It figures that Notre Dame has been fairly healthy this season and during the bye week a season-ending injury hit the program. Fortunately, it’s not from someone on the two deep. However, after true freshman Javon McKinley broke his fibula in practice he has to leave the season with 8 snaps on offense while burning a year of eligibility mostly on special teams.
After accepting a plea deal, Devin Butler told the media he thought he’d be reeinstated to the football team. Nevertheless, he’s been suspended for the rest of the season. With his foot injury and lack of being in football shape I’m not sure it really mattered but this could affect his desire to come back for a 5th year.
For some reason, Brian Kelly doesn’t like slot receivers. Poor C.J. Sanders looked like he’d finally be the slot man to open up the offense. This week Kelly mentioned that they like Torii Hunter more in the slot because they also like the way Kevin Stepherson is playing on the perimeter. During the Stanford game Stepherson played 46 snaps compared to Sanders’ 17 snaps.
Chase Claypool was another player mentioned by Kelly who is demanding more playing following a strong set of practices over the bye week. He caught his 3rd pass of the season against Stanford with just 7 snaps.
Colin McGovern missed all of the last game with a concussion and has been cleared to play versus Miami. He is expected to be inserted into his normal right guard starting gig.
Kelly let the cat out of the bag on Thursday in that Josh Adams hasn’t been 100% in recent weeks, although he’s feeling much better after the bye week.
We also have an update on Justin Brent who has been taking some reps with the scout team (and thus probably not really hurt anymore, we’ll remove him from the injury list next week for good measure) but Kelly said he’s subsequently buried on the depth chart at running back.
On defense, Micah Dew-Treadway (out all year with a broken foot) has been practicing and close to coming off the injury list and into playing games. Before his injury MDT was in the mix as one of the backups on the interior.
Jonathan Bonner is someone who emerged during the bye week, according to Kelly. He’s been used as an end and interior player this year. Through 132 snaps this season Bonner has 5 tackles, 2 quarterback hurries, and 1 forced fumble.
