Notre Dame Football: Will top 2018 recruits make big splashes?

2. Houston Griffith

Griffith turned into one of Notre Dame’s early splash commitments as the Irish wrestled him away from Florida State, a factory for great defensive backs.

Even better, in terms of his progress at least, Griffith enrolled early at Notre Dame and will spend time at the facilities this winter. That could be a huge deal in terms of him potentially seeing the field as soon as possible.

In addition to getting workouts in with the team and working with Notre Dame’s strength and conditioning crew, he’ll get a hard start in figuring out where he fits in the secondary.

Will he start off at corner? Kelly has certainly suggested that he could, whether on the outside or in the nickel spot.

That’s an interesting quote given that so many scouts seem to view him ideally as a safety given his size/athletic ability combination.

But again, that’s what Griffith offers: skill and versatility.

Aside from Julian Love, is there really any member of the secondary so good that they would completely preclude Griffith from seeing the field at some point if he excels? I’m not sure there is, regardless of how much depth and experience there is in the defensive backfield.

We likely can’t just expect him to come in and start, but will he see defensive snaps in 2018 (barring injury)? I’d say there’s definitely more than a 50% chance that he does.