Notre Dame 99-to-0: No. 15 Ryan Barnes, junior cornerback

By
Douglas Farmer,

By
Douglas Farmer

Published July 14, 2023 06:00 AM

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: APR 23 Notre Dame Spring Game — SOUTH BEND, IN - APRIL 23: Notre Dame Fighting Irish cornerback Ryan Barnes (15) during the Notre Dame Blue-Gold Spring Football Game on April 23, 2022 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, IN. (Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Listed measurements: 6-foot-1 ⅞, 190 pounds.
2023-24 year, eligibility: A junior, Barnes has three seasons of eligibility remaining.
Depth Chart: Barnes has a chance at cracking the two-deep behind sophomore Benjamin Morrison at boundary cornerback, but he will have to hold off early-enrolled freshman Christian Gray to do so.
Recruiting: Prospects in the class of 2021 were never allowed to take official recruiting visits, missed summer recruiting camps before their senior seasons and in many cases, including Barnes’s, did not even have senior seasons. That led to wider disparities between recruiting rankings (rivals.com considered Barnes to be the No. 60 cornerback in the class) and scholarship offers (Clemson, LSU and Oregon all chased the consensus three-star) than usual.

CAREER TO DATE
Barnes has yet to make an impact on any Saturdays. He oddly played in four of Notre Dame’s final five games in 2021 before appearing just once in 2022 with no further statistical notice.

QUOTES
If Barnes does not line up behind Morrison but instead behind fifth-year Cam Hart at field corner, he will then be competing with sophomore Jaden Mickey for two-deep honors. That “if” is necessary because Barnes moved around a bit in the spring.

Boundary is still most likely for Barnes, to be clear.

“He plays both sides,” Irish cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens said in mid-April. “He’s a guy that has to know all the positions just because of the depth at safety, the depth at nickel (back) right now.

“We use him a lot as a utility guy because he’s long. That’s what we like about him. Because of his length, he can cause disruptions at safety, at corner, at nickel. Boundary corner is what he’s doing corner-wise. He will be on the boundary because he’s so long to get around.”

WHAT WAS PROJECTED A YEAR AGO
“The Irish starting trio of Hart, junior Clarence Lewis and fifth-year nickel back TaRiq Bracy is well established. Beyond them, Notre Dame has nothing but questions.

“It would be unnecessarily ambitious to suggest Barnes will be one of the answers to those questions, but along with early-enrolled freshman Jaden Mickey, he does seem most likely to genuinely fill a backup role. Obviously, that will lead to some snaps when the respective starter needs a breather or rolls an ankle, but it will also lead to one of Barnes or Mickey seeing plenty of dime action.

“The nickel package is utilized more often than not, and the dime package — needing at least six defensive backs — is far from a rarity. Notre Dame’s depth at safety will make it so the sixth defensive back is usually among them, but specific matchups may require Barnes or Mickey.

“Aside from that, Barnes should be a lock for punt coverage, perhaps on every single such snap. That alone could lead to half a dozen tackles.”

2023 OUTLOOK
Barnes’s misfortune was arriving in South Bend a year before Morrison and Mickey did. Barnes may well be a Power Five-level cornerback already, but Morrison is a preseason All-American as a sophomore, not to mention Mickey was the more heralded of the two upon arrival.

And Barnes is likely behind both of them both now and in the future.

Thus, to find a contributing role, Barnes needs to solidify that utility-knife nod. Oklahoma State graduate transfer Thomas Harper and senior Clarence Lewis should lead the way at nickel back, lessening how much a utility knife is needed, but if Barnes can move between cornerback, nickel back and safety with relative ease, he alone could create some multiplicity in the Irish defense.

That may be a tough ask for anyone, but Barnes’s length makes it a vague possibility.

DOWN THE ROAD
Hart will almost assuredly head to the NFL if he is healthy this season. That could create a chance for Barnes, be it at field cornerback or at boundary if Morrison moves for the betterment of the defense as a whole.

Finding any other path to a starting gig for Barnes becomes difficult simply because there is so much eligibility remaining throughout Notre Dame’s secondary. Of 15 defensive backs, only sixth-year safety DJ Brown and Harper will be out of time in college following the 2023 season. Now, again, Hart will hopefully be gone, as well. (Hopefully as in, that means he’s healthy.) Logic suggests two or three more names will spend their 2024s elsewhere.

But those names are not names pressing for playing time. Again, leaning on logic there. If Barnes has a chance at a starting gig, he likely will spend next spring trying to earn it. If he does not, he may look elsewhere for that spring beginning.