Notre Dame Spring Practice Report: Offense Edition

Notre Dame kicked off its 2025 spring practice period today inside the indoor facility. We got a chance to see the first four periods of practice today. Trevor and I were there, and below are our observations. We’ll do offense first and then follow up with the defense. Obviously we can’t see everyone, so if a player isn’t in the report we didn’t see enough to really report on him.

QUARTERBACK

The quarterbacks went through their normal drills, where they got warmed up, then went to work with the backs on handoffs and then routes from the backfield. All the quarterbacks looked sharp during this period. After that they went to routes on air to the receivers, tight ends and backs.

Junior Kenny Minchey was the most impressive during the drill period. It was the most confident I’ve seen Minchey just from how he carries himself. He was absolutely on point throughout the drills. His ball placement was exceptional, whether he was hitting the back hip on a slant, getting the ball over the outside shoulder on go routes and getting it over the top on corners. He was really, really sharp. Minchey was also throwing with a lot of gas. The ball was exploding out of his hand and getting on receivers in a hurry. Combined with his command of the drills, how streamlined he looked physically and how well he was throwing the ball I felt he had the best first day during the periods we saw.

Right behind him was sophomore CJ Carr, who also had a very sharp practice. The reason CJ wasn’t quite as good as Kenny is he had three throws – all which were caught – that were just not quite as on point. He threw a swing to back that was behind, he was just a tad high on a slant and a fade route to Leo Scheidler was too far outside, but Scheidler did a really nice job flipping outside and making a clean catch. Outside of that Carr was really, really sharp. Any potential concerns about the fall injury impacting his throwing was done away with today. The ball was jumping out of his hand and he was throwing with a lot of gas. Minchey and Carr both looked very good during drills.

Senior Steve Angeli was solid, but there’s a noticeable difference in velocity and power between him and the other quarterbacks. Angeli has good arm strength, but the ball didn’t jump out of his hand the way it did with the three other scholarship QBs. Angeli was a bit off with his targeting today, with many of his throws going high, especially quick game. This is kind of normal for Angeli, who is often too high on throws early in practice. In the past when we’ve seen him start that way and then settle in and be fine as practice goes on. We just didn’t get to see that part, but during the drills we saw there was a very clear difference between velocity and ball placement compared to the other two quarters.

Freshman Blake Hebert is a bit erratic from a technical standpoint, both with his feet and his release. But when he’s right the ball absolutely explodes out of his hand. He also has a very fast, compact release. Sometimes a bit too quick, but when it’s clean the ball comes out in a really impressive fashion.

RUNNING BACK

There wasn’t much to gather from the running backs today, but there were a few observations. As a group the backs looked as explosive as they have in the past. One note was that Gi’Bran Payne was showing good burst out of his cuts, which tells me he’s back to full strength and health after injuring his knee. They worked a lot on throwing to the backs out of the backfield, and they all caught the ball very well, including Kedren Young. He’s an impressive physical specimen. He’s built thick but he was very quick and nimble working through drills. Aneyas Williams is listed at the same weight but he did look more defined and strong.

WIDE RECEIVER/TIGHT END

We saw a few wrinkles in what Mike Brown was doing from a footwork drills standpoint today. There was an emphasis on speed cuts today and really being sharp out of breaks. That was clearly an area of need for this group, so it was good to see him focusing so much on that. As a whole the receivers were very clean today catching the football during drills.

As expected, junior Jaden Greathouse led the receivers through the drills. He was sharp during drills outside of one rep where he stepped wrong on a new drill, but he lined back up and ripped it off perfectly. He looked very quick getting out of breaks today.

Jordan Faison was going through drills today, something we didn’t really see last spring. He looked healthy after struggling with that during the season. The injury he had in 2024 kept him from showing the explosiveness we know he has, but today he was very, very sharp getting out of brakes and his burst off the line was really impressive.

I was impressed with how much improvement Cam Williams showed in drills. A year ago at this time Williams was lost, even in drills. Today he looked sharp and was showing the kind of impressive athleticism and change of direction we thought he would have. He also showed the best burst off the line of all the receivers, and he also caught the ball quite well. We didn’t see him get to do any team work, but this was a very good first step for him.

I was also impressed with Logan Saldate‘s quickness working through drills. He was a bit choppy at times on cuts, which shows he still needs more technical work, but when he’s right he shows really impressive change of direction and he catches the ball quite well.

Elijah Burress was the best looking of the freshman. He had a couple of “where am I supposed to be” on drills, which you always see from freshmen in their first practice, but other than that he looked good. Burress catches the football extremely well and he’s very sudden. I saw him at Irish Invasion, and even from then he’s more built, he’s faster getting out of his stance and he’s more explosive getting out of brakes. He’ll need a lot of strength work, but movement wise he was impressive today. Scrap Richardson is very, very raw at WR right now, as you’d expect. Needs a lot of work but his athleticism popped a few times.

The only tight end I really got a chance to observe today was Eli Raridon. He looked really good. He came off the line with more urgency than I’ve seen in the past and his speed really popped during routes on air.

It’s obvious Will Pauling isn’t 100% yet.

OFFENSIVE LINE

I don’t spend much time looking at offensive linemen during non-padded practices, but I was able to make a few initial observations today. As a whole the linemen look to be in pretty good shape. Guys like Charles Jagusah and Sullivan Absher have eliminated some of the extra mass from their core. Both looked as good physically as we’ve seen, especially Absher. He also moved better than we’ve seen because of it, but he’s still a massive young man. I liked how well Guerby Lambert worked through drills and moved during drills. Matty Augustine moves really well. Really smooth movement skills.