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Kids Corner At Notre Dame

Donte Vaughn is one of three freshmen cornerbacks playing a huge volume of plays for the Irish this season. (Rick Kimball)

Going into last weekend’s game at Syracuse, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly vowed he would utilize more players on defense while at the same time try to spoon feed some of the youngsters.

“We have to be careful,” Kelly said. “You can’t take somebody that’s had no reps and give them 70 on Saturday. That’s impossible.”

He’s probably right — which is why he gave freshman cornerback Troy Pride Jr., who hadn’t seen one snap through the first four games, unofficially “only” 60 snaps.

Meanwhile, another freshman cornerback, Donte Vaughn, went from zero snaps in the 36-28 loss to Michigan State Sept. 17 to nine the next week in the 38-35 defeat to Duke (one of them an interception in perfect coverage near the goal line) to 79 versus Syracuse, the most among any Irish defender. In other words, Vaughn’s snap count did go up by 70 from one week to the next.

Finally, the third freshman corner, Julian Love, has become a consistent mainstay since the season-opening 50-47 double-overtime setback at Texas. Love unofficially saw 33 snaps, mainly at nickel, in his debut in Austin, followed by 19 versus Nevada, 27 against Michigan State, 59 versus Duke and 46 more against Syracuse.

In taking over the implementation of the defense in place of deposed coordinator Brian VanGorder after the Duke debacle, Kelly’s mandate was to make players like the three frosh corners feel like “they’re part of the solution here.”

Their opportunity was hastened by at least three factors. One, senior Devin Butler is recovering from offseason foot surgery while also serving a suspension for an indefinite period. Two, a season-ending Achilles injury to Shaun Crawford early in the Nevada game. Three, junior Nick Watkins — who started in the Fiesta Bowl and was projected to be a starter this year — has been sidelined since last April with a fractured humerus and will take a medical redshirt year.

Yet the three freshmen also have moved ahead of sophomores Nick Coleman and Ashton White on the depth chart. The meteoric ascent of Pride Jr. especially was telling when Kelly spent more time watching him perform in practice.

“I really was impressed with him,” Kelly said of Pride Jr., who appeared to be on his way to a redshirt season. “I wanted to play him — and I thought we should have played him. So I’m making those personnel decisions. We played him a little too much [at Syracuse], quite frankly.”

This past spring, Pride Jr. won four state titles at the South Carolina AAA State Track & Field Championships, capturing the 100 meters (10.55 seconds), the 200 meters (21.28) and the 400 meters (48.28), and also ran a leg for the winning 4 x 100 relay team (42.20).

Track speed and football speed are two different animals, but Kelly says Pride Jr.’s make-up speed at corner is “extraordinary” and is complemented with strong football acumen.

“Those guys are going to play for me,” Kelly said. “We got his [reps] volume up during the week. I thought he could sustain it … we go one-on-one every day on scout team, and I was like, ‘That guy is as good as the guys we go against week in and week out.’”

With Vaughn, the appeal goes beyond his rangy 6-2, 200-pound frame. Defensive backs coach Todd Lyght, a two-time consensus All-American at Notre Dame in 1989-90, opined in the preseason that Vaughn had all the physical traits to achieve huge distinctions at the collegiate level. His interception against Duke was as textbook as it comes in coverage and playing the ball in the air.

“A unique player in that he has the size and the flexibility to play that position,” Kelly said of Vaughn. “He’s not afraid to play … he’s going to be a really good tackler, and he’s got really good ball skills. All those things are really, really good traits to have as a 6-2 corner.”

While Vaughn’s length might seem ideally suited as a ball-hawking free safety playing center field, Kelly said the freshman will remain at cornerback.

“I thought he could be a corner and I’m glad he’s at corner,” Kelly said. “He’s not going to safety.”

Finally, Love already is the graybeard among the trio, and his on-field smarts have aided his rise. He has switched back in forth already on the inside at nickel and outside at corner, but with senior Cole Luke now perhaps more ideally situated at nickel, Love is confidently settling in at cornerback.

“Early on, it was pretty clear that he was able to pick things up pretty easily and then go back out and retain it later,” Kelly said of Love. “We knew his athletic ability was not going to be an issue for us.

“We felt like Julian showed in camp his ability to pick things up and that’s when he got a lot more work at [nickel] … I feel like that position best fits Cole Luke now. So Julian is able to be a guy that can now go back out to corner. It has to do with knowledge and retention.”

Notre Dame may have been backed into a corner this year defensively, but its freshmen corners are giving the overall unit a puncher’s chance.

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