Two New Notre Dame Players Unavailable For FSU Game; Kevin Austin Back
During his Thursday meeting with the media, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly revealed that sophomore Buck linebacker Jack Kiser and senior defensive tackle Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa would not be available for Saturday night’s game versus Florida State (7:30 p.m. ET on NBC).
Kiser earned the game ball against South Florida in Notre Dame’s most recent game (Sept. 19) while recording a team high eight tackles and replacing the co-starting combination of sophomore Marist Liufau and junior Shayne Simon.
Neither was available against the Bulls, which led to Kiser’s first career start. When the school released its two-deep on Monday, Liufau and Simon were listed again at Buck while Kiser was not. The Irish head coach was asked whether that was a case of availability by Kiser or superior performance by Liufau and Simon.
“Availability,” Kelly replied cautiously. “Him and Myron won’t be available.”
Simon played 32 snaps in the opening-game 27-13 win versus Duke, while Liufau had 27. They could have a similar tag-team dimension against the Seminoles.
A starter all of last year and the first two games this season, Tagovailoa-Amosa might be replaced by junior Jayson Ademilola, although sophomore nose tackle Jacob Lacey also would be capable of sliding over.
Ademilola was not available against South Florida — which led to freshman Rylie Mills taking 26 snaps in that 52-0 blowout — but he did play 20 snaps in the hard-fought win against Duke, compared to Tagovailoa-Amosa’s 44 versus the Blue Devils.
There is also much anticipation about junior wideout Kevin Austin seeing his first action this season since undergoing foot surgery on Aug. 3 and sitting out last season. Still, Kelly remained guarded about not putting too much on his plate too soon.
“He’s going to play, and he’s had a good week,” Kelly said. “No setbacks, and he can certainly help us. But we want to be careful. … He hasn’t played full-speed football in a long, long time. I think we want to err on caution in terms of his snaps this week, and then we’ll go from there.”
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