Notre Dame Football: Hot and Cold Takes, Full Season Edition

Reminder

Welcome to Notre Dame Fighting Irish Hot and Cold Takes: Full Season Edition. As a reminder to all of the readers, this is HEAVILY driven by you. The format allows readers and fans to leave their own takes for the game, both HOT and COLD. As a recap, a HOT take is one that may cause some controversy, but will allow you to say, “CALLED IT!”. A COLD take is still impressive, but is generally more reasonable/expected. During the season, I will feature the most accurate, most interesting, and the most wildly inaccurate after each game week. This weeks takes have a much longer cook time, but the payoff can be oh so sweet.

Cold Take

Rylie Mills and Isaiah Foskey will TIE for the team lead in sacks, notching 8-10 each.

Now, this isn’t saying that Mills is a more elite player than Foskey, simply that he will get more opportunities due to teams doubling Foskey and shifting protection his way. He is a freak off of the edge.....but then again, so is Mills. The Mills hype train is real, being featured in Bruce Feldman’s freak list this year. He also plays multiple positions, so it will be more difficult for teams to key in on him. The opportunities will be there for the taking, and boy will he take them. Foskey and Mills will be the most dominant edge force Notre Dame has seen in years, and can be one of the top duos in all of college football.

Hot Take

Lorenzo Styles Jr has over 1200 yards rushing/receiving

This is a combination of opportunity meeting talent. Styles is coming off a season where he should have been used more, and when given the opportunity flashed as the teams most dynamic weapon. Michael Mayer will still be the alpha, but teams will double/shadow him early and often. Styles will take advantage of this in the pass game, but will also be used in the short screen and running game. He will have confidence and become a household name across college football this year. We saw what he did when given a full opportunity against Oklahoma State last year....casually putting up 8 catches for 136.....which will be more the norm than an outlier. Finally, he’s gotten bigger and stronger....checking in at over 6’1 and nearly 200 lbs. This isn’t a small shifty WR, this is a DUDE.

Your Takes: Please leave your takes below (hot, cold medium-any temp). I will feature the Top Takes next week. GO IRISH!

Bonus Holy Cross Take

As many of you know, I played at THE College of the Holy Cross in MA and they are my pride and joy. They are seeking their FOURTH consecutive Patriot League title. My prediction for this year is that they will not only win the PLC, but will make it to the third round of the FCS playoffs, before falling to one of the Dakotas/Dakota States. They will also have their FIRST player drafted in years in LB Jacob Dobbs, who was featured on Bruce Feldman’s Freak list, coming in at #44. This team has legit NFL talent at multiple levels, which is starting to become the norm over in Worcester....

This kid would be a key player for Notre Dame this year.