Jarrett Patterson’s Return to Notre Dame Sets Irish Up for Elite OL in 2022
Notre Dame wins another major re-recruitment battle and sets itself up to have elite OL in Harry Hiestand's first year back with the Irish.
The good news on the re-recruitment front for Notre Dame continued on Sunday when starting center Jarrett Patterson announced his return for his senior season. With his return, the Irish now return five players who started games for the Irish in 2021 and are poised to have one of the best offensive lines in all of college football.
Coming into the season, it felt like a forgone conclusion that Patterson would leave for the NFL after the season. 2021 was his third year in the starting lineup, he’d have his degree, and it felt like there wouldn’t be much to be gained for him. When the Irish line struggled at the start of the season, though, Patterson couldn’t stand out as much with the rest of the line around him crumbling at times. However, the return of Harry Hiestand, who developed four 1st round picks at Notre Dame between 2012-2017, and the chance to improve his draft stock appears to have pushed Patterson back.
During the 2020 season, Patterson looked like one of the best centers in the country before a late-season injury ended his season prematurely. Notre Dame fans found out just how vital a great center was for an OL with Patterson out for the ACC Championship and Rose Bowl.
Harry Hiestand Returns to Stacked Line
On Friday, we learned that Notre Dame was bringing back Harry Hiestand for a second stint to coach the Irish offensive line. When he officially walks through the door to the Gug, he steps into a loaded offensive line room now. For all the consternation over Jeff Quinn’s tenure as OL coach, he recruited the hell out of the position and left Hiestand with a war chest of talent to work with.
With Patterson back, not only does Notre Dame return one of its 2021 captains, it returns five linemen who were starters for the Irish in 2021, even if the five didn’t all play together at the same time. Patterson is the lone returning lineman to start every game in 2021, but Joe Alt and Andrew Kristofic took over starting spots in the middle of the year and didn’t look back. Blake Fisher started and ended the year as a starter but missed 11 games in between due to injury. Josh Lugg, who announced his return for a 6th year last week, started the first 12 games at right tackle before missing the Fiesta Bowl due to injury.
How Hiestand chooses to align his line will be fascinating. Who gets the nod at left tackle between Alt and Fisher? You’d assume that Lugg moves back to guard and battles for a starting spot with Rocco Spindler, but could that be a three-way battle with Kristofic as well? The only lock right now is Patterson at center.
However Hiestand configures the line, Notre Dame is set to have one of the best offensive lines in college football. Between the experience returning and the star power from Patterson, Fisher, and Alt combined with the coaching of Hiestand, the recipe is there for a dominant offensive line in 2022.
Notre Dame Winning Their Re-Recruitments
Patterson’s return is another key re-recruitment win for Notre Dame in the last week. So far, only Kevin Austin would be classified as a loss for the staff. Every other player that Notre Dame was hopeful would return has, with Patterson and Isaiah Foskey being the most significant wins. Both would have been drafted for sure – so too would have Jayson Ademilola – but both can also elevate their draft status into early-round status with strong 2022 seasons.
Frank Vitovitch has been Co-Owner and Editor in Chief of UHND.com since joining forces with Kyle Flavin in 1999. Since that time, he has written over 2,000 articles covering Notre Dame football, recruiting, and basketball. He also works with all staff and external writers on all articles published on UHND.com. Frank's love for Notre Dame football started at a young age watching Rocket Ismail give opposing coaches ulcers in the late 1980's. By day Frank works in marketing and holds a degree in Digital Media from Drexel University. Frank's work has been cited by online/print editions of NBC Sports, ESPN, and Sports Illustrated and has been quoted on air by ESPN's Collin Cowherd. He's conducted interviews with Notre Dame legends Rocket Ismail, Randy Kinder, Lee Becton, Reggie Brooks, Michael Stonebreaker, and Ned Bolcar among others over his 20+ years of covering Notre Dame football. He's also been published in the print edition of USA Today Sports Weekly and the USA Today College Football Preview multiple times. Other Published Works/Citations for Frank Three Reasons Notre Dame Will Beat Alabama - USA Today Notre Dame Suspends WR Kevin Stepherson, RB C.J. Holmes Indefinitely - Bleacher Report Notre Dame / Ohio State Fiesta Bowl Preview - Eleven Warriors Brace Yourself: The Fighting Irish are Relevant Again - Sports on Earth Interviews with the Enemy: A Q&A with Frank Vitovitch of UHND - Yahoo! Sports Five Good Minutes: Notre Dame Football Preview With UHND.com - BC Interruption Vicious Electronic Questioning with UHND - MGO Blog
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Compare the O-line Coach Freeman inherits from Kelly to the one Coach Weis got from Willingham! What a Collison mismatch! The players Kelly got from “Chunky Charlie” were a lot better, but there were still some huge blank spots and a real serious depth prolem…mostly corrected by Kelly and our conditioning coach. We have a chance to be great in 2022…and it could all start in Columbus. The last time a new coach started with a cupboard as well stocked as this was probably at the end of the Ara/Devine Era- and even that was not anywhere this good. Go for it Coach Freeman, and GO IRISH
BGC 77 82
Anyone else going to bother watching the game tonight, between those two giant fraud teams from the over-rated SEC? Should be a real snoozefest.
I’d rather watch Michigan play Cincinnati for the title…two much better teams, who just got screwed by the refs in the semis.
Until they allow 24 teams into a 3-month playoff, we’ll never know who the best team in football is…there’s just SO much parity now.
But whoever wins this shitshow tonight, the title will always have an asterisk next to it: “clearly rigged”.
Amen
After tonight, the SEC will have won 12 of the last 16 national championships. How blatantly rigged is THAT?!?
In those 16 years, ND *ALONE* has won 5 bowl games: the prestigious Sun, Hawaii, Music City, Pinstripe, Citrus, and Camping World
SEC…the biggest joke in sports!
The 2 best teams in college football is a “Shitshow”…LOL…..what a load of BS you toss around everyday here. These 2 teams EARNED the right to be here. It wasn’t handed to them. I’m going over to Blue and Gold website after this game and comment and make FRIENDS there. This comment section here is the only “Shitshow” that i NO longer what to be a part of.
Do computers make some people more stupid ?
Probably so Michael. Can and will Notredame win a national championship under Freeman. Maybe maybe not. They were never going to win one under Kelly because Kelly wasn’t going to bring in great assistants and he wasn’t going to eat,sleep and drink recruiting everyday like Dabo, Meyer and Sabn do.
With NIL, a national championship is now an even bigger pipe dream for ND.
A major bowl is ND’s competitive ceiling….and for those who realize and accept this, ND’s futility in New Year’s Day bowls is very frustrating and depressing.
Of course, for dreamer fans who don’t get it, they just write this off as “oh well, who really care’d about this thing anyway?”….which is why wer’re right here. Again.
These bowl games are as big a reward, and as good as any season is ever going to end, for ND.
So I wish the team would come out motivated and excited enough to win one once in a while.
Why do I get the feeling that if Kelly was still there, many more of the re-recruitments would be gone?
‘You’re going to have the haves and have nots’
— Nick Saban & KIrby Smart, calling for more regulation of NIL.
Just being able to keep a straight, unblushing face to say that is mindboggling. GOP-esque.
Are they wrong?
I count six returning linemen : Patterson, Kristofic, Lugg, Fisher, Alt, and Correll. But Fisher does hardly count, with less than two games. Zeke did have more than that prior to this year.