Marcus Freeman Updates Notre Dame's Injury Situations

Marcus Freeman gives details and timetables on injuries to Howard Cross and Tariq Bracy and gives a status update on Joe Wilkins

NOTRE DAME, Ind – With three consecutive wins under its belt, Notre Dame has managed to stay relatively healthy for the last month since the Sept. 10 season-ending shoulder injury to Tyler Buchner. Marcus Freeman updated the statuses of a handful of players at his Monday press conference.

HOWARD CROSS III

The most noteworthy absence from Saturday night’s 28-20 win over BYU in Las Vegas was Howard Cross III. The 276-pound defensive tackle missed the game with a high ankle sprain, but there is a good chance he will be back in action for this Saturday’s home game against Stanford.

"He’s expected to play,” Freeman said of Cross. "We expect him to play. We’ll see how he feels today at practice. He tested it pregame. We just did not, him or the trainers, feel confident that he could execute what we needed him to do, so we held him (out). (We) expect him to be back.”

Cross had been arguably Notre Dame's best defensive lineman through the first four games of the season.

Even after missing Saturday’s game, Cross is still tied with linebacker JD Bertrand and safety DJ Brown as the team’s second-leading tackler with 23 this season. He had a career-high 11 tackles against Marshall and followed that with seven tackles against Cal. His career-high coming into the season was five tackles against Navy in 2019.

TARIQ BRACY

The bigger immediate concern is the status of defensive back TaRiq Bracy. Freeman says the fifth-year senior will be questionable for this week’s game after suffering a pulled hamstring Saturday night.

"I just found out he had a virus illness and so (he) was probably a little bit dehydrated,” Freeman explained. "He was playing a lot of plays, running around there. They said that it’s a grade one (pull). It is not a really bad pull and he’s kind of freaky in terms of athletically. Hopefully he’ll bounce back, but we’ll see how he feels today. I saw him yesterday. He was confident. He was a little bit sore. We’ll see how he feels today, but right now he’s questionable.”

Bracy has arguably been Notre Dame’s best defensive back this season. His first quarter interception of BYU quarterback Jaren Hall was the first interception by the Irish defense this season.

JOE WILKINS JR.

Freeman also updated the status of wide receiver Joe Wilkins. The grad student had surgery on his right foot in April to repair a Lisfranc fracture. He is yet to contribute this season, but it is not because of his injury.

"No setbacks,” Freeman explained. "Joe’s a guy that has played a lot of ball for us previously and I think he will. I challenged Joe and I challenged (wide receiver) Coach (Chansi) Stuckey to continue to communicate, hey, what he has to do to get into the rotation. I mean, there’s a lot of guys that want to be in that rotation. You have to earn it in practice.”

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