Notre Dame coach doubles-down on playing more wide receivers

One of the biggest takeaways from what Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said during Monday’s press conference was the rotation of the wide receivers against BYU.

Jordan Faison, Jaden Greathouse and Micah Gilbert got the lions share of snaps, with Mylan Graham getting just two compared to almost 80 for the other three. Freeman wasn’t happy about the usage of the receivers, and mentioned that he wanted to see a deeper rotation.

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On Tuesday, wide receivers coach Mike Brown spoke about it as well, as they want to play more of the other players, and singled out Bubba Frazier. However, as Mike Berardino pointed out, despite his coaches glowing review of his game, the freshman has played just 22 snaps all season, with just one target.

A good portion of what Freeman and Brown have said could be coach-speak, but let’s be real, the wide receivers group hasn’t performed at a consistently high-level for the coaches to keep running out the same players. Giving others an opportunity would be beneficial in multiple ways, a few being development, and giving players the field time now so they don’t enter the portal and look for playing time elsewhere.

It will be interesting to see what the Irish do, but this would be a great week to get other receivers more game action, as Navy shouldn’t present much of a challenge. However, with Miami looming, Notre Dame needs to be better at the position for the Hurricanes and a potential College Football Playoff run.