“X” marks the spot
We’ve finally reached the conclusion of previewing Notre Dame football’s position groups on the 2024 roster. Last up are the safeties.
Scholarship players: 8
Average 247Sports Composite Rating: 0.8915*
Projected Starters: Xavier Watts** and Rod Heard
* Jordan Clark and Luke Talich were excluded from calculating this rating. Notre Dame lists Clark as a safety, but he was included in the cornerback position group spotlight rather than this one (and thus was omitted from calculating this average) because he is the projected starting nickelback; Talich was a preferred walk-on before earning a scholarship and was not rated by the 247Sports Composite
**Watts was recruited to play wide receiver out of high school
Safety is a weird position for Notre Dame. With the exception of Kyle Hamilton, recent recruiting has been predominantly underwhelming. As such, it’s been a developmental position, but a pretty good one, all things considered.
At bottom, they’ve managed to avoid absolute catastrophe in most circumstances—the 2021 Fiesta Bowl and a certain player’s dropped interception against Ohio State being the glaring exceptions. And with that passive aggressive little dig out of the way, let’s take this opportunity to bid a (possibly fond) farewell to DJ Brown.
From a big-picture standpoint, it’s difficult to not feel a little bit like a scumbag for trashing college football players, even if they’re now (openly) making money off what they do. With that said, Brown wasn’t good enough for Notre Dame; he wasn’t a championship or even New Years Six Bowl caliber safety. But he maximized his physical talent and, as Irish Illustrated’s Tim Prister is happy to point out, fans don’t see the numerous big plays he didn’t give up because he did his job in the defense. So best of luck to Brown after six seasons in an Irish uniform.
But anyway, yeah, safety at Notre Dame has been developmental and avoided absolute catastrophe. Hell, the development has been really good if not great in some circumstances. Case in point: wide-receiver-turned-rover-turned-safety-turned-safety/receiver-turned-just-a-safety-again Xavier Watts won the Nagurski Trophy last season. That award goes to the best defensive player in college football. To quote Vizzini from The Princess Bride, “Inconceivable!”
Watts was named a Walter Camp preseason First Team All-American, but other than that, he’s not really being talked about as one of the best defensive backs in college football. For one thing, that’s because he plays an undervalued position; for another, if we’re being honest, he had a great season last year but popped statistically because several interceptions were thrown directly to him, so some of his good fortune is discounted from his rating. Regardless, his is a fantastic story to follow as he returns as a fifth-year star player after struggling to find a fit early in his career.
So that’s Watts. but with Brown out of eligibility, four-year player Ramon Henderson transferring to UCLA and former Rhode Island transfer Antonio Carter II departing for Jacksonville State after one anomalous season, the rest of Notre Dame’s safety group remains tenuous. And that’s before even mentioning that three-year safeties coach Chris O’Leary joined the Los Angeles Chargers this offseason. O’Leary wasn’t a great recruiter, but his work with Watts should be more than enough of an endorsement of his development skills.
Fortunately, he’s (sort of) replaced by another really good defensive backs coach. Cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens assumes more responsibility for the entire back line of the defense as Max Bullough ascends to linebackers coach and Al Golden focuses more on running the defense wholistically. How that arrangement works out will be something to watch, but Mickens hasn’t given any reason for Irish fans to doubt him to date.
So, most of the tenuousness comes from the players not named “Watts.” Northwestern transfer Rod Heard was in Evanston for five seasons and appeared in 46 games, recording 182 total tackles (128 solo), 11 tackles for loss, two sacks, 10 passes defended and two interceptions. He played both corner and safety so he has some versatility, but the obvious need for Irish is the spot opposite Watts. After previous Wildcats mercenary Brandon Joseph underwhelmed for one season in an Irish uniform — albeit without as good a running mate as Heard currently has — Heard doesn’t need to be a star, but he should be more than a stop-gap.
After Watts and Heard it’s a bunch of greenhorns; back-to-back three-man recruiting classes in 2023 and 2024 make up the rest of the safety position. The only member of the ’23 class to burn a redshirt was Luke Talich, a preferred walk-on who earned a scholarship by the end of his freshman season after making his bones on special teams. The 6-foot-4 Cody, Wyoming product has the best length in the room but remains developmental.
Talich’s classmates Ben Minich and Adon Shuler got off to slow starts as freshman because of injuries, but each saw action last season. Shuler is expected to be in the two-deep this season along with Talich and the duo need to show promise given that Watts and Heard will leave both starting jobs vacant after 2024.
As for the true freshmen, they probably won’t make any more waves this season than last year’s newcomers did in 2023. Taebron Bennie-Powell and Kennedy Urlacher were both three-star recruits and figure to be special teams contributors at this point, particularly Urlacher (who has the physicality to possibly move to linebacker down the road).
Finally, four-star Brauntae “Tae” Johnson was just outside the top-200 nationally on the 247Sports Composite. He’s arguably the most physically gifted safety on Notre Dame’s roster, but some services listed him as an athlete and he still has a lot to learn at safety, which might not even matter if he moves to wide receiver.
All in all, the Notre Dame safety room has decent talent but is very top heavy, considering the bottom 75% of the position group is almost completely unproven at the collegiate level. The key is making sure that the new coaching hierarchy, however collaborative it may be, makes Talich and Shuler serviceable enough as second-years to plug-and-play if the need arises. The future is full of question marks, but for 2024, the plan has to be to let the vets do the lion’s share.