JD Bertrand Is Healthy, Experienced And Ready to Shine
If there is a slogan that best describes JD Bertrand’s 2021 season it has to be "no pain, no gain." Bertrand played more than 750 snaps in his first season as a starter for the Fighting Irish last season and none of those snaps were pain-free.
The then junior suffered a wrist injury in August last year, before the season ever began. He had the option to shut his season down, but that was never an option.
“I think the biggest thing is just pain,” Bertrand explained. “It’s an annoyance and you feel it every time you punch and all, but other than that, I mean you’ve just gotta find a way to go around it and know that’s part of the game.”
He wore a full hard cast during practice. In games, he had just a hard plastic brace that kept his wrist from bending.
“It was just a matter of being able to fully protect it in practice and then try to come up with something lighter during the games, just to be able to keep playing,” Bertrand noted. “I just wanted to play, no matter what. If they said I was good to play and it wasn’t going to affect me (in the) future, long term, so from that point when I heard that, I was ready to go.”
Bertrand played through the pain all season. He chalks it up to “mental toughness”, now. He takes an occasional ice cold shower just to see if he can take it.
He was the No. 2 Will linebacker for a good chunk of fall camp last season. Classmate Marist Liufau was having a breakout camp of his own, until he broke his ankle just days before Notre Dame’s season opener at Florida State.
The unfortunate fracture opened the door for Bertrand’s opportunity, and the Alpharetta, Ga. native never looked back. He jumped into the starting lineup and recorded a team-high 12 tackles in the overtime win over the Seminoles.
It was the first of three straight double digit tackle games, en route to a team best 101 tackles for the season. Bertrand played the second most snaps on the Fighting Irish defense last season. It was a mammoth learning curve for a player seeing his first real action.
Bertrand was mostly concerned with simply being in the right spot at the snap of the ball last year, but that experience provided him with much more nuance for what he’s doing now.
“(Now) it’s a matter of, obviously, learning some new aspects of a defense, but from there, being able to take that and being able to read the offense and anticipate from formations and running back alignments and how the running back tries to gain an extra inch or two by stepping in before the play or stepping forward or stepping out and just being able to anticipate better,” Bertrand explained.
Marcus Freeman’s promotion to head coach paved the way for the arrival of new Defensive Coordinator Al Golden, but it also makes Golden the third DC in as many years for the Irish. It’s something Bertrand says he hears a lot. He talks of studying Cover 4 and Cover 6 defenses the way a kid might talk about a new PlayStation on Christmas morning.
“It’s almost like a new language when you learn a new defense,” Bertrand said. “It’s such a great opportunity. Just to be able to learn different ways to play.”
Bertrand was limited during the spring after having postseason surgery on his wrist. He still went through drills with Golden running the offense. He came into fall camp with the presumption of a move to middle linebacker, but he has been splitting his time about “50-50” at Mike and Will, so far.
He says there are days when he will take the first two reps at Mike and Jack Kiser will take those reps at Will and then they swap for two plays. He’s even moved out farther and played Rover from time to time.
Golden told Irish Breakdown this week that he has been mixing and matching players at all position groups since the start of camp, with the idea of building depth throughout the ranks.
"Not just horizontally, position wise, but also vertically, depth wise,” Golden explained. "So, if we have an (afternoon) walk through, we’ll take a one and put him with the twos, we’ll take a two and put him with the ones, we’ll take a three and put him with the twos.”
Bertrand said his preferred position is middle linebacker, because he is able to play off the defensive line more and feel the protections better from the inside out. But he also gets “excited” about blitzing off the edge when he is playing Will. He’s spent some time this offseason working on honing those pass rush skills.
“I also took some time to work with “(Isaiah) Foskey and (Jordan) Botelho on just getting two or three go-to pass rush moves, whether I’m on a center or I’m on a guard or coming off the edge. Just some counters off stuff that I can do off the edge. Just being able to elevate that side of my game.”
Bertrand rooms with Foskey and Alexander Ehrensberger and said he talks to them about football all the time. He has also focused on tackling in the open field and man to man pass coverage to elevate his game.
No matter where he lines up on the field Bertrand has high expectations for the Fighting Irish defense this season.
“I think we can be the best in the country,” he said. “I truly believe that, especially with (Al Golden’s) addition. I think there’s just so much capability, especially having such a dominant defensive line.”
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