SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Maybe quarterback Riley Leonard elicited the most elongated cheer Saturday among the 29 Notre Dame football players who went through the hurry-up version of Senior Day ceremonies on Saturday.
But the loudest went to a player who four seasons ago wasn’t sure he’d make it through his freshman year at ND without making transfer plans, let alone someday get a Senior Day hug at Notre Dame Stadium and a cascading ovation.
It’s fitting, though, because if grad senior safety Xavier Watts hasn’t become the universally recognized face of a 2024 Notre Dame football team that strutted another step Saturday toward a a berth in the first-ever 12-team version of the College Football playoff — and a pre-Christmas home game, at that — he’s undoubtedly the soul of it.
And it was evident almost everywhere you looked during No. 8 ND’s 35-14 bullying of a Virginia team that had just taken down a ranked Pitt team on the road the week before.
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Not that Watts’ own stat line didn’t pop —including his 11th career interception, and fourth this season, to go along with a fumble recovery, a pass breakup and three tackles.
But it showed up again in Jordan Clark’s transformation from an average safety at Arizona State to one of the top nickels in the nation, in an ND uniform, and who on Saturday helped shut down former Irish wide receiver Chris Tyree in his return to South Bend as a Cavalier.
And in sophomore safety Adon Shuler, the training camp surprise in August, who built on the breakthrough instead of fading. Or freshman cornerback Leonard Moore, who continued as a Benjamin Morrison act-alike, with the real Morrison out for the season with a hip injury.
Moore and Shuler also had picks for the Irish in a late first-half defensive flourish that essentially finished off the Cavaliers (5-5). The Irish offense, thwarted by penalties on an apparent 73-yard TD pass to Jayden Harrison and a 77-yard TD run by Jordan Faison on a fake punt, got two TDs out of those two defensive takeaways anyway and got a field goal try on the third, that missed wide.
Even the defensive line and blitzing linebackers play with more swagger, because they know Watts is taking care of the back end of the defense on Saturdays, that DBs coach Mike Mickens so deftly curates during the week.
Watts, the reigning Bronko Nagurski Award winner as the nation’s top defensive player, leads. He teaches. He transcends. He inspires.
“He’s just really good at getting the ball and always being in the right spot,” Shuler offered. “If you watch film, X is always in the right spot. So, kind of taking after him and seeing what he sees pre-snap and post-snap.”
And maybe what we should be seeing in Notre Dame (9-1), with two games to go in the regular season, is not a team that will find a dead end in the postseason, if not before, if Leonard doesn’t turn into Jimmy Clausen in the next two weeks, but one that’s good enough to lead with its defense and let the offense be a competent complementary piece.
Not that continued evolution isn’t welcome or necessary on that side of that ball. And there were bursts of it Saturday against a Virginia defense that admittedly struggles more than it excels.
Sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love overcame a slow start and finished with a career-high 137 yards on a career-high 16 carries. And his two TDs, including a 76-yard blast, gave him at least one score in every game so far this season.
Tight end Mitchell Evans continued his late-season renaissance with four catches for 34 yards and a TD. And Leonard had a stretch in the first half of hitting 16 of 17 pass attempts after starting off 0-for-2.
But he cooled off late and finished still a respectable, but not spectacular, 22-of-33 for 214 yards and three TDs with an interception, as predecessor Sam Hartman and two-time CFP Irish QB Ian Book looked on in person.
The Irish hurt themselves with big penalties Saturday on offense, and didn’t get their first third-down conversion until the last ND offensive drive of the third quarter. They finished a ghastly 1-for-12 in that stat column.
“We have to be better,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said. “We can't put our offense behind the sticks. That's the thing that stuck out to me more than anything, is that we were in a lot of third-and-long situations. The percentages of converting those are not good, no matter who you are.
“And so, what we've got to do is a better job of putting our offense in better third-down situations. And that means no penalties, and that means continue having positive plays and not negative-yardage plays. That's going to be crucial as we move forward.”
And to think Watts could have been on that side of the ball.
The Omaha, Neb., product was recruited to play wide receiver, and got all of 16 plays to show what he could do as a freshman back in 2020. Thirteen of those 16 plays were running plays, and not a single ball was even thrown in Watts’ direction in the three pass plays for which he was on the field.
Ironically, his run-blocking grade of 88.4 from Pro Football Focus put him in an elite light, even if the sample size was small.
After a soul-searching offseason, Watts resolved to stay at ND and break through in 2021. And that he did — but on defense. A run of injuries at linebacker prompted an emergency move to being an undersized rover. And eventually Watts made his way to safety later that season.
Twice Watts was given a trapdoor back to playing offense, in subsequent offseasons, and turned it away both times.
“I didn't know, obviously, early in that change that he would be the player he is now,” said Freeman, who was ND’s defensive coordinator when Watts flipped to defense. “But you saw some flashes with the Navy game of 2021. That was the first week he played safety.
“And tracking a ball, [being a] tackler and closing space, a lot of times it's natural instincts. And he's a guy that showed in that game, man, he's a guy that can track the ball and make some plays that we didn't have.
“To see the development from that point to where he's at now to be one of the best players in the country, it's a testament to his God-given ability, but [also] the work he's put into it. He's put a tremendous amount of work into becoming the player he is now.”
In the era of the transfer portal, where you can now typically plug in an experienced player at a position where you have holes, the crooked pathway to success that Watts forged at Notre Dame doesn’t figure to present itself very often anymore if at all.
But maybe it still should.
For now, there’s still work to do for this version of Watts — and his surrounding cast that came into Saturday’s game ranked in the top five nationally in pass-efficiency defense, scoring defense, third-down defense and red-zone defense, and just outside of the top five — seventh — in both total defense and turnovers gained.
Up next is a schematic curveball, an Army traditional triple-option offense that leads in the nation in rushing offense and rarely passes. But when it does pass, it’s No. 1 nationally in pass efficiency, too. And No. 1 in sacks allowed. And No. 1 in fewest turnovers committed.
And undefeated (9-0), and playing close to home at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
Then seven days later, Nov. 30, it’s the whiplash of having to adjust back to a traditional offense on the opposite coast against a USC team (5-5) that has way more offensive firepower and has been way more competitive in every game than its break-even bottom line would suggest.
“We've got to continue to look at the whys and what happened,” Freeman said, in getting big-picture with the media. “That's what this group has been doing. Like trying to truly evaluate and have a sense of urgency to improve.”
Perhaps no one drives that point home more behind closed doors during the week and again on Saturdays for all the college football world to see than Watts, the Senior Day standout who refused to give up on himself or his vision of what he could become.
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