creates a bigger issue than simply wondering about one game plan. If Notre Dame really views this group as loaded, why does the rotation keep shrinking to essentially three players? The matchup in Provo only made that easier to notice, but it wasn’t the first time it’s happened.
The rest of the offense didn’t follow the same pattern. Notre Dame mixed in its running backs more evenly, even if the workload still leaned heavily on Nolan James Jr., who played 50 snaps. Aneyas Williams had 21 and Jonaz Walton had 10, giving the backfield more of a real split than what happened at receiver.
The tight ends also saw regular movement. James Flanigan played 47 snaps and Jack Larson had 36, while Ian Premer was limited to 4. There was at least some kind of rotation there.
At receiver, though, the picture keeps getting tighter. Two weeks earlier against North Carolina, Faison played 69 snaps, Gilbert had 65 and Greathouse had 43. Matt Jeffery was on the field for 9 snaps in that game and did not draw a target.
The season-long usage tells the same story. Graham has only 106 snaps, with most of those coming against Stanford.
Jeffery has 65, Jerome Bettis Jr. has 55, Bubba Frazier has 22, and Devin Fitzgerald has 19. Meanwhile, Faison has 382 snaps, Gilbert 347 and Greathouse 246.
That kind of split makes the offseason hype around the position harder to square with what’s actually happening on the field. The lack of depth usage hasn’t drawn much attention when Notre Dame has rolled through weaker opponents, but it stands out now because the Irish are starting to hit the part of the schedule where the details matter more.
Marcus Freeman had talked before the BYU game about how Notre Dame was preparing for the high-altitude, low-oxygen environment in Provo. What’s harder to explain is whether the plan was always to lean that heavily on Faison and Greathouse, or whether the game forced the staff into that choice once it got tight.
Either way, the receiver rotation is now one of the clearest questions hanging over this offense as Miami comes closer. The talent was supposed to be there. The usage says something different.
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The bigger test, though, is whether that front can keep carrying the load when the opponents quarterback can hurt defenses with his legs. Recent top-ranked units have shown that stopping designed runs and scrambles from mobile passers is often the difference between a very good rush defense and a truly suffocating one, and that is the area Notre Dame still has to prove. [Read more 🡒]