Notre Dame Injury Report: Johnson, Onye Out; Viliamu-Asa Trending Toward Return

Notre Dame will be without All-American safety Brauntae Johnson and starting defensive lineman Jason Onye for Saturday’s game against Rice after both suffered injuries in the season opener against Wisconsin.

The good news for Notre Dame is that neither injury is season-ending, and head coach Marcus Freeman remains hopeful both players will return sooner rather than later.

“Tae and Jason will be out a couple weeks,” Freeman stated on Tuesday afternoon. “We expect them back at some point in the season, but they're not going to be back next week. It's going to be a couple weeks and so that's why you have depth.” 

Notre Dame does have depth at both positions, something that hasn’t always been the case.

At defensive tackle, Freeman expressed confidence in transfers Francis Brewu and Tionne Gray following their first game in the blue and gold.

Gray recorded five tackles and 0.5 tackles for loss, while Brewu had three tackles and a sack.

“We're going to rely on them a lot, and they played really well,” explained Freeman. “As I said previously, I saw those four guys between Jason, Armel (Mukam), Tionne, and Brew playing probably an equal amount of snaps, and that's close to what you saw on Saturday. It wasn't exactly perfect, but those guys are all going to play.” 

Defensive line coach Charlie Partridge deserves credit for having his room ready to handle an injury and the next step will be getting Brewu and Gray to improve their practice habits.

“Now with Jason being out, there's a little bit more on everybody's plate, but Tionne and Francis both played well,” Freeman said. “We have to continue to get them to practice with the habits that we’ll emphasize, but it was great to see them, and those guys both were difference makers.” 

At safety, Notre Dame has the luxury of having senior Luke Talich, who is essentially considered a third starter. Sophomore Ethan Long flashed a year ago, while freshman Joey O’Brien impressed the staff during fall camp.

Long and O’Brien will need to continue earning the staff’s trust as they find themselves one play away from significant roles.

“The confidence we have in Luke Talich is extremely high,” stated Freeman. “Now his role has just increased, and the other guys now, the backups, you're talking about the Joey O'Briens, the Ethan Longs, some of those young guys now, their roles have increased.

“It's going to be important that they earn the trust that they can go in and be a starter because at any point, if something happens to Adon (Shuler) or something happens to Luke, they're a starter, and it's important that they continue to earn that trust from practice.” 

On the flip side, Freeman expects to get one of Notre Dame’s best players back on Saturday.

Junior linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa was a scratch last weekend, but he’s trending toward making his season debut following last November’s ACL injury.

“He's trending in a way that we expect him to be out there on Saturday,” said Freeman. “How much is to be determined? His practice volume has continuously increased. We were intentional about the work we put in last week to see if he can get ready to be at that point where mentally and physically he was ready to go.

“We think we were a couple of days away. As of today, on Tuesday, we're expecting him to be able to get out there a little bit on Saturday.” 

When it comes to the offensive side of the ball, Notre Dame’s battle at right guard appears to still be ongoing.

Styles Prescod started against Wisconsin, while Sullivan Absher played the second half.

Freeman admitted the goal was for both players to get 30 snaps on Sunday night, and the staff couldn’t have executed that plan much better. Absher finished with 31 snaps, while Prescod played 33.

“I thought both of them played extremely well,” Freeman stated. “Both have things to improve on, as well as many people on our team, coaches and everybody else. I think the plan going in, we didn't verbally talk about this to, obviously, the media or anybody else, but was, ‘Hey, how do we kind of get 30 reps for each guy?’

“That's probably what we thought was best. We thought those guys playing 30 reps was best for the offense instead of saying one guy go for 60 reps, and we were intentional about that.” 

There were no hints given about what the plan will be this week, but it appears Freeman already has an idea of what the staff wants to do.

“This week we'll present something different,” said Freeman. “We'll see exactly what our plan is going into Saturday. We have some initial thoughts, but it'll be based on their defense and some schematic of things they do and then what's best for our offense.” 

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