SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Xavier Watts learned early in life how to push through bouts of uncertainty and struggle.
The Notre Dame senior safety has seen his father, Jeff, do the same, but from a wheelchair. In the wrong place at the wrong time, the elder Watts was paralyzed in 2003 when Xavier was a toddler after taking a bullet to the back near his spinal cord.
“He didn’t let being in a wheelchair hold him back,” Xavier said Tuesday after Notre Dame’s spring practice No. 7 of 15. “He’s out there still providing for me and my mom. He helped out around the house. He got up every day like a normal person.
“I just kind of took that to heart and just let it inspire me.”
And Xavier’s evolution from a seldom-used offensive player into a safety on an NFL career arc, per safeties coach Chris O’Leary, has been nothing short of inspirational as well in addition to being one of several reasons O’Leary’s safety room is emerging as a surprise position group for the Irish this spring.
That was consistently evident during a practice open to the media Saturday.
“There’s really not a weak link,” O’Leary said Tuesday. “You look at rooms across the country where you have guys at the bottom, it’s the bottom. For us, I feel really good about the young guys.
“I feel really good about the guys who have been here. We’ll continue to add a piece here or there, whether it’s in May or after next season, but right now, we have a really good group.”
And only the two freshmen — apparent prodigy Ben Minich and injured Adon Shuler (shoulder surgery) — came to ND destined to be safeties. The three-man rotation at the top of the depth chart consists of converted wide receiver Watts and converted cornerbacks DJ Brown and Ramon Henderson.
Oklahoma State transfer Thomas Harper is more safety in name than function, as he’s expected to be the team’s starting nickel once he’s fully recovered from shoulder surgery. But O’Leary said Harper does carry some position flexibility.
One of the group’s hidden assets is former All-America safety Kyle Hamilton, back on the Notre Dame campus this semester after a stellar rookie year with the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, working on his unfinished classwork toward his degree.
“He’s in probably two meetings a week with us,” O’Leary said. “He’ll chime in watching the film and then he’ll be out here in practice giving pointers. I always make the young guys go with him on the sideline and get some extra pointers.”
Watts this spring has been playing like someone who’s been listening to them. Tackling and physicality came naturally to the 6-0, 198-pound Omaha, Neb., product once he flipped to defense with the 2021 season already in progress (first as a rover, then as a safety).
The coverage skills have been the area of focus and improvement this winter and spring.
“Route recognition,” Watts said. “Just be more confident in making my calls and being able to tell other people what they should do as well.”
“It was never a worry from our end whether he’d be good enough at safety or not,” O’Leary said. “It was more so the numbers on offense and us fighting to keep him over (on defense). I don’t want to say it slowed his process, because it took the time it took. It is what it is.
“He needed that whole year and a half to turn into what he’s going to be this year. That was part of the process. For us, it was never a concern. We saw his (high) ceiling. We talked about him last year and said he’s an NFL safety when he was playing wide receiver. It has taken time to get to this point, and now I don’t think there’s any looking back for him.”
Indeed, there have been few points of indecision about the conversion. Watts has been more indecisive about uniform numbers. He’s gone from 82 to 2 to 26 to 4 back to 26 and to now 0.
His most recent work at wide receiver actually came in last season’s fall camp, when he spent a week or so practicing on both sides of the ball to provide a safety net for a wide receiver group that struggled to field a half dozen able-bodied players last season.
The Irish have 10 this spring and will add an 11th when KK Smith arrives in June to enroll as a freshman.
Now it’s Watts’ job to slow them down, a challenge Wake Forest transfer QB Sam Hartman compounds with his propensity to throw deep and his proficiency at doing so.
“It has been great,” O’Leary said. “There’s nothing better for us in practice. You get concerned when you go through a camp and don’t see any balls go over your head, because it gives you a little false confidence.
“You get in games, and that thing’s going up. It has been awesome for us to see the ball go down the field and coach it when it goes over our head and be able to see us make plays down the field.”
Minich has chipped in, providing a boost for the future and perhaps the present.
“He’s fast, tough and extremely intelligent,” O’Leary said. “With those three things, he’s going to be a really good player for us. He has a really good skill set playing the post, breaking on the ball. He might have the most picks this spring for us. He’s going to turn into a good player.”
But it still might not be enough to keep the Irish away from adding from the transfer portal once spring is over, for the present and the future.
An injury at the top of the depth chart would test the Irish depth beyond where head coach Marcus Freeman might be comfortable. And the prospect that the Irish could lose all four of its top safeties after the season would leave just Minich, Shuler and whomever the Irish sign in the 2024 class.
“We’re always evaluating that situation,” O’Leary said of the transfer portal. “I’ve told them we might look in the portal in May. It just depends. That’s a fluid situation.”
For now, O’Leary is convinced he has an elite group if everyone stays healthy.
“You talk about an opportunity this year to push for a national title,” he said. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
And it starts with Watts and his faith and persistence.
“That's my boy,” Henderson said. “Me and X are close. We’re roommates. He transitioned to safety a little bit after me. We're starting to figure things out. Me and him talk a lot about plays, about what we should do here, about what we think here on this certain formation.
“He's a really fast player, good competitor. He tackles really well. He can guard really well. He's growing. I think I'll see him in the draft pretty soon going pretty high.”
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