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Notre Dame football: Second-year players who’ll become stars in 2023

By Connor Muldowney

SOUTH BEND, INDIANA - OCTOBER 15: Tobias Merriweather #15 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish can't catch a pass from Drew Pyne #10 against the Stanford Cardinal during the second half at Notre Dame Stadium on October 15, 2022 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
SOUTH BEND, INDIANA - OCTOBER 15: Tobias Merriweather #15 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish can't catch a pass from Drew Pyne #10 against the Stanford Cardinal during the second half at Notre Dame Stadium on October 15, 2022 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) /
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Coming off a successful 2022 season, Notre Dame football is not quite content with just being a nine-win team. While it had to be considered successful because the program was undergoing major changes at the helm under Marcus Freeman, it still left a lot to be desired.

Fortunately for the Irish, recruiting has not been an issue so building off that nine-win season shouldn’t be an issue with all of the talent coming in.

Freeman’s first crop of freshmen were very solid and he has a lot of second-year guys who could break out in 2023 and become stars.

Here are my top three candidates.

As the top recruit in Notre Dame’s 2022 class, I think most people probably expected Jaylen Sneed to have a major impact this past season. But that wasn’t the case.

The linebacker position for Notre Dame wasn’t a weakness so he wasn’t exactly needed to become an immediate impact player. That won’t be the case in 2023 as the defense is losing plenty of starters and Sneed is one of those guys who could step up and become not only a starter but a star.

As a freshman, Sneed had just seven total tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss in four games which means he was able to preserve his redshirt.

Notre Dame’s going to need some new guys to step up on the defensive side of the ball next season and I think Sneed has superstar potential at linebacker.

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