Notre Dame Injuries Continue To Mount Heading Into Wake Forest Matchup

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

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

Center Zeke Correll is in concussion protocol and is “questionable” for Saturday’s game. That leaves two starting spots to fill on the line 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 explained. “I was really impressed with what he did.”

“Now, Andrew (Kristofic) played well. He still has a high ankle sprain. (He) didn’t practice much last week but I think if we played today it would be Ashton Craig and Billy Schrauth and we’ll see how Zeke progresses this week and then even Andrew Kristofic, how he progresses.”

Safety Luke Talich will miss the rest of the season after suffering a broken collarbone in practice. Freeman said the injury required surgery. Talich has been a key special teams contributor in eight games this season.

Freeman also updated the status of three wide receivers, including Deion Colzie. The junior played in Notre Dame’s first four games but has missed the last six with a knee injury.

“When he’s available to play, right now the mindset is he’ll be...he’ll play,” Freeman explained. “But he’s not ready, after his knee surgery, to perform at the level we need him to. So, that’s still to be determined.”

Since Colzie has played in four games this season, he would preserve a year of eligibility if he does not play the rest of the season.

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.”

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