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Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NCAA. Each week, we send out questions to the most plugged-in Notre Dame Fighting Irish fans, and fans across the country. Sign up here to join Reacts.
What scares you the most about the 2021 Notre Dame football season? Well — DON’T answer that yet [writes that down as a future Reacts question].
Let’s start over... what are some of the major concerns for Notre Dame football in 2021? Without question, most of those concerns have to do with position groups that sent players to the NFL a short time ago. Now, I already brought the soapbox out about the whole “regression” thing, and we don’t need to focus on the broader picture right now. So let’s very casually talk about question marks for 2021.
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Even with Ian Book, the all-time wins leader at quarterback for the Irish, headed to play for the New Orleans Saints — 44% of people are more concerned about the offensive line that sent 4 players to the NFL recently. Maybe that’s because Notre Dame didn’t really set a depth chart after spring football, or maybe that’s because people have faith in Jack Coan — or maybe they aren’t sold on Notre Dame being O-Line U. At any rate, the thought of one or more true freshman on the line is valid enough to be worried.
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Defensively, the Irish look really stout (and quick) along the front seven. New defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman has a scheme that really highlights Notre Dame’s strengths up front, but the back end still has some question marks. Over 60% of fans are more worried about cornerback than safety. I imagine that the 37.5% are mostly focused on the guy next to Kyle Hamilton, but even so — a small position group with a probable top 5 NFL Draft pick in 2022 should never be more concerning than the group where ND is still trying to find its best two guys.
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