SOUTH BEND, Ind. — In the first few practices in March before shoulder surgery truncated most of Benjamin Morrison’s spring opportunities, the junior cornerback looked like the best player on the Notre Dame football team on either side of the ball.
On Friday, two days before the Irish veterans report for summer workouts and summer school, head coach Marcus Freeman put a more definite timeline as to when Morrison will be 100% cleared to try to put on an encore.
“Sometime close to Texas A&M,” Freeman said, referring to the Aug. 31 Irish season opener in College Station, Texas.
But a “partial participant” this summer and when training camp opens with practice No. 1 on July 31.
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Morrison underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder on March 25, causing him to miss the final 11 of 15 scheduled spring practices, including the April 20 Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium.
Two members of the cornerback position group have transferred since then, veteran Clarence Lewis as a grad transfer to Syracuse and sophomore-to-be Micah Bell to Vanderbilt, where he’s expected to get a look at wide receiver.
Combined with the winter transfer of Ryan Barnes (UMass), Notre Dame enters summer school with five fully healthy corners and a sixth in Morrison, beyond nickel specialist Jordan Clark. Two of them are June-enrolling freshman Karson Hobbs and Leonard Moore.
Junior Jaden Mickey and sophomore Christian Gray will take the No.1 reps in Morrison’s absence, then compete with each other for a starting spot once he returns, Senior Chance Tucker is a career backup.
The Irish trawled the transfer portal after spring football ended and even had Rice grad transfer Tre'Shon Devones in for a visit, but Notre Dame elected to stand pat and Devones transferred to Duke.
Morrison has made quite an impression during his first two seasons at ND, enough that he’s a consensus first-round draft projection in the early 2025 NFL mock draft, and appearing as a top 10 pick in several of them,
The 6-foot, 186-pound product of Brophy Prep School in Phoenix earned freshman All-America honors in 2022 after intercepting six passes and accruing four pass breakups and 33 tackles while starting the final nine games of that season.
As a sophomore, he led the Irish in pass breakups with 10, to go along with three interceptions and 31 tackles, including 3 ½ for losses. He missed the Oct. 31 rout of pit with a quad injury.
The Irish finished the 2023 season No. 1 nationally in pass-efficiency defense for the first time in school history and fifth in total defense, its highest end-of-the-season standing in that stat category since 1980.
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