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Notre Dame Offensive Lineman Posts Shocking Low PFF Grade After Week 1 Disaster Against Miami

#College Football
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Entering the 2025 college football season, many people believed that Notre Dame had the best offensive line in the entire country.

The Fighting Irish returned three starters from a unit that helped them to the national title game a year ago, as return players like Ashton Craig and Charles Jagusah, who may well have been starters if not for injuries. Athlon Sports ranked the Notre Dame unit No. 2 in the nation behind only Penn State to start the season.

But all that hype is now a thing of the past after a horrific showing in Week 1 against Miami . The Hurricanes held the Fighting Irish, led by superstar running back Jeremiyah Love, to just 94 yards on 27 carries. That’s 3.5 yards per carry.

Meanwhile, the Miami defense recorded three sacks, including a game-ender, as well as five tackles for loss. So, as you can imagine, Pro Football Focus was not kind to Notre Dame’s offensive line when handing out grades.

In particular, sophomore left tackle Anthonie Knapp was handed a particularly brutal score.

Notre Dame’s Offensive Line Got Cooked Against Miami

According to PFF, its grading scale goes from negative-2 to plus-2 on a play-by-play basis, and then those scores are compiled to get a total game or season score from 0-100.

“An 80.0 game grade is not close to one of the best games of all-time, but 16 games of 80.0 grades will equal an outstanding season of consistency and likely one of the better seasons in a given year,” the site says.

So, how did Notre Dame do?

Well, the Fighting Irish starting offensive line combined for a score of 225.5. If you assumed they were even, then each player would grade out to 45.1, which is bad enough in its own right.

But it gets way worse when you look into the details. The aforementioned Ashton Craig actually had quite a good game, grading out to 83.2. While left guard Billy Schrauth (66.5) and right tackle Aamil Wagner (56.1) were nothing to write home about, but adequate enough.

PFF Gave Fighting Irish LT Anthonie Knapp A Shockingly Low Week 1 Grade

The glaring issues come when you look at right guard Guerby Lambert and left tackle Anthonie Knapp. Lambert, a true sophomore, was a former five-star recruit according to On3 and made his first career start against the ‘Canes. He recorded a brutal 19.2 PFF score.

But things were even worse for Knapp. A fellow true sophomore, Knapp came out of nowhere to become a freshman All-American a year ago when he was forced into a starting role due to injuries.

However, his sophomore season got off to a rough start. The 6-foot-4, 290-pound tackle got abused all game to the tune of 10.5 PFF scores

Yikes. College football fans were astounded.

Maybe it was just one rough showing for Knapp and the Notre Dame offensive line. But it’s still a glaring red flag for a team whose national title and playoff hopes ride almost entirely on elite line play.