Darrin Walls Tweaks Hamstring

Notre Dame, IN (UHND) – Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis told the media on Tuesday that starting cornerback Darrin Walls tweaked his hamstring in practice, but that the injury was not serious.  The senior corner will be on the shelf for a couple days, however, according to Weis.

Weis explained that Walls didn’t completely pull the hamstring and that they felt it was best to let him take a few days off in order to prevent the injury from becoming more severe.

Darrin tweaked his hamstring – right on the borderline of practicing or not practicing, not one of the deep, high hammy pulls. There’s a big difference in the variety of hamstring pulls when you tweak one an when you really pull one. We felt it would be best to keep him off a few days so when didn’t go out and pull his hamstring and lose him for a month.

With Walls out for a couple days, fellow senior Raeshon McNeil will run with the first team defense along with sophomore Robert Blanton.  McNeil started every game at corner in 2008 while Walls sat out the season.

Walls missed the entire 2008 season when he was not enrolled at the University for “personal reasons”.  He returned in the spring and played well enough to take the starting role he held in 2007 back from McNeil. Gary Gray and Jamoris Slaughter will be the second team corners until Walls returns.

Luckily the injury doesn’t appear to be serious.  Hopefully this is not a lingering issue for Walls this season because he could be one of the better corners in the country if he remains healthy.

Hafis Williams Partially Cleared

On media day Weis mentioned that sophomore defensive tackle Hafis Williams was the only player on the team to be limited medically.  On Tuesday, he announced that Williams passed his medical test and has partial clearance until noon Wednesday.  Williams participated in practice according to Weis and will participate in weight lifting on Wednesday.  Afterwards, the medical staff will examine how Williams responded to the work and the goal is to give him full clearance at that point.