With Notre Dame facing off against what is likely the worst team on its schedule, the worry from Fighting Irish fans is less about whether the team wins and more about who is healing up.
The issue for Leonard Moore is not even whether he will play against the Cardinal; it's whether he should. Moore exited last week's game against North Carolina late with an undisclosed injury. At the time, it looked like he might have just gotten the wind knocked out of him, but head coach Marcus Freeman later disclosed that the star defensive back suffered a concussion.
After it was revealed that he had been concussed, Notre Dame listed Moore as questionable. Given that most oddsmakers have the Fighting Irish as nearly 40-point favorites, it doesn't make much sense to push the defensive back to play in Saturday afternoon's contest, with BYU next on the schedule.
Obviously, a concussion is different from something like a strained Achilles or a bum knee, but a concussion can still get much worse if a player gets on the field sooner than he should. Plenty of players have missed entire seasons because they pushed to return to the field too early.
Leonard Moore questionable, Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa out as Notre Dame football eyes BYU
If Moore doesn't play, it seems unlikely the Notre Dame defense will miss the star corner in any real way. The Irish defense has so many talented players who can immediately step in when a starter goes down that the idea of "next man up" has never been truer in the Marcus Freeman era.
Linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa is another Golden Domer who was listed as questionable for the Stanford game earlier in the week. However, he's now been ruled out for Saturday's game with a left thumb injury he suffered against the Tar Heels.
He finished with 3tackles and a 14-yard interception return that set up the go-ahead touchdown in the first quarter.
After missing the season opener against Wisconsin while working back from a torn ACL that ended his 2025 season on Senior Day against Syracuse, the third-year linebacker had slowly increased his game-day snap count.
He played 17 snaps against Rice, followed by 22 against Michigan State, 28 at Purdue and 29 at North Carolina.
The new injury setback has to be annoying for Viliamu-Asa, but Notre Dame certainly made the right decision not to even push it and sit him against the Cardinal. The Irish will absolutely need the star linebacker if at all possible next week against BYU in Provo.
Add us as a preferred source on Google