Xavier Watts Shines As Notre Dame's X-Factor
It was a week of soul-searching for the Notre Dame football program.
The Fighting Irish were fresh off a disappointing loss to Louisville that crippled its College Football Playoff hopes, but it was the way Notre Dame played that drew many concerns from inside and outside the program.
On Saturday, Xavier Watts made a statement to let the country know Notre Dame wasn’t going anywhere as he recorded seven tackles, two interceptions, forced a fumble, recovered a fumble for a touchdown and broke up a pass for good measure.
And it shouldn’t be a surprise the Nebraska native came up big when his team needed him the most as he stared adversity in the face as he was asked to move from receiver to rover and then to safety in the fall of 2021.
It’s proof hard work and trust pay off.
“I was kind of just going along with the flow. I just kind of just came every day and tried to work and get better at my craft. Every day be the best player I could be.
“I didn't really think about anything this big or how anything would go. Just kind of playing it by ear, just going along and ended up going well I guess.”
Well, if Watts was going with the flow, Caleb Williams ran into a hurricane inside Notre Dame Stadium as the Irish picked the reigning Heisman Trophy winner off three times on the way to five total turnovers.
Watts picked off Williams on the fourth play of the game and returned it to the USC 12 where the Notre Dame offense scored three plays later to take a 7-0 lead less than five minutes into the game.
“Yeah, definitely boosted us,” said Watts. “Gave us momentum. We needed some juice. We got some juice. The crowd was live. Defense obviously helped. Got the offense going as well. Just gave us a good boost that we needed to go for the rest of the game.”
The second interception by Watts might not have set the tone, but it allowed Notre Dame to take a 17-3 lead with just over four minutes to go in the first half.
At the time, it felt like Notre Dame could pull away in the second half following Audric Estime’s two-yard touchdown run, but then Benjamin Morrison picked off Williams four plays into the next drive. Estime would then score his second touchdown of the game to give the Irish are commanding 24-3 lead.
“You have to attack,” Marcus Freeman said following the game. “No matter what happened -- there were plenty of plays that he continued to extend plays with his legs, but on that play I think our guys continued to battle.
“And then in the secondary, we are able to capitalize off of -- I'm sure he (Williams) would call them mistakes. He doesn't want to throw the ball to our defenders. We were able to capitalize of them, instead of just having PBUs or almost, our guys turned those into takeaways, which were huge for our entire team.”
Watts later added a scoop and score late in the fourth quarter to push the Irish lead to 48-20, but he wasn’t done. Two plays later, Watts stripped Mario Williams and Javonate Jean-Baptiste recovered it to put Notre Dame Stadium into a frenzy.
The 5-foot-11, 204-pounder admitted the defense felt confident in the game plan heading into the weekend, but Watts never expected the total domination of the USC offense.
“Maybe like Friday when everything came together,” stated Watts when asked when he felt confident. “We start walking through. All through the week we worked really hard. Everything gets tightened up throughout the week. You could see all week that we were practicing really hard, doing all the details right. Friday just all came together and ended up showing it tonight.”
As for his favorite play of the night, Watts picked the touchdown, which also shouldn't be a surprise for a former receiver.
“None of that happened without my teammates, the pressure they brought, coverage downfield. So I would say they helped me out.
“If I had to pick one, probably the fumble that Cam stripped. Thank you to him. Then obviously scored off it, so that one was pretty cool.”
Under Armour Green Notre Dame Fighting Irish 2023 Assist Warm Up Full-Zip
