Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have Contact

Today was the first day Notre Dame could practice with full contact and thanks to the University’s YouTube channel, we have some video the look at including some great shots of the “rodeo drill” (formerly referred to as the Irish Eyes drill under Weis).

I’d like to preface this by saying it’s tough to make many observations out of a few minutes of practice footage that is really just one on one drills but let’s get to the video…

And now on to some observations…

• Aaron Lynch.  Wow.  It’s been said many times but it’s just hard to believe the kid is a true freshman.  He squared off against Jordan Prestwood and Christian Lombard and won both contests easily drawing some noise from his fellow defenders.  By season’s end he is going to be on the field a lot.
• Fellow freshman Stephon Tuitt was pretty impressive as well.  He is just massive for a freshman.  He wasn’t as impressive as Lynch, but give him some time and he’ll be in the mix too.
• Louis Nix was probably the most impressive in the one on ones.  He is another massive individual and is really the perfect fit for the middle of the Irish defensive line.  He’ll play a bunch this year, but its hard not to get excited about what this kid might be able to do a few seasons from now after more time with Paul Longo.
• The linebackers didn’t stand out too much in this drill which is a little bit disappointing, but this footage was also very limited so it’s way too early to make many conclusions there.
• Prestwood really got a lot of work in this video and was taking on a number of different defenders.  He held his own for the most part, but it definitely looks like he’ll need a vacation on Longo beach this off-season before he’s ready to get into the playing time mix.  Still nice to see him battle and fight in each drill though.

That’s about all I got for now.  Tough to make many conclusions here outside of just being impressed with Lynch and Nix at this point.