Brian Kelly Gives Notre Dame Injury Update to Start Spring Football

Notre Dame’s spring football for 2020 kicked off on Thursday and following the first practice of the year, Brian Kelly met with the media.  During that time Kelly gave updates on a number of Notre Dame players who are either currently injured or coming back from injury.  Here’s a quick rundown of all the injury updates Kelly gave on Thursday.

• Liam Eichenberg and Robert Hainsey are both full gos for the spring though the staff is closely monitoring their GPS workload numbers.
• Cam Hart is in “aggressive shadow” and Notre Dame is pushing the envelope with him in practice.  Assuming this means he is running through drills but not going through contact portions right now.  Either way sounds like Hart shouldn’t be too limited this spring which is important given Notre Dame’s depth at corner.
• Shaun Crawford has “a little hamstring” injury right now.  Given his full injury history, this is a walk in the park for the 6th year senior playing on a medical hardship waiver in 2020.
• Jack Lamb is three weeks out from moving to the next phase of his rehab from the torn hip muscle he suffered in November.  He will miss all of spring football.
• Shayne Simon is doing great and is full go for fall camp but will be out for all of spring.
• Aaron Banks is about 5.5 weeks out on his foot injury – he had a fracture.  Don’t expect to see Banks this spring with that kind of timeframe.
• Northwestern graduate transfer Bennett Skowronek is at about 90% right now from an ankle injury.
• Daelin Hayes is being monitored but is doing well.  He is back for a 5th year after suffering a torn labrum early in the 2019 season.
• Quinn Carroll is being monitored too.  He tore his ACL last spring as an early enrollee.  Before the injury, there was some thought that he might have been in the two deep for 2019.
• Jay Brunelle had “the cleanup” of his shoulder from high school.  Kelly didn’t say it, but Brunelle is expected to miss the spring.

It is encouraging to hear that Eichenberg and Hainsey will be able do “virtually everything” this spring since there was some concern they might be limited.  With Banks still 5.5 weeks out from his injury, Notre Dame could have been missing 60% of its starting offensive line had both been limited.  Kelly was a little testy when asked about the offensive line needing to improve this year, but it’s fair to question if the offensive line will be better in 2020 after underachieving the last couple of years.  Having Eichenberg and Kraemer this spring will obviously make improving much more likely.

There will be plenty of reps at linebacker this spring with a few injuries there.  The same is true at cornerback where Notre Dame is looking for a replacement for Troy Pride who is preparing for the NFL Draft.