After a pandemic furlough-forced year off, the annual “Counting Down the Irish” series returns this week, and any Notre Dame fan should already know who will come in at No. 1 on Friday, and they can probably guess No. 2.
That is all the foreshadowing to offer, though, as working through projections of the top-25 most impactful Irish players in 2021 is best done slowly.
As always, the rankings come from Notre Dame beat writers, nine partaking in 2021. They are asked to ponder the subjective ways players contribute rather than purely objective stats. If asked a year ago they assuredly would have placed both quarterback Ian Book and linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah in the top five, if not the top two, but they just as assuredly would have missed in predicting running back Kyren Williams would become an offensive catalyst.