Notre Dame offensive lineman Tosh Baker not available for NIU game
The youth movement along the Notre Dame offensive line continues on. Veteran offensive tackle Tosh Baker is not available for the Fighting Irish’s game against Northern Illinois today because of a shoulder injury, the university announced just under an hour before kickoff in South Bend, Ind.
Baker was not going to start anyway. Notre Dame elected to go with freshman Anthonie Knapp at left tackle and junior Aamil Wagner at right tackle as the team’s starters. They both recorded the first starts of their respective careers at Texas A&M last week in a game in which the Irish only allowed one sack against a talented array of Aggies pass-rushers.
Baker is the only graduate student among Notre Dame’s scholarship offensive linemen. He’s started under a handful of games in his career. NFL Draft picks Joe Alt and Blake Fisher, the former a starter at left tackle for two and a half seasons and the latter a two-year starter at right tackle, were big reasons for that.
Still, Baker had his chances to earn a starting job this offseason. He was competing for the right tackle spot with Wagner until sophomore Charles Jagusah went down with a season-ending pectoral injury early in fall camp. Notre Dame offensive line coach Joe Rudolph initially moved Baker to left tackle with the ones, even calling Baker “the answer” to the problem created by Jagusah’s injury, but quickly thereafter Knapp elevated himself to the status of projected starter and never looked back.
He performed quite admirably and as well as he could considering the opponent and venue in Week 1.
“I mean, a warrior,” Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock said of Knapp. “He did exactly the type of things he did on the practice field to earn himself that opportunity, and then went out in the game and put it on tape again. So, obviously, I think he’d be the first one to tell you that there’s a lot of things he wishes he would have done better. But the heart is not to be minimalized in any way, that he played with and the way he attacked his job.”
Denbrock was asked if Knapp’s play was validation of Notre Dame deciding to go with him over an elder statesman like Baker. He smiled, and said, “I don’t know. We won the game. That’s what I know.”
The Irish go for win No. 2 of 2024 in the home-opener vs. NIU at 3:30 p.m. ET.
