Notre Dame football 'in a good spot' despite injuries, says Xavier Watts

The Notre Dame football defense is dealing with several things at once while they continue to be a dominant force in the sport. There’s the Jaden Mickey departure. There are several injuries that have beset the defense and there’s still the march towards the playoffs as the offense keeps trying to find its feet.

One might think that the players would be tight and things would be tight. However, it couldn’t be farther from the truth. Led by Xavier Watts, Al Golden’s unit is putting aside everything that’s happened and working hard to win as much as possible.

“I think we’re in a good spot,” Watts explained after the Notre Dame football team beat the Louisville Cardinals. “We have a couple guys down, but that comes with football. We have a bye week and a lot of guys have to get healthy. We have so much more to improve on - little things like tackling and getting off the field on third down when we need to.”

Notre Dame football in good spot defensively

One way in which the defense has shown that it can adapt and change to almost any bad situation came against the Cards. They struggled in the first half. They allowed 24 points, though two touchdowns were thanks to very short fields.

“We just kind of settled down,” explained linebacker Drayk Bowen. "They had a lot of stuff that was just kind of stuff they were trying to throw at us and see what would stick. We got everything settled down, talked through a couple different plays that would work and went out and executed. We got everyone on the same page. The DBs did what they needed to do and the front seven did what they needed to do. We just executed in the second half.” 

Now the Notre Dame football team is waiting to adapt. Waiting to see what else needs to be done. But the confidence they have that they can comes from a place of knowledge, rather than overconfidence.