HEARTBREAKING: This could be the end of his career; Notre Dame key player to undergo second surgery

This could be the end of his career; Notre Dame key player to undergo second surgery

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman provided an update on the status of many Irish football players’ injuries, including three wide receivers.

 

 

 

Notre Dame hasn’t played in over a week, but head coach Marcus Freeman had a slew of injuries to update during his Monday press conference in preparation for this week’s home finale against Wake Forest. The biggest story is right guard Rocco Spindler’s knee injury.

“He’ll have surgery this week and will be out for the season,” Freeman said of the junior who has started all 10 games for the Irish at right guard this season.

Center Zeke Correll is undergoing concussion testing and is listed as “questionable” for Saturday’s game. That leaves two starting spots available for this week’s game.

“What we would do right now is you will see how we finished the (Clemson) game with Billy Schrauth coming in at the right guard position and then Ashton Craig did a really good job filling in at the center position,” Freeman went on to say. “I was really impressed with what he did.”

“Now, Andrew (Kristofic) performed admirably. He is still suffering from a severe ankle sprain. (He) didn’t practice much last week, but if we played today, I believe it would be Ashton Craig and Billy Schrauth, and we’ll see how Zeke goes this week, as well as Andrew Kristofic.”

Safety Luke Talich will be out for the remainder of the season after breaking his collarbone in practice. According to Freeman, the injury necessitated surgery. Talich has played on special teams in eight games this season.

Freeman also provided an update on the health of three wide receivers, including Deion Colzie. The junior started the first four games for Notre Dame but has missed the following six due to a knee injury.

“When he’s available to play, right now the mindset is he’ll be…he’ll play,” he said. “But he’s not ready to perform at the level we need him to after knee surgery.” So that’s still up in the air.”

Colzie has played in four games this season, thus if he does not play the remainder of the season, he will keep a year of eligibility.

Jayden Thomas has battled a hamstring injury for several weeks. He missed the Duke game on Sept. 30 and has not been 100% since.

“He came back a couple weeks ago, then kind of re-aggravated it a little bit and just wasn’t at really a level to perform what we need him to do,” Freeman explained. “He’s coming back this week and we’ll see as we go through practice if he’ll be able to do all the things we need him to do at the wide receiver position.”

Thomas was Notre Dame’s leading receiver with 13 catches for 195 yards prior to the injury, but he has just four catches for 66 yards since.

Another receiver, Matt Salerno, has missed the last eight games since suffering an undisclosed lower leg injury against Tennessee State. His prognosis is pointing in the right direction.

“There’s a chance we could get him back here,” said Freeman. “I don’t know exactly when. He’s been doing a little bit more in practice, doing some individual drills. I think this week we’ll increase him a little bit more to truly get him game ready. We’ll see how long that takes, but I have confidence we’ll get him back before the year’s over.”