Brian, we have a daily mailbag to take us the rest of the way here in the Irish Breakdown

podcast brought to by our friends over at Fanduil. We would prefer the questions to be more geared towards the topics we discussed today. And believe me, there is no shortage of topics. We talked about top 10 offensive lines. We previewed Notre Dame seventh regular season opponent at VYU. We also talked about some All-America candidates on offensive defense.

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Let's us know to set that question aside and super chats get bumped up to the top.

Yes, sir, and we do not have any super chats right now. So let's start off with Iden Benami,

who is very much a topical question as we start breaking down, as we just finished up breaking down the offensive line. Is Carter Smith, the offensive tackle at Indiana, really that good? Is he overrated? Now, he's very good. Now, I guess my answer would be is, what are we talking about here? Are we talking about offensive linemen in college? Are we talking about NFL prospect? Because as an NFL prospect, I do think he's a little bit overrated. I've seen people talk about him being a top 10 pick, and I don't see that. I don't know that his athleticism and power projects quite good enough to first round, at least to high first round pick. I think you saw that a little bit in the Miami game, where that was like the one game in the postseason.

He was playing like legit like top 15 players. I mean, Oregon to a degree, but, you know, he played well against

Miami, but he also had some snaps where he just couldn't, he couldn't handle Ruben Bain and the key messador. There were some snaps like that. I think as a whole, I think the Miami offensive line did outplay the Miami defensive line. And one of the Miami fans got all sensitive about that. But like, what are we talking about with that Miami D line? Out playing them is not running for 250 yards. It's we did what we needed to do to make the plays we needed to make to win the game.

And in those clutch moments, we made the blocks and they didn't make the plays. That's what outplaying Miami is. Out playing a team like Miami last year is not running for 250. That's not happening. but you also saw some part of the reason the game was a little bit closer because there were some snaps where their best player had trouble against Miami's edge players.

And it's because he's just not that high level athlete.

And he's got good length, but I don't know that he's got like Kirby Lambert Anthony Nap type of length.

Trevor Goosby type of length.

And so NFL draft prospect, there's some things you can pick apart. As a college football player, I just talked about the couple snaps he struggled against Miami. There's also a lot of good snaps where he beat the Miami ends, but it's with technique, it's with leverage, it's with intelligence, it's with toughness, it's things like that. As a college offensive lineman, he's not overrated at all. He is very good, very good. You can be a very good college offensive lineman and not necessarily project to be a top 15 to 20 draft. Does he a day two pick for me? Yes. Yes, especially if he, you know, think maybe he can move inside the guard. But I would absolutely take him in day two, even maybe sneak into the late round one. I just, I don't see top 15 draft pick and I've seen people project him to be that, but he's still a really good football player and a really good college player and a proven college player as well. Yeah, the truth is somewhere in between with Carter Smith, in my opinion.

I do think he's that good at the college level.

I echo everything that you said about him as an NFL prospect.

Right now, I'm going and I'm looking on Fandle to see where his odds are to be taken

somewhere in the first round.

And they are, he has similar odds to actually Byron Brown to be drafted in the first round of the NFL draft this upcoming season on Fandual, but I'm with you.

A lot of mock drafts have Carter Smith going in the top 10 to 15.

Oh, yeah.

Drafts.

Yeah.

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