Notre Dame Football: Way-too-early projected 2-deep 2019 depth chart
By Jacob Wilson
Defensive Backs
Starting cornerbacks: Troy Pride Jr., TaRiq Bracy, Shaun Crawford
Backups: Donte Vaughn, Houston Griffith
Of all the position groups on the Irish’s roster, cornerback stands to be one of significant uncertainty heading into spring. Returning starter Troy Pride Jr. appears to be the only true lock at corner at this time, but much discussion persists as it relates to his positioning as a field vs. boundary corner.
While some expect Pride to make the switch from field to boundary corner, the common consensus is that he’ll retain the position in which he is most comfortable. Assuming the latter transpires, there’s set to be a significant amount of competition across the field, most notably between Donte Vaughn, Houston Griffith, and TaRiq Bracy.
With Kelly announcing that Vaughn won’t practice this spring due to surgery on the shoulder injury that plagued him in the Clemson loss, there’s a good chance that one of his competitors takes this opportunity to secure the starting job at boundary corner.
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At nickel, a healthy Shaun Crawford should get the nod as long as he isn’t shifted over to boundary corner in place of Vaughn, Bracy, or Griffith. If all else fails, the Irish have a significant amount of talented, but unproven depth in the form of Noah Boykin, DJ Brown, and even former quarterback/running back Avery Davis.
Starting safeties: Alohi Gilman, Jalen Elliott
Backups: Kyle Hamilton, Derrick Allen
Outside of some contingencies that will roll over from the cornerback group, the Irish’s safety corps is effectively cut and dry. Navy-transfer Alohi Gilman has established himself as the linchpin of the Irish secondary and is a candidate to earn captaincy honors for Notre Dame in 2019 after proving himself well worth the wait last season.
Senior Jalen Elliott, perhaps less of a given than Gilman in terms of retaining his starting job, improved drastically last season after combining for zero interceptions alongside former safety Nick Coleman in 2017. However, we’ll get a true sense of what Elliott brings to the table as he functions within a defense that is sure to go through its fair share of growing pains in 2019.
Senior Devin Studstill was expected to be the first man up behind Gilman at free safety, but just recently announced that we will be entering the transfer portal prior to spring practices. With that said, Kelly has made it clear that he expects some of the summer arrivals (Kyle Hamilton and Litchfield Ajavon) to compete for available backup roles alongside sophomore Derrick Allen.