BGI Awards: Part 2: Picking Notre Dame football's most improved players in 2022
This Notre Dame football article ran in the January 2022 magazine issue of Blue & Gold Illustrated. Sign up for a subscription or order a single issue here.
Notre Dame knew it was going to be a run-heavy team in 2022. It just wasn’t clear going into the year who would carry the bulk of the load. For long stretches of the season, it turned out to be sophomore tailback Audric Estime.
Sophomore Logan Diggs led the team in rushing attempts with 152, but Estime was not far behind at 142. Estime’s superior 5.8 yards per carry to that of 4.8 of Diggs resulted in the former leading the team with 825 rushing yards. Diggs had 732. Estime led all Notre Dame players with 12 total touchdowns, too.
Having hardly played as a true freshman to soaring as a sophomore, Estime headlines the most improved players segment of the 2022 BGI Awards.
1. Running back Audric Estime
Estime’s statistics as a freshman in 2021: 7 carries for 60 yards. Estime’s statistics in 2022: 142 carries for 825 yards and 11 touchdowns, the latter two numbers registering as team highs. It doesn’t matter if a strong offseason set the stage for a breakout in the fall. Estime still had to live up to lofty expectations, and he did.
The sophomore struggled with fumbling issues in the middle of the year, losing the ball to the opposition three times in a four-game span. After the third giveaway, he did not get another carry versus UNLV. He finished with a season-low 3 totes for 17 yards. In the very next game, Estime had 20 rushes for 123 yards and 2 touchdowns in a road win at then-No. 16 Syracuse. That’s true poise for an underclassman.
2. Safety Xavier Watts
Watts looked the part of a defensive back who is completely comfortable playing that side of the ball. This is a guy who took a week’s worth of reps at wide receiver after team captain Avery Davis tore his ACL in fall camp. The Notre Dame staff moved him back to safety, and Watts blossomed in the second half of the season.
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The junior played at least 20 snaps in each of the final seven games of the year with a career-high 52 in the regular-season finale versus Southern Cal. Watts finished tied for fifth on the Notre Dame roster with a season-long Pro Football Focus tackling grade of 80.9. He’s as sure-handed as it gets in the Irish secondary.
3. Wide receiver Jayden Thomas
Thomas couldn’t get on the field as a true freshman in 2021. He played 14 offensive snaps. In 2022, he was on the field for 483 plays. That ranked second on the team among wide receivers behind only graduate student Braden Lenzy (548).
Thomas finished tied with Lenzy with 20 receptions, which was good for a tie for third on the roster. His catches went for 295 yards, also third among Notre Dame pass catchers, and 3 touchdowns. Only Michael Mayer came away with more touchdowns (9) through the air.
The most exciting aspect of Thomas’ game is that it still feels like there is untapped potential there. His sophomore season was a good step forward in getting to a point of maximizing it.
