Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2012 Notre Dame Football Preview
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106 ✦ BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2016 FOOTBALL PREVIEW DEFENSIVE BACKS Count on it, notes third-year Irish defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder. "We like to take players like him who are high production players and do more with them — like we did with Sheldon [Day], like we did with Jaylon [Smith] at times," VanGorder said. Opposite of senior Cole Luke, who has contributed in each of his three seasons at Notre Dame and started the past two years, the other starting cornerback spot has yet to be taken. The candidates include junior Nick Watkins, sophomores Nick Coleman and Crawford, and senior Devin Butler. Crawford will already be on the field quite often as the starting nickel back, though that does not necessarily preclude him from start- ing on the other side of Luke as well. "It's hard to take him off the field," VanGorder said of Crawford. Watkins missed most of spring ball with a fractured left humerus, though he returned for summer workouts. He made his first career start in the 44-28 loss to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl Jan. 1. "I failed myself if I'm not starting against Texas," Watkins said prior to the injury. Coleman registered 44 snaps as a freshman in 2015 while his classmate Crawford sat out the season — after earning the No. 1 nickel back position — due to a torn ACL. Coleman said the defense is coming easier to him in his second year in the program. Butler started the regular-season finale at Stanford last season after KeiVarae Russell went down with a season-ending injury, but suffered a broken left foot in practice that sidelined him and thrust Watkins into the starting lineup versus Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. After competing for a starting job in the spring, Butler re-broke his foot during workouts in early June and was slated to undergo surgery and be sidelined for 14 to 16 weeks — which could lead to him red- shirting in 2016. Nevertheless, there will be plenty of options for defensive backs coach Todd Lyght to work with come August. "The open competition is great," the coach said. "Everybody is still challenging for the starting spots and we know that we're probably going to have to play eight guys deep across the board, especially with our nickel and dime package. So everybody is going to have a hand in making this team successful on the back end." ✦ In his first months on campus as a freshman at Notre Dame, cornerback Shaun Crawford quickly rose the depth chart to become the No. 1 nickel back before suf- fering a season-ending torn ACL last August. Notre Dame is already looking toward the fall with optimism now that Crawford is back on the field in that capacity. "More than anything else, the ability to play man coverage in there. We like [Crawford's] ability to play man," head coach Brian Kelly said. "[He's a] very smart player, instinctive player. I think you have to have a real good sense of the field. Corners play out by the numbers and they've got a friend with them called the sideline. "The guy that plays inside has got to understand the field a lot better, has got to have an instinct to play inside — and he has a natural instinct of playing inside a lot better. A guy that can play inside is a little bit more unique in the sense that he's got to have really good speed because he's got to cover guys coming across the field, going vertical — and he possesses that speed and instinct." Crawford is vying for a starting cornerback spot, but at the very least he is expected to handle the nickel back duties. Notre Dame is also comfortable with senior starting cornerback Cole Luke at nickel, Kelly explained this spring. "That's a priority for us, and we're working Cole Luke a lot at that position as well. We don't want to be in a posi - tion where we feel like we can't even go to our [No.] 2," he said. "We feel good about Cole and getting him over. We're getting him a ton of work at that position as well. "We want to feel like we're going to go into the season with two very good nickels and not put ourselves in a position where we can't take the Sam [linebacker] off the field to get the matchups we need. We felt like at times we were in some unfavorable matchups with the slot receiver on our Sam." After Crawford went down, no player truly emerged as the team's nickel back. On third-down packages the Irish relied a bit on Devin Butler early in the season with mixed results, but for the most part they kept Sam line - backer James Onwualu on the field for passing downs. Defensive backs coach Todd Lyght praised Crawford's ability and also expressed confidence in Notre Dame's improved flexibility with a strong nickel alignment in 2016. "Shaun is a real football guy," he said. "He loves the game, he studies the game, he works at it really hard. Obviously he was going to start for us last year at the nickel position, but had the knee injury. He did a great job in the offseason of working to get back and has been doing really, really well. "He really excels on the inside because of his football intelligence and his understanding of the 2-3 exchanges and the 3-4 exchanges and how we play between zone, prior zone and his blitz coverages, he does a great job in his understanding of that. We moved Cole inside, so he's picking up the nickel position. Cole is one of our smarter players in the back end, and he's doing a great job of moving inside and understanding how we want to do things and where we want him to play." Notre Dame hopes that everything will click in the third year of defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder's scheme. The performance at nickel back will have a lot to do with how that story turns out. — Andrew Owens BY THE NUMBERS 13 How many teams forced fewer turnovers than Notre Dame's defensive output of 14 in 2015. 6.9 Yards per pass attempt surrendered by the Irish last fall, which was tied for 54th among Football Bowl Subdivision teams. 54 Number of career starts entering 2016 from the projected starting defensive backfield of Cole Luke (26), Max Redfield (23), Drue Tranquill (four) and Nick Watkins (one). Shaun Crawford was in line to be the top option at nickel back as a true freshman last year before suffering a season-ending knee injury in August. He is expected to be the primary figure at that spot this fall. PHOTO BY ANDREW IVINS NICKEL BACK PROVIDES OPPORTUNITY IN 2016 QUICK FACTS Position Coach: Todd Lyght (2nd year at Notre Dame) Returning Starters: CB Cole Luke (26 career starts) and S Max Redfield (23) Departing Starters: CB KeiVarae Russell (37) and S Elijah Shumate (28) Projected New Starters: S Drue Tranquill (4) and CB Nick Watkins (1) Top Reserves: CB Devin Butler (1), CB Shaun Crawford, CB Nick Coleman and S Avery Sebastian Waiting Their Turn: S Nicco Fertitta and CB Ashton White Newcomers: S Jalen Elliott, CB Julian Love, S D.J. Morgan, S Spencer Perry, CB Troy Pride Jr., S Devin Studstill and CB Donté Vaughn Moved In: None Moved Out: None Other Departures: S Matthias Farley (graduated), S Nicky Baratti (graduated), S Mykelti Williams (transfer) and S John Turner (graduated) FYI: Eight different players started games in the Irish secondary last season, includ - ing Luke (13 starts), Shumate (12), Russell (11), Redfield (11), Farley (3), Tranquill (1), Butler (1) and Watkins (1) … Returning players accounted for 44.4 percent of the interceptions and 48.6 percent of the passes broken up by the Irish in 2015 … Phil Steele's 2016 College Football Preview rated the Notre Dame secondary as the 27th- best unit nationally, and listed Luke as the No. 13 cornerback and Redfield as the No. 8 free safety in the country.