Notre Dame football: New faces having huge impact in 2020

Notre Dame football: New faces having a huge impact in 2020

Clarence Lewis, Cornerback

The Notre Dame secondary was another possible question mark heading into 2020 after the departures of Jalen Elliott, Alohi Gilman, and Troy Pride in 2019.

Shaun Crawford and Kyle Hamilton were the solid returners, and outside of them, the secondary had little experience returning outside of TaRiq Bracy and Houston Griffith. True freshman Clarence Lewis came in and immediately began making an impact for the backend of the Irish defense, earning more playing time and proving to be a great depth piece early in the season.

Lewis had a team-best 3 pass deflections vs South Florida and is currently second on the team with 5 pass deflections. He also has 15 tackles and a tackle for loss.

Heading into the North Carolina game, Lewis had only allowed nine catches on 18 targets with no touchdowns given up. Most of that production came in four games as he saw limited reps in half of Notre Dame’s games this year.

While Lewis and Bracy had shared a lot of reps for most of the season, with Bracy getting the majority of the playing time, Lewis had his first career start vs UNC last week and seems to be in line to start again this week vs Syracuse.

After allowing a few big plays through the air the last few weeks, including the opening drive touchdown and 51-yard pass vs the Tar Heels, it seems Bracy’s playing time is trending down as Lewis’ trends up. Lewis’ play and improvement is a huge positive for this year’s defense and the future of the secondary. Look for Lewis to only improve as he gets more playing time in the coming weeks.