Every offseason in South Bend brings a few NFL Draft early entry decisions to be made. This year was especially busy with the Notre Dame football program, as Ronnie Stanley and Sheldon Day had big decisions to make. ESPN Draft guru Mel Kiper Jr did a draft conference call with the media and I asked him about the Notre Dame football players who stayed in school.
Having Stanley and Day back makes Notre Dame a top 15 team in 2015 probably. If you want to hear Kiper’s response to my Fighting Irish inquiry, here’s the podcast below:
Here’s something Mel Kiper Jr would love, my 2016 NFL mock draft, stocked with quite a few Notre Dame players.
And here’s my 2015 NFL mock draft, which has some Notre Dame football representation as well.
For the 14th consecutive season NationalChamps.net has released its Annual Early Bird Preview, which takes a very early – but extremely compelling – peek into the next college football season. Notre Dame football nation was obviously disappointed in the second half collapse in 2014, but things look up for this fall as National Champs rank ND #16, and their vanquished opponent in Nashville, LSU, #11.
They also constructed a 2015 Notre Dame football depth chart, take a look:
Click on each Notre Dame football player’s name to learn more about him. Boldface indicates a returning starter.
ND offense
QB Everett Golson-Sr Malik Zaire-So
RB Tarean Folston-Jr, Greg Bryant-So
WR Will Fuller-Jr, Torii Hunter-So
WR Amir Carlisle-Sr, C.J. Prosise-Jr
WR Chris Brown-Sr, Corey Robinson-Jr
TE Durham Smythe-So
OT Ronnie Stanley-Sr
OG Nick Martin-Sr, Conor Hanratty-Sr
C Matt Hegarty-Sr
OG Steve Elmer-Jr
OT ???
K ???
ND defense
DE Isaac Rochell-Jr, Grant Blankenship-So
DT Sheldon Day-Sr
DT Jarron Jones-Jr
DE Romeo Okwara-Sr, Andrew Trumbetti-So
OLB James Onwualu-Jr, Greer Martini-So
MLB Jaylon Smith-Jr
OLB Nyles Morgan-So
CB Cole Luke-Jr, Devin Butler-Jr
CB ???
S Elijah Shumate-Sr, Drue Tranquill-So
S Max Redfield-Jr, Matthias Farley-Sr
P ???
Obviously, the biggest omissions on that depth chart are CB KeiVarae Russell and DE Ishaq Williams, two starters who were suspended this past season for academic issues. Plug both of them in, and that defense which was phenomenal in this first half of the season, but absolutely gashed in the second half, looks decent now.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital, eBay, Google News and CBS Interactive Inc.
You can read Banks’ feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye newspaper and listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)