Notre Dame Injury Update, Marcus Freeman Dives into New Football Facility
Notre Dame inched closer to its date with Texas A&M at the end of August by checking off the spring ball box on Saturday.
Marcus Freeman’s team got through 15 practices relatively healthy, which isn’t always the case for Notre Dame or other programs.
Running back Jadarian Price was perhaps the biggest scratch for last weekend’s Blue-Gold Game, but the Texas native will be back sooner rather than later. Freeman took responsibility for Price’s setback as he was looking to get one more rep in practice.
“We had a kick scrimmage on Tuesday or Wednesday,” stated Freeman. “On the very last rep, came up with a pulled hamstring. It wasn’t crazy. It’s one that would keep him out a week. But it just came at the wrong time, right before the spring game because we wanted to see him out there.
“Shame on me. I don’t know. I wanted to get one extra rep in the kick scrimmage, and it ended up costing us a hamstring. I take the blame on that one. But he’s fine. He had a great spring. He’s done some really good things.”
Early enrollee receiver Cam Williams caught a touchdown and made a few nice snags in the jersey scrimmage, but then showed up on the injury report five days later at the Blue-Gold Game draft.
Freeman noted the receiver room got thin really quick, which is a position the Irish were in last fall, yet Williams’ long-term future isn’t a worry for the staff.
“Cam was a hamstring,” explained Freeman. “Listen, this is one of the healthiest springs, but we did have two hamstrings this week that just came at the wrong time. It’s things you learn as a head coach. It’s a reflection of somebody goes down and we have a thin wide receivers room.
“With Jordan (Faison) not being here, (Deion) Colzie was out for a while with a finger and JT (Jayden Thomas) a couple weeks ago. When you start adding those reps to Cam Williams, then all of a sudden, he pulls his hamstring in one of the practices, but he was very similar to JD (Price).”
Freshman offensive lineman Styles Prescod was another player who was inactive on Saturday. Prescod had been limited in practice during the spring and it appears Notre Dame is looking out for his long-term interests, especially after having knee surgery during the offseason in 2023.
“He’s just a guy that we’re really working on muscle deficiency in one of his legs that was previously worked on in high school,” Freeman said. “He hasn’t been totally full go all spring. So it’s just something we’re trying to make sure we build this leg up to make sure it’s equal with the other so we can truly be safe.”
The biggest news on Saturday didn’t come inside Notre Dame Stadium, but rather on the grass outside The Gug. Notre Dame held a ceremony and broke ground on the new Jack and Kathy Shields Family Hall, which will be home to 150,000 square feet of football space.
Notre Dame’s goal is to set the bar in college football, which in turn will help with recruiting, as it’s where the future of the Irish program will be developed and simply hang out.
Saturday’s announcement was held in front of several donors, Notre Dame staffers and several recruits and commits.
“If you've ever lost a recruit because of a facility, then that probably isn't a loss,” stated Freeman. “I want to make sure that I answer that first, that our facility has never been a recruiting disadvantage for us. But it does show the recruits that you have and your current players the vision you have for the future.”
That said, the most significant reason Notre Dame needed a new building is space. The program doesn’t have enough office space for its staff nor enough space to have in-house dining as meals are still catered into the building on a daily basis.
“We've outgrown ours,” Freeman stated. “That's the No. 1 reason we had to create and build a new building. Just the numbers in college football have just grown in terms of the staffs, the players — it's just grown. That was the biggest thing.
“We have to create a bigger building, and then with that, we're getting state-of-the-art everything. State of the art, just in terms of how can we truly provide our players with every possible opportunity for development? What ways can we help develop them? And that can be with nutrition. That can be in recovery and treatment. Your classroom, how we’re teaching in a classroom setting. And I think it's really important, as we build a new building, it's about giving the current players and the future players every possibility to really develop and reach their full potential.”
The new facility will have all of the above and much more, including an advanced training room; a stand-alone sports medicine facility; an equipment facility with body scanning and fabrication technology; a new and expanded locker room; meeting rooms, including a two-level, all-team auditorium and an augmented reality walkthrough room; media innovation spaces, including recording studios and photo studios; academic support spaces; and a new player nutrition area designed to foster community between teams and model healthy eating.
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