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Notre Dame Football: 3 reasons Irish could make playoff in 2021

By Connor Muldowney

CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA - NOVEMBER 27: Kyren Williams #23 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish runs against Jahlil Taylor #52 of the North Carolina Tar Heels during the first half of their game at Kenan Stadium on November 27, 2020 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)
CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA - NOVEMBER 27: Kyren Williams #23 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish runs against Jahlil Taylor #52 of the North Carolina Tar Heels during the first half of their game at Kenan Stadium on November 27, 2020 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /
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All eyes will be on Notre Dame football this fall as the Irish are no longer part of the ACC and must make a playoff run once again without a conference title.

Losing Ian Book and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah will hurt, but the Irish have more than enough talent to make up for those departures and if they can play to potential, they should be in that playoff conversation for the third time in four years.

Here’s why I believe the Irish could be back in the playoff yet again despite losing their star quarterback and defensive standout as well as their defensive coordinator.

3. Defense should be elite

Losing a second defensive coordinator in the past few seasons, Brian Kelly was tasked with finding a replacement for Clark Lea and he found arguably the hottest young name on the market in Cincinnati’s Marcus Freeman. He excelled at Cincinnati in the same role and has even more intriguing players at his disposal.

Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Shaun Crawford, and Daelin Hayes are both gone which is going to hurt but returning stars like Drew White, Kyle Haminton, Justin Ademilola, and a loaded defensive backfield should help matters.

Notre Dame had the No. 25 total defense in the country last season and I think those numbers improve this year and the Irish will probably finish somewhere in the 10-20 range.

Freeman has never gotten to work with this amount of talent before and you can bet he’s going to take advantage of it. He’ll have a playoff-caliber defense from day one and that’s sometimes all a team needs to make a deep run.

Notre Dame’s defense will keep it in plenty of games this season.

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