Who will be the starting Notre Dame wide receivers against Ohio State?
It’s June, and Notre Dame has still not reeled in a wide receiver from the transfer market. Maybe the right options just weren’t there for the Irish coaching staff to make it happen. Or maybe, contrary to what just about everyone else thinks, the coaches believe they have all they need in that position group.
If it’s the latter, the answer to the question posed in the headline had to have been answered during spring practices barring something unforeseen. Sophomores Lorenzo Styles and Deion Colzie and graduate student Braden Lenzy are going to get the starting nods against Ohio State at the Horseshoe Sept. 3.
Notre Dame really doesn’t have any other choices for a variety of reasons.
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First, there is continuity’s sake. The aforementioned trio served as Notre Dame’s top three wideouts all spring. It’d be wise to keep funneling first-team reps to the same players in fall camp.
Then there’s the status of the other options. Graduate students Avery Davis and Joe Wilkins Jr. are both coming off lower-body injuries. Davis hasn’t seen live reps since tearing his ACL in November. Wilkins returned for full-contact practices after injuring his MCL in October only to injure his foot in March. If healthy, those two are viable starters. But they’ve lost too much preparation time to be thrown into the fire on the first play of the 2022 season.
The only other scholarship wide receivers include a former walk-on, graduate student Matt Salerno, a true freshman summer enrollee, Tobias Merriweather, and a sophomore on the rise, Jayden Thomas, who has not yet done enough to climb to the top of the depth chart. All three could be counted-on contributors this season. Thomas might even push Lenzy or even Colzie for a top spot. But right now, three months away from kickoff, Notre Dame’s starting wideouts are nearly set in stone.
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That doesn’t mean they don’t have much to prove. Styles and Colzie in particular have as much to prove as anyone. Styles has shown he’s capable of shouldering a heavy load out of the slot. He caught 24 passes for 344 yards and one touchdown as a true freshman. He made four starts. Colzie, meanwhile, only caught four passes for 67 yards. He’s replacing a guy in Kevin Austin Jr. who had 48 receptions for 888 yards and seven scores. Those are big shoes to fill.
With Lenzy, will it be the guy who caught 32 passes for 350 yards and three touchdowns last year? Will it be the guy who averaged 23.1 yards per catch and 15.4 yards per rush in 2019? Will he be injured and limited to three games, seven catches and 63 yards like he was in 2020? Lenzy is a fifth-year player. He’s been around for a while. But there is still as much intrigue about potential production with him as there is with his younger position mates.
There is one thing that is fairly certain, though — he’s going to get his chances as a starter, and Styles and Colzie will likely get theirs too. They can totally change the narrative of this wide receiving situation if they are successful.
