Notre Dame Fighting Irish News: Xavier Watts gets more love, more

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football defensive back Xavier Watts keeps getting the accolades and official awards from his performance against USC.

Xavier Watts grabbed a ton of eyes on Saturday night. The game he had against USC’s Caleb Williams was one for the ages. It might have been the best game by a defensive back all season, especially considering the quality of his opponent.

Knowing that, it’s not hard to realize just why Watts was a recipient of a pretty big award this week. Watts was named the Bronco Nagurski Player of the Week.

The honor is a pretty good one. It puts the Notre Dame Fighting Irish star in some pretty elite company.

Colorado’s Travis Hunter, Kentucky cornerback Maxwell Hairston, Fresno State’s Carlton Johnson and Washington State’s Ron Stone Jr. are the other recipients of the award.

More Notre Dame Fighting Irish news

• It turns out that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are trying to change the landscape when it comes to rest and recovery of athletes in their program. It’s not hard to draw a line from that sort of approach and more success on the field. On3 has the story breaking down what researchers with the Golden Domers are doing.
• The Notre Dame football team hosted a ton of players for the USC game and reactions from those players have been rolling in all weekend and into this week. Among them was one of the Irish’s top targets for the 2026 class. Offensive guard George Haseotes took to Twitter to express how much he enjoyed seeing Notre Dame football up close and personal.

• 2024 running back prospect Kedren Young was in the same boat. It was the first time he got to see the stadium and he too, loved what he had to see. Young is a commit to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team and it’s a safe bet he’s quite happy about that.