Durham Smythe sees success for Notre Dame's TE rotation

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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — In a sense, Durham Smythe is the grizzled veteran of Notre Dame’s tight end group.

The redshirt sophomore is the only one of the team’s five tight ends with a catch (one for seven yards last year) and he and sophomore Tyler Luatua are the only ones with any playing time on Saturdays. There isn’t a clear-cut No. 1 tight end to extend the program’s lineage from Kyle Rudolph to Tyler Eifert to Troy Niklas to Ben Koyack, but Smythe doesn’t see that as an issue.

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“It’s a different atmosphere in our room this year,” Smythe said. “It’s not just one or two guys at the top. There’s legitimately four or five guys who can contribute and play in this offense. It is different, but I don’t think you really need that one guy. If we can all go tight end by committee, contribute and all be really helpful in this offense, it helps us so much.”

Smythe grew up a die-hard Notre Dame fan in Belton, Texas, surrounded by Texas Longhorns fans and a family with connections to Baylor (Smythe’s father, Roy, played football there). He played high school football with former Texas quarterback David Ash but never was raised a Longhorns fan.

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Smythe, Luatua, graduate student Chase Hounshell, redshirt freshman Nic Weishar and true freshman Alize Jones comprise a depth chart that’ll see fluctuations based more on how each player does in games, since there wasn’t much separation between them in practice. Luatua and Hounshell will be tasked with more blocking assignments, while Smythe, Weishar and Jones are all solid receiving threats who could see the field at the same time.

“You're going to see them all play,” coach Brian Kelly said. “I think they will all get an opportunity to contribute in some fashion and some may play a little bit more than others but they are all going to get a chance to be in the rotation and play, and I think Saturdays will largely determine how that is dolled out relative to the reps.”

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