Leftovers & Links: On the long-term silver lining to Notre Dame’s lack of receiver depth and on Peacock

After losing sixth-year receiver Avery Daivs for the season on Friday, Notre Dame is offering optimism about its few available receivers, insisting those young players will step up to the challenge created by having only six healthy scholarship receivers in practices right now.

That is to be expected, both because of human nature and because it would not serve Irish receivers coach Chansi Stuckey to publicly throw his hands up in the air and say his three sophomores and one freshman are overmatched and not ready to be starters. Stuckey will, however, admit the obvious: Six healthy scholarship receivers is not enough.

“A number that would be great would be 10 guys,” he said Monday. “Ten guys would be great. You have guys to rotate in, develop, and you create that competition in the room.”

Stuckey is getting creative in practice, having his players run only parts of routes, assuming they do not need to mentally rep the 15 yards of straight-line running leading into a break. That is not ideal, but with only five healthy receivers recruited for the position, along with former walk-on Matt Salerno, Stuckey has few other choices. There are other walk-ons around, but no one is under the illusion that senior Conor Ratigan or junior Henry Cook is going to produce against Ohio State on Sept. 3 (7:30 ET; ABC).

“Every day, we’re looking at the script trying to see who needs to do this or we need to see this,” Stuckey said. “If he’s running a lot, then let me get him out of this one, or he should be here.”

At the moment, Stuckey has fifth-year Braden Lenzy, sophomores Lorenzo Styles, Deion Colzie and Jayden Thomas, freshman Lorenzo Styles and Salerno all fully available. He may have fifth-year Joe Wilkins (Lisfranc injury) on hand