Instant Reaction | Notre Dame CB Ben Morrison Out for the Season

Notre Dame’s defense has dealt with a lot of injuries this season, but have managed to overcome that to be a top-three defense in DF+ (combined FEI and SP+ rankings). It’s been led by a secondary that has been the best in the country.

They’ll have a lot more to overcome now after it was announced that cornerback Ben Morrison has been ruled out the rest of the season after injuring his hip. There isn’t a more valuable player on the roster than BMo, which is why he’s a projected top-15 pick in the upcoming NFL Draft.

Teams have only completed 44.4% of their passes against Morrison this season and he hadn’t allowed a touchdown. Most offenses stay away from him as much as possible. Stanford wide receiver Elic Ayomanor, who cooked Travis Hunter last season, wasn’t targeted one time against Morrison on Saturday. They moved Ayomanor to the field most of the time, most likely because they didn’t like the matchup against Morrison.

Freshman Leonard Moore will insert into the lineup as the starter with Morrison out and he’s played well this season, but he’ll now be counted on to play a huge role in the defense. The depth chart at corner was already razor thin with Jaden Mickey electing to redshirt. This means it’s only Moore, Christian Gray, nickel Jordan Clark, and freshman Karson Hobbs remaining.

Hobbs has played only 25 snaps this season in garbage time, but earned strong reviews during fall camp.

Notre Dame experienced another big loss to their most valuable defensive player back in 2021 when Kyle Hamilton was knocked out for the back half of that season. Now imagine if that happened while also losing Isaiah Foskey and Justin Ademilola, which is essentially what has happened to Notre Dame this fall with Jordan Botelho and Boubacar Traore.

Marcus Freeman and the coaching staff have more depth than Notre Dame’s defense had in 2021. However, no program is built to withstand these types of significant losses to impact players in a single season. This combined with the injuries on the offensive line were basically worst case scenarios for Notre Dame.

That’s what the Irish are dealing with right now. Notre Dame is still in the hunt for a College Football Playoff spot, but they will have a much tougher road ahead of them without Morrison. If they’re available to navigate it without him and the others they have lost, it should be considered an incredible accomplishment and an outstanding job by the coaching staff.

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