Marcus Freeman Updates Injuries Before Duke Game

There is good news, bad news and some in between news on the injury front as Notre Dame prepares to play Duke this weekend. Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman indicated earlier this week that wide receiver Jayden Thomas is questionable for Saturday’s game with a hamstring injury. That remains the prognosis after Freeman updated Thomas’ status during his Thursday Zoom call.

"I would still say he’s questionable,” Freeman indicated. "Probably questionable/doubtful because he hasn’t practiced yet this week. He’s been running. Just trying to see how his hamstring’s going but he hasn’t been able to go full speed. So, I’m not ruling him out yet, but we’ve got to see what he can do today and maybe a little bit tomorrow. The thing about it being a night game, we’ll see how it really heals but he has not practiced full speed this week.”

Thomas leads the Irish with 13 receptions through five games. His 195 yards are the second most by an Irish receiver. He had four catches and at least 62 yards in three of Notre Dame’s first four games. He went without a catch against NC State and had just one reception for seven yards last week against Ohio State.

Freeman also said earlier this week that fellow receiver Deion Colzie would have a knee scope and is expected to miss as least two games.

"He’s getting his knee scoped today,” Freeman said Thursday afternoon. "Then we’ll have a meeting with the doctors to see...you know, we have an idea of what is wrong with his knee, it’s just that we’ve got to get him to feel better and part of that is to scope and clean it out.

“We want him to get rest and start his rehab process and then we’ll reassess where he’s at mentally and physically when the time comes,” Freeman concluded.

In the meantime, two other Irish players are on their way back to the field. Tight end Eli Raridon tore his ACL last October for the second time in a year. He hasn’t played yet this season, but he is getting much closer to seeing time on Saturdays.

"Eli is practicing with us now and really gaining confidence that he needs to be ready to go,” Freeman said. "We have plans for him, as long as there’s no setbacks, to be ready to roll next week. It was good for him...this week was about trying to get in football shape and it’s a lot easier said than done when you haven’t really taken meaningful reps throughout the first couple weeks of the season. So, he really has done a good job this week of trying to get the wind that it takes to really sustain the things we ask him to do as a tight end but he’s trending really in the right direction.”

Linebacker Nolan Ziegler is the other player who has made recent positive strides. The sophomore linebacker missed all of training camp and has not played yet due to a personal issue, but he recently began practicing with the team.

"It was great to have him back out there this week,” Freeman remarked. "He’s progressed into scout team and individual drills. He’s on a track to return. With Nolan, we’ll see how at the end of this week he continues to progress but he is really trending in the right direction."

Ziegler had a stellar spring practice season and looked like he was on track to be a contributor in various sub packages on defense before his personal issue kept him off the field.

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