Notre Dame Fighting Irish is a team going into this season hoping to seek redemption for their 2024 natty final loss. Marcus Freeman has all the right ingredients to make that a reality. He got his star man Jeremiah Love, who had a stellar 1,125 receiving yards. Then Freeman has got Jaden Greathouse returning who is just another powder keg waiting to blast again on the field. But, still there can be some concerns despite all this optimism. That being the injury concerns. Can Marcus Freeman wade through this off-season with a clean bill of health?
Well, there are various players at Notre Dame, like Gi’Bran Payne (RB), Styles Prescod (OL), and CJ Carr, who now have a clean bill of health and are participating fully in the spring drills. However, that doesn’t mean that Freeman doesn’t have players to worry about who have a long road ahead of them. Cole Mullins (Edge Rusher), had a knee injury and also had surgery undergone for that. He looks like he is not making it into the spring practice initially. Then there is Will Pauling (WR), who joined the Irish from Wisconsin and has a stress injury in his foot. Pauling, according to reports, is in 4th-5th week of his recovery and is not expected to join the Irish any soon. However, there’s one player whose injury concerns are looking more serious.
That player is Jalen Stroman, a safety who joined Virginia Tech Hokies. He had some problems with his physical exam. And it seems like his clavicle fracture, which he suffered against Commodores, hasn’t yet recovered. The road in his recovery seems to be long, and it is expected that we won’t see him feature in spring practices too much. As Rob Hunt, the Athletic Trainer of the Irish football team, said, “He’s gonna be moving around a little bit during spring ball in the second half. But he’ll have no contact. He’s not gonna be exposed to any type of risk for himself“. The question now is: Which player will fill his void in the spring practice and, if needed, in the regular season, too?
Tyler Wojciak and Greg Flammang speaking on ‘Locked On Irish’, discussed at length regarding players who could fill Stroman’s spot. Flammang said, “Who it has the upper hand as like kind of that second safety with Jalen Stroman not not at practice he’s injured right, so who’s there in the pecking order between Luke Talich, Kennedy Urlacher and there is Tae Johnson playing like those are the kind of the the the things that I’m monitoring throughout the spring“. The three players mentioned by Flammang undoubtedly have the potential to fill the hole; furthermore, they have stats to back them up.
Luke Talich is someone who had 20 total tackles at Notre Dame playing as a safety and also scored one touchdown on defense. Then there is Kennedy Urlacher, a player who, in his freshman season, had 12 tackles and featured in the majority of games. Lastly, Tae Johnson was also a freshman with 3 tackles and very scarce appearances. All in all, these names have quite the potential to make that step forward. However, matching Stroman’s heroics, who had 55 total tackles in the 2023 season and 43 tackles in 2022, wouldn’t be quite easy for players who do not have that requisite experience.
Anthonie Knapp was another player mentioned by Tyler Wojciak who could transition into safety position after playing as offensive tackle for one season. However, this is something we would need to see in the spring games as the player had started all 15 games for Notre Dame and is also recovering from an injury in the Orange Bowl game and had to go through surgery on his right ankle. So, all things considered the safety hole left by Stroman’s injury is quite worrisome as of now. This leaves Marcus Freeman in a bit of a pickle.
Ryan Day’s Ohio State trolls Notre Dame on St. Patrick’s Day
Marcus Freeman suffered a loss against Northern Illinois at home in the regular season and learned a lesson from it. The team never looked back after that, steamrolling opponents for fun and making it to the playoff final after beating giants like Penn State, Georgia, and Indiana. However, Ryan Day also had a similar story after loss against Michigan and was waiting eagerly for the Irish. The game ended, and Ohio State came trumps by 34-23. Ever since then it seems Ryan Day’s Ohio State isn’t leaving a chance to tease the Irish about it.
Happy Pot of Gold Day
#GoBucks pic.twitter.com/PC1GCB10da
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) March 17, 2025
Ohio State football’s official X handle posted two pictures of Quinshon Judkins carrying a pot of gold instead of football (which is edited) and the Irish defensive ends trying to leap in order to tackle and take the ‘pot of gold’ in Judkins’ hands. They wrote in the caption, “Happy Pot of Gold Day #Go Bucks.” Well, we all know that St Patrick’s Day was yesterday (17th March), which is a big thing for Irish and Notre Dame supporters. So, this was supposedly an attempt to mock the Irish and troll them about their final loss by tapping into their very own Irish folklore. Surely, the Irish supporters are not taking it lightly, and there are all kinds of comments down the post that are filled with rage.
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