2016 Notre Dame Football Preview

2016 Notre Dame Football Preview

Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2012 Notre Dame Football Preview

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66 ✦ BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2016 FOOTBALL PREVIEW BY LOU SOMOGYI I n college football, it doesn't take long for a relatively untested greenhorn to become a vaunted graybeard. Senior left tackle Mike McGlinchey is Exhibit A on the 2016 Notre Dame team. A year ago at this time, McGlinchey was a novice along the Fighting Irish offensive line with one career start. Now he is the veteran centerpiece of a reconstruction along the line — and the heir to a tradition that in head coach Brian Kelly's first six years at Notre Dame has had nothing but a future first-round pick play- ing that position. Over the last three decades, there has not been a single position at Notre Dame that has had more first-round or future NFL glamour attached to it than left tackle: • From the 1988 na- tional title campaign to nearly the turn of the century, the posi- tion produced three first-round selections in Andy Heck (1989), Lombardi Award winner Aaron Taylor (1994) and Luke Petitgout (1999). • In the first decade after the millennium, it included a pair of four-year starters in Jor- dan Black — who had a 10-year NFL career — and Ryan Harris, a third-round pick in 2007 who was the starting left tackle for this past year's Super Bowl 50 champion Denver Broncos. (This March, Harris signed a two- year, $3.9-million contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers.) • During his first three years at Notre Dame, McGlinchey likewise was blessed with the opportunity to witness the left tackle excellence of first-round pick Zack Martin (2010-13), already an All-Pro with the Dal- las Cowboys (albeit as a guard), and Ronnie Stanley (2014-15), who with his No. 6 selec- tion this spring became Notre Dame's highest overall pick since quarterback Rick Mirer was No. 2 in 1993. The 6-7½, 310-pound McGlinchey, whose cousin Matt Ryan is the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, is not reticent about acknowl- edging that "playing football for a long time" is in his DNA. Like Stanley, who succeeded Martin by moving from starting right tackle to left tackle in 2014, McGlinchey did the same this spring after starting all 13 games at right tackle in 2015. "It's a special accolade to be a left tackle at the University of Notre Dame," McGlinchey said. "… It's something I want to live up to, if not exceed. I certainly had the best examples to look at from the last four years, and I'm hoping I can set my own path and have guys look up to me and see how I've done things, and hope- fully try to emulate that along the way." This will be the first time in Kelly's seven seasons that a Martin — Zack or recent sec- ond-round center pick Nick Martin at center — will not be a prime voice along the Notre Dame offensive line. For McGlinchey, the names will change but the culture will not. "When you're in a program for four years and have guys do it the same way over and over again, you kind of just get brainwashed into doing it the same way," McGlinchey said. "That's something we take a lot of pride in — having a standard that is set and it's up to the guys that are in the room the longest to uphold that standard. "I've certainly had some great examples over my four years as to what that looks like. I like to think it's my job now to kind of set the bar again." All signs this spring pointed to no drop- off, per fifth-year Notre Dame offensive line coach Harry Hiestand, whose career included a six-year stint with the NFL's Chicago Bears from 2005-10. There he instructed center Olin Kruetz, who was selected to the NFL's 2000s All-Decade Team. Kruetz has been on campus previously with Hiestand so that the coach can get input from an outside source on the line dynamics. "He was really impressed with what Mike McGlinchey has been doing, and I agree," Hiestand said in the second half of spring. "Mike has accepted that role … carrying on the tradition that the Martins demonstrated. They showed him how to lead. "Our standards don't change, and what we're specifically teaching also has a consis- tency to it. It's easier to pass it on rather than learn a new set of fundamentals." In His Blood Seven members in McGlinchey's recent family tree have played or are playing college football — mainly at quarterback, such as the NFL star and first cousin Ryan. Uncle John Loughery was the starting quar- terback for the 1980 Boston College team that finished 7-4, and his son (McGlinchey's first cousin), also John, is a signal-caller for the Temple Owls. Another cousin, Sam McCain, played free safety last year at Sacred Heart. He fondly recalls a pick-up tackle football game played by several other brothers plus cousins — in their suits — outside of where his grandmother's wake was held. "I think that's how she would have wanted it," McGlinchey said. "That gives you kind of the perspective of who we are." Growing up amid so many quarterbacks honed both his passing and receiving skills. "Being around them and working out, I used to run routes for them when I was in high school and a younger kid," Mc- Glinchey said. "Just by watching them I kind of picked up the ability to throw a football." In December 2013, during McGlinchey's freshman season in which he redshirted, Kelly noted semi face- tiously how the offensive tackle throws a bet- ter football than some of the quarterbacks on the Irish roster. The route running he devel- oped while catching passes from his cousins also could have made him a bona fide big- time tight end prospect. However, even when McGlinchey was little … he was big. "That's what I had to get used to as a little kid: 'Oh, you're going to be a lineman, you're going to have your hand in the dirt,'" he said. "But it worked out for me so I can't really complain about it." Still, his fluidness and athletic ability as a high school senior at Philadelphia's William Penn Charter were manifested when he wore both No. 74 and then exclusively No. 44 over the final three games while playing everywhere other than the defensive backfield. "I think that benefited me in the aspect of learning the game of football," McGlinchey said. "I learned it from all different perspec- tives and I think that was a huge benefit for me coming into school here." His agility and maneuverability also trans- lated well onto the basketball courts, where he played four years against varsity com- petition and became an all-league player in basketball-crazed Philadelphia. HEIR TO A TRADITION Senior Mike McGlinchey could become Notre Dame's next elite left tackle McGlinchey started 13 games at right tackle last year for a line that helped the Irish average 5.63 rushing yards per carry, which ranked eighth in the country and set a modern (post-World War II) school record. PHOTO BY ANDREW IVINS

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