Notre Dame Getting Healthy, Young Linebackers Impressing
Perhaps the biggest storyline coming out of Thursday was Notre Dame had positive news on the injury front as three key players are expected to return to normal playing on Saturday at No. 16 Syracuse.
Linebacker Jack Kiser and safety Brandon Joseph combined to play 15 snaps during last weekend’s win over UNLV, while freshman cornerback Jaden Mickey missed his second game with an abductor strain.
"All of them are expected to play,” stated Freeman. “They've all been practicing and expected to play."
Joseph’s status was a bit of a surprise as he returned punts while playing just 10 snaps. Freeman didn’t seem overly worried Joseph’s lower leg injury was a long-term concern, but rather just one of those bumps and bruises sustained over the course of a long season.
“I think it was more of a contusion,” explained Freeman. “Nothing structural, nothing that had to do with ligaments. It was more of a contusion he and (Chris) O'Leary didn't feel great with him being in there defensively. We still felt fine with him doing punt return duties.
"That's basically what it was. The lack of confidence he felt in the ability to cut and truly do his job as a safety with the lower leg injury.”
Sophomore quarterback Tyler Buchner has yet to be cleared to do physical workouts, but there was no mention of setbacks following left shoulder surgery.
"He's not able to do many physical drills even with his throwing shoulder,” said Freeman. “I know it wasn't surgically repaired, but it still affects the other shoulder. He hasn't even been released to run as of today.
"I know soon he's going to start progressing. It was a 4-5 month recovery which puts us somewhere in January. Right now, I've been told nothing otherwise with that.”
Linebacker has been a hot topic and there seems to be quiet progress with sophomore linebacker Prince Kollie and freshman Jaylen Sneed.
Freeman made it clear it’s not easy for every high school linebacker to make a quick adjustment to the college game as there is much for than finding the ball that goes into it.
“A lot of kids we recruit defensively, they play a lot of what we call 'see ball, get ball,’” Freeman stated. “They get lined up, go play, find the football and play a couple coverages.
"In college, there's so much more that goes into it. For Prince (Kollie), he has so much natural ability, but what you're seeing in him is the development of understanding the schematic part of it and understanding how he aligns, where he fits and he's doing a much better job.”
Kollie’s development has been tracked closely by Notre Dame fans and Freeman believes the Tennessee native has earned more playing time for his efforts on the practice field.
"He's playing well,” Freeman said. “Those reps he's getting - he's earning more reps. He's a guy a couple weeks ago, I challenged our defensive staff to find a way to get Prince Kollie more reps. He's doing a good job."
When it comes to Sneed, the South Carolina native wasn’t pegged to get too much playing time this year, but his development has been expedited due to the injury to Bo Bauer.
Freeman believes Sneed has turned a corner recently and the focus on playing one position after playing about six in high school was a bit of a transition.
“He's doing a heck of a job,” stated Freeman. “He has some physical tools that are really impressive. He still has to gain some weight. He's always been thin body framed type of player. A lot of guys that were here with Owusu-Koramoah say they have similar body types and athletic traits.
"He's going to be a good player. It's just mentally and physically continuing to develop to play at this level. He's getting reps with scout team and with the guys that are going to be playing in the game. He's doing both.”
The first-year Notre Dame head coach did admit it has been a little tougher to get linebackers on the field as the nickelback has been asked to do more this fall, which isn’t a negative as TaRiq Bracy has had a productive year.
“The other part of it is what we're doing defensively versus certain offensive personnel is using just two linebackers on the field,” Freeman said. “Last year, the majority of the time, we had three linebackers on the field. It is harder to get on the field versus your normal 11 personnel because we're using two linebackers to match up defensively.
"I'm excited for his future here. He's going to be a heck of a player.”
On offense, Notre Dame needs quarterback Drew Pyne to get back to being the efficient player he was over his first three starts. The Irish receivers can help with that by eliminating drops and continuing to show weekly growth.
”They’ve actually had a really good week,” explained Freeman. “I challenged them Monday and Tuesday - we have to continue to gain confidence in practice in terms of how to expand our passing game. That’s the wideouts, the quarterback, the offensive line and everybody. They’ve had a really good week.”
In fact, Freeman spent some quality time with his receivers during the week and found a respect for the position.
“I spent a good amount of time with them this week and you realize you have to be so unselfish,” Freeman stated. “You can do everything right, you can be wide open and you’re not always going to get rewarded for it. They’re continuing to battle and continuing to get better. I looked forward to seeing what they do on Saturday.”
The NCAA issued a few new NIL guidelines earlier this week, but that’s not a focus of Freeman as Syracuse has his attention.
"I haven't had a chance to really look over it,” said Freeman. “Somebody had mentioned to me the NCAA had said coaches are now allowed to maybe do things with collectives. That was the just of what I got and my focus went right back to Syracuse.
"That's something we'll deal with after this season. Right now, I'm focusing on preparing for Syracuse and trying to win this game. If there's any way to help our student-athletes, I'm all for it, if part of it is working with the collectives to raise money."
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