Xavier Watts Is Ready To Be A Two-Way Player For Notre Dame

Notre Dame junior Xavier Watts is currently getting work on both sides of the ball in order to help the Irish as much as he can

Things got a bit busier for Notre Dame junior Xavier Watts recently. Soon after the devastating season-ending injury suffered by Notre Dame wide receiver Avery Davis, Watts found out his list of duties was increasing.

Davis’s ACL tear left the Fighting Irish with seven scholarship receivers on the roster. One of them was former walk-on Matt Salerno and two others, Joe Wilkins Jr. and Deion Colzie, were nursing injuries of their own.

The already depleted receiving corps needed an influx and immediate speculation turned to Watts, who had moved to safety from wide receiver last season when numbers in the defensive backfield were thinner.

Sure enough, head coach Marcus Freeman approached Watts to discuss a move back to the offense.

"Coach Freeman was in the warmup lines (and) just asked me, ‘The offense approached me about you’,” Watts recalled. "Asking me how I felt. Of course, the choice was always mine, didn’t force me into anything. (He) just told me the choice was mine and if I wanted to play both ways, I could.”

That’s where Watts finds himself now. He’s a man with not one, but two positions. One on each side of the ball. Watts is doing something that notable players like Champ Bailey, Charles Woodson and Chuck Bednarik did – play on both sides of the ball.

“I just wanted to challenge myself, because I feel like I have a unique skill set and I’ll be able to do both and capitalize on both,” Watts said.

Two-way players were much more common 60 and 70 years ago, but they’ve mostly gone the way of the dinosaurs as the game has progressed and players have become more specialized. Bailey and Woodson were far more the exception than the rule at Georgia and Michigan, respectively, while Bednarik was simply one of the best of the breed at a time when facemasks were just beginning to be worn.

Every practice has been a little different for Watts since he made the move. Some days he will play just receiver. Other days, he might focus mostly on safety. There are other days he will play both, but the primary focus is currently offense.

“As of right now, I’m doing more wideout, just knocking off the rust,” Watts explained. “But it’s more so to balance it. It’s on my individual time. Like go meet with Coach (O’Leary) by myself and learn safety. Or like when I’m doing team meetings, go meet with Coach (Chansi) Stuckey in the wide receiver meeting.

“So right now, it’s kind of more so wide receiver, but I feel like it’s going to balance out way more once I knock off the rust,” he continued. “At wideout, I’m like learning the plays more consistently.”

The addition of receiver has been eased by the fact that Tommy Rees is still the offensive coordinator. Watts says he still knows the plays from when he solely played on offense. The biggest difference for him now is Stuckey.

“I really like Coach Stuckey,” Watts said. “I’ve always seen him around, but now being around him, he’s really cool, a really chill guy. He’s obviously a really good coach. He knows what he’s talking about. I’ve already learned so much stuff that I never really learned.

“I was a really raw receiver, but just learning the stuff already from him, it’s like all right he’s already made an impact on some of the stuff I could do at the next level or the next stages of wide receiver,” Watts said. “He’s definitely really technical, detailed and some of the stuff he does, so I really like that about him.”

Playing on both sides of the ball means far less off time for Watts. He has had to find extra time in the film room to study more offense since he has spent the last year in the secondary. O’Leary says Watts has been handling it well in the early going though.

“I have to make sure that he stays up on what we're doing,” O’Leary said. “It's not hard on him. It's challenging on him. He's got to find time to meet extra with offense and the defense days off really our days off for him because he's got to learn so it's been really good. It's been challenging, but it's been good.”

The biggest decision Watts is currently pondering is what to do with his jersey number. He wore No. 4 at safety, but he can’t wear that as a receiver, because Lorenzo Styles already has it. Number three was also just grabbed up by running back Logan Diggs.

“I don’t think I like this number (26),” Watts deadpanned. “At defense or wide receiver, I don’t like this number. I’ve got to figure out what that deal is, so we’ll see what happens.”

The number will likely work itself out in the long run, but where Watts ends up in the long term is the bigger and more important question. It’s also one that he doesn’t currently have any insight into.

“That I don’t know,” Watts said, when asked if he is a safety or receiver in the long run. “I’m just trying to help the team out. Like I’m a team-first type of guy. Of course, wideouts were a little thin. I was just trying to step in. Just help out when I can. I don’t know what the long-term outlook is, but I’m just focusing on right now. It’s a right-now thing.”

And right now, Watts is doing his best to do both to help his team. 

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