Counting Down the Irish — 10 to 6, Notre Dame’s offensive youth movement moving to the forefront

A shutdown corner, bookend offensive tackles and a young quarterback-receiver combination. Those are the building blocks of a strong team, and Notre Dame may have all of them this year.

The Irish may lack plenty — receiver depth, running back depth, receiver depth, certainty about its No. 2 cornerback, receiver depth, quarterback experience, receiver depth — but they have those building blocks.

As always, thank you to the 10 media members who took the time to rank the top quarter of Notre Dame’s roster by the most expected impact this season …

No. 10 Cam Hart, senior cornerback — 158 pointsUnanimously ranked.Highest rank: No. 6Lowest rank: No. 14Last year’s rank: No. 21

Hart has so little experience at cornerback — relatively speaking for a senior starter — his ceiling may be higher than anyone has realized yet. But what most differentiates Hart from the rest of the Irish cornerbacks is how high his floor is.

Of the nine players ahead of Hart yet, two of them had lowest rankings that were lower than Hart’s, and another three matched his lowest ranking of No. 14. The beat writers may not expect Hart to define the season, but they all see him as an absolutely pivotal and reliable piece of it, something not as strongly said for just about anyone else not mentioned on preseason All-American teams or starting at quarterback.

Hart has only one starting season under his belt, taking more than 700 snaps in 2021. He broke up nine passes and intercepted two passes last year. That experience alone should raise expectations for Hart, not to mention his presumed development in the last eight months.

There are two ways those raised expectations do not yield more gaudy stats from Hart, one inherent to football and one bad. The