Relief of a kind is available to Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly with just a short stroll to the other side of campus.
There, tucked intimately between the golden-domed main building and St. Mary’s Lake is the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. It’s a one-seventh replica of the famous French site where the ill and the injured pray for miracle cures.
If the coach has lit a candle there for his swelling list of broken ballplayers, such news has not been released to the media. He largely has chosen to deal with his plague of injuries in the more traditional manner, on the practice field.
This week, with the eighth-ranked Fighting Irish preparing to play No. 14 Georgia Tech on Saturday afternoon, the topic of concern is quarterback, where redshirt freshman DeShone Kizer takes over for the formerly electric Malik Zaire. In the snap of an ankle, Zaire went from the Heisman watch list to the emergency room Saturday against Virginia.
Not that anyone outside the realm of the Irish is dehydrating one teardrop at a time.
“Any team looks at (injuries) and says, ‘Why us?’” Kelly said. “As I told our team no one really cares, you know. Certainly those that do are happy you got more injuries because they’re in it for their own teams.
“I just don’t want to hear any excuses about it. We’ll find a way. That’s what I want to hear from our team.”
Even for football, ruled as it is by the Fates of the training room, the Notre Dame story has been just a little ridiculous. Just two games in, they have lost five players to a season-ending injury.
Win one for the Gipper is a pretty famous sentiment in these parts. Now that’s a multiple-choice proposition. Win one for:
A. Zaire
B. Running back Tarean Folston
C. Defensive lineman Jarron Jones
D. Tight end Durham Smythe
E. Nickel back Shaun Crawford
“All those guys are still with us in spirit,” cornerback Matthias Farley said.
“We have a vision and we’re sticking to it,” defensive tackle Sheldon Day said defiantly. Never did that vision include curling up in a fetal position in the first quarter against Tech.
Kizer, a redshirt freshman (although Notre Dame discourages the use of the term redshirt), was just the aspirin the Irish needed. Whether he might be a remedy in the mold of a J.T. Barrett or a Cardale Jones, who stepped in last season to save Ohio State, is a question for a full season to answer.
On the road against Virginia, all Kizer did was toss a couple of touchdowns, including a heave to Will Fuller that won the game with 12 seconds left. The ball traveled 50 yards in the air — it officially was a 39-yard pass — and floated perfectly over Fuller’s right shoulder like an angel’s feather.
“He was thrown into probably the toughest situation you could be, and he handled it unbelievably,” his center, Nick Martin, said.
A four-star recruit out of Toledo, Ohio, Kizer is no temp worker who Notre Dame hustled into the breach. At 6-foot-4, 230 pounds, he has size to be reckoned with. And the touch, well, that was displayed on pretty much a constant replay loop on all the Sunday highlight shows.
As for his mental makeup, now that he has been thrown into the Cuisinart of starting at quarterback for Notre Dame, Kizer is playing it cool. A hospital visit Monday with Zaire produced a very much updated version of the win-one-for-the-Gipper speech. “He said it was time for me to ball,” Kizer said. “That’s all he kept saying: Keep my mind off all the other stuff and just ball out as much as I can.”
As for the approach against Tech, Kelly said he can’t afford to play it too safe with his first-time starter. “We’re not going to sit on the ball,” the Irish coach insisted. “We have to play our offense. We have to be aggressive offensively. We got to score points. This (Tech) offense is going to score points, we know that. DeShon has to play his butt off. And we have to put him in position to play well.”
Trivia alert: Someone came up with the fact that Kelly is 7-0 in games in which he employed a first-time starting quarterback.
It’s conceivable that Kizer may be more arm-oriented than Zaire. But with its stout offensive line and some depth at running back, Notre Dame also might try to hold onto the ball a little against Tech.
Whatever, they’re not exactly giving away the game plan.
“We’re going to run the ball. We’re going to throw the ball. We’re going to kick the ball. We’re going to do the things the Irish have been doing for quite some time now,” Kizer said.
At least Notre Dame still has enough healthy bodies to perform these requisite functions.
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