After the way yesterday’s game in Baltimore ended, Notre Dame fans didn’t need any more bad news. Well, we got a healthy does of it anyone on Sunday when Charlie Weis announced that both Michael Floyd and Brian Smith will be out for four weeks which will cause them to miss the remaining two games of the regular season.
Q. Michael Floyd and Brian Smith, what do you know about them today?
COACH WEIS: I’ll give you the update on both of them. I think that they will both miss the next two games, but they will both be back probably back practicing by the middle of December.So, you know, the bad and the good; the bad, they miss the next two games. But the good is there will in all likelihood, there will be another game left after that where they will be back and have a couple weeks to get conditioned, because their knees will be fine by that time. They are both looking at like a four-week period, and fortunately for us, that would take us to the middle of December, and still giving you over a couple of weeks to get their cardiovascular up and be ready to go.
Both players suffered knee strains early in yesterday’s “thrilling” 27-21 victory over Navy. In Smith’s absence, Toryan Smith received a lot of playing time and turned in a great effrot despite a bone-headed unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on his return of the Mike Anello blocked punt.
In both cases they were strains, but strains where they wouldn’t be able to go. It would really, really be unreasonable to see either one of them playing in the next couple of weeks. It’s more of a four-week deal.
Missing Floyd is going to really hurt an Irish offense which is already struggling. Floyd has been the most reliable and dependable receiver most of the year and will be sorely missed – especially in two weeks when the Irish travel to Southern California.
It’ll be interesting to see if Toryan will be a viable option to replace Crum next year.