Brian, up next year on the Irish Breakdown podcast brought to you by our friends over at Fandu.

We're continuing the offensive line conversation, but now we're going to kind of get into the future, more so the immediate future.

In other shows for the state of the program series that we're doing, we kind of talk about like the depth and what's next.

And offensive line is a little bit

different. It's very similar to quarterback in that you want your depth to be developed, but I don't, and maybe this is unpopular. I don't want to see it. I can't wait for Grayson McHugh to suit up for Notre Dame and be the left tackler, the right tackle that we think that he could be. But I don't want to see it in 2026. The depth in the offensive line is more so in case of an injury, not so much like it is at linebacker where it's like, man, can't wait to watch Drake this series and then Kingston that series and then Madden in this series and then Osberry in this series. It's the offensive line. It's all about continuity. And it's about moving together as a unit. So the depth is a little bit different of a question. It's why we formatted the show this way. But, you know, that's kind of where we're at. It's an offensive line. It's different. It's not really a rotation spot. It's more so if something happens in what we've learned the last two years as that if something can happen, it will happen, which is why developing the depth

is so crucial. Yeah, and then also the depth not only impacts how things are going to go this

year should the worst things happen. It also, your depth and the quality of it is going to also

kind of determine who you're going to be moving forward because we've seen under Marcus

Freeman, we've seen Notre Dame take a portal quarterback. We've seen them take portal tight end.

We've seen them take portal receivers, portal delinement, portal corners, portal safeties.

We haven't seen them take a portal linebacker, not one that's like going to play.

They had the kid from Princeton a couple years ago that was meant to be a depth player, but like not someone was going to play. We haven't seen him take a portal running back that was going to play. Like again, they took Jake Telfelsky, they took Max Hardiman, but not guys that were going to like be part of the rotation, unless I'm forgetting someone. And we also haven't seen them take a portal offensive lineman under Marcus Freeman.

Now, obviously, they took, you know, Vince's favorite player, Kane Madden, back in 2021.

But they're going to recruit and develop the offensive line.

Now, have they looked at some portal guys?

Yes, because there's been times when we weren't sure, and you're looking at from their standpoint, we were not sure about the depth and that. But the future of the offensive line is going to come from guys in the two deep and three deep and on the depth chart. And so if we're going to talk about evaluating the future, this is a position where you need to talk a little bit about what's behind them because we won't talk enough about those guys.

If you're the number three or number four cornerback, we're going to see you play this year.

If you're the number three or number four safety, we're going to see you play.

Same at linebacker, same at D-line, same at wide receiver, same at running back, same a tight-in.

Everywhere except quarterback in an offensive line, where the only way you see a backup is if something bad happens, meaning somebody doesn't play well or somebody gets hurt.

That's the only time you really see a backup play in non-mop-up minutes.

So what does that kind of look like?

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