Notre Dame Football gearing up for week one of the season
SOUTH BEND, Ind – The Irish announce true Freshman Anthonie Knapp is starting left guard ahead of their matchup against #20 Texas A&M.
As temperatures shoot back into the 90's, third year Head Coach Marcus Freeman couldn't have asked for a better practice week before heading to College Station, TX to play in front of 100,000 plus fans at Kyle Field.
"Appreciate the good Lord Almighty bringing the heat here. You know, what else would you want being here at Notre Dame and my mother on top of the Golden Dome, bring a little heat on Monday, Tuesday and probably into Wednesday," Freeman said.
"We've been preparing for the heat, but now it's not just preparing like you'll feel it right. You'll fill it out at practice, and it's probably going to be warmer tomorrow during practice, and it probably will be for the game. And so it's a great reminder for our players, like now you're doing you have your routines for hydration and refueling, but now you have to do it with the heat. It's not just hey, remind you to drink fluids into you know, have carbs during these breaks that we have. It's like the heat will force you to do that too," Freeman added.
While the heat is helpful, the Irish still have to be concerned with being able to communicate with each other on both offense and defense. More specifically, on the O-line with transfer quarterback Riley Leonard.
The Duke transfer is depending on the inexperience of the offensive line, in a hostile environment, with a total of six starts between the five starters.
On Monday afternoon, Notre Dame released the depth chart and answered the question of who will replace left tackle Joe Alt, who was drafted 5th overall in the NFL draft.
To begin fall camp, it looked as though graduate senior Tosh Baker would be the ideal candidate as he took first team reps, after the Irish lost red shirt freshman Charles Jagusah for the season.
In the depth chart, it revealed True Freshman Anthonie Knapp would be the starting left tackle. A decision many were anticipating after seeing the Freshman take first team reps over Baker.
"I tell those guys every day you should be trying to take somebody's job, right? And every day, if you're a starter, you should know guys behind you are trying to take your job. And we've had 10 practices since then that basically kind of got us to this conclusion that Anthony Knapp will be our start and left tackle, but he's worked tirelessly. He's done a really good job of building trust with his coaching staff and , and that's why we made that decision," Freeman said.
Starting next to Knapp is red shirt freshman Sam Pendleton, who beat out Junior Rocco Spindler at left guard.
"You know, we have a lot of confidence in in the too deep of our offensive line, right? There's guys with experience that are in the too deep, but at the end of day, you have to make a decision on who you want that first group to be. And Anthony and Sam are two guys we felt would give us the best chance to have success," Freeman added.