Marty Biagi is used to dreaming and planning in pencil in the spring, knowing some eventual key parts of Notre Dame football’s special teams operations might not arrive/enroll until June and others might not be fully healthy and audition-able until August.
And yet the third-year Irish special teams coach does so with a comfortability, knowing how committed ND’s head coach, Marcus Freeman, is to special teams excellence and not holding back on Biagi’s options to make that happen.
And now comes another curve. Perhaps.
The uncertainty of what roster limits will look like in 2025 — with a reduced cap more likely than not, that would force cuts before the start of next season — adds another layer to the calculus of putting together the best personnel on special teams without eroding those players’ effectiveness on offense or defense.
“I still think it’ll be about the same amount of guys from that standpoint, in the group,” Biagi told reporters last week. “I think what you’ll see is a bit more, ‘Hey, we’ve go to figure out how to use the four games, the four games, the four games,’ if that makes sense.”
Players who haven’t previously redshirted are eligible to do so if they don’t play in more than four regular-season games in a season. Postseason games don’t count against that maximum. And there’s plenty of planning and discussion that goes into whether to breach that maximum, particularly with freshmen.
“We don’t want to waste somebody just for one play or something [by using them in a fifth game],” Biagi said, “but [we’re] trying to map out who’s had a great fall camp and may not be ready to play on offense or defense, so we can start getting them in. That kind of thing.”
So, who has stood out so far among the early enrolled freshman from a special teams standpoint?
Linebacker Madden Faraimo, cornerback Cree Thomas, safeties JaDon Blair and Ethan Long, and wide receivers Elijah Burress and Jerome Bettis Jr. have made positive early impressions, Biagi said.
“I know it’s a lot of names, but it’s just still so early,” he said. “But I think them being here will definitely help. So, it’s not just all new to them in fall, where they’re trying to learn the offensive playbook and defensive playbook [on top of special teams].”