JD PicKell: Notre Dame has question marks at the skill positions

Notre Dame came in at No. 5 in the Preseason AP Top 25 Poll, setting lofty expectations for the first year of the Marcus Freeman era. But even with high expectations, Notre Dame is faced with some questions that need to be answered.

In a recent episode of The Hard Count, On3’s J.D. PicKell took a look at some of the biggest question marks facing Notre Dame entering the regular season. PicKell is specifically focused on the outside, both on defense in the secondary and also on offense at wide receiver.

“My question mark for Notre Dame is falling towards the back end of the secondary outside of Brandon Joseph,” PicKell said. “More so at the corner position and then also at the receiver position. Because we saw at times during the Brian Kelly regime, Notre Dame was just outmatched athletically on the outside. You have a very limited potential of wins if you can’t win the one-on-one matchups when it comes to that wide receiver, corner spot.

“So I think that Marcus Freeman being a defensive guy will make that a point of emphasis. I don’t think it’s going to be something that they just let continue to nag them as they go on throughout his tenure at Notre Dame. But it’s got to be something you address.”

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Winning on the outside is an important question for Notre Dame

When evaluating the importance of winning the battles on the outside, PicKell turned to last year’s national championship game between Alabama and Georgia. PicKell thought Alabama’s questions on the outside were apparent, which led to Georgia winning the title.

With the offense set to look different now with Tyler Buchner taking over as the new starting quarterback and with a matchup against Ohio State looming in Week 1, Notre Dame would ideally like to have these questions answered sooner rather than later.

“Because it’s great to win the trenches, but if you just get quick gamed to death, if you get jump balled to death on defense, it’s tough to win,” said PicKell. “It just is. It’s tough to go from there when you’re just getting 50/50’d to death. Just ask Alabama. It’s not a knock on Alabama, but if you watched that championship game against Georgia, Stetson Bennett was just throwing jump ball after jump ball. Now I’m not trying to compare Notre Dame to Alabama.

“What I am trying to say is that you need to have an answer in the secondary with the one-on-ones. In addition to that, going vertically with your quarterback, we don’t know a lot about Tyler Buchner yet. I believe he was somewhere around a one-to-one ratio when it came to touchdowns to interceptions in very limited action. But still, if you can’t stretch the ball vertically, they’re just going to stack the box. If you’re a one-dimensional football team, they will stack the box against you. Even if you have a great offensive line, it’s tough to win games if you’re not multi-dimensional.”