Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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12 OCT. 29, 2018 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME Prior to the start of the 2018 football season, Blue & Gold Illustrated listed Notre Dame's run- ning back position as the top concern among the nine position groups on offense and defense. The reasons were manifold: Top 2017 rusher Josh Adams turned pro, sophomore Deon Mc- Intosh (East Mississippi Community College) and freshman C.J. Holmes (Penn State) were dismissed from school, senior Dexter Williams had to serve a four-game suspension to open the season, and sophomores Jafar Armstrong and Avery Davis had to shift from wide receiver and quarterback, respectively, where they redshirted last season. Junior Tony Jones Jr. entered this season as the top returning available player on the roster (232 rushing yards in 2017), although he too was lim- ited by an ankle injury (which he reinjured versus Stanford). Williams had never carried more than eight times in a game his first three years, and Armstrong and Davis had never carried at all. Jones and Armstrong have been hampered in recent weeks with injuries again, yet Jones had a career-high 118 rushing yards in a hard-fought 22-17 win versus Vanderbilt Sept. 15, Armstrong followed with a career-high 98 yards on eight car- ries the next week in a win at Wake Forest — and then Williams detonated with back-to-back 161- and 178-yard efforts in impressive wins versus Stanford and Virginia Tech. Remarkably, an Irish running back did not lose a fumble all of 2017 while the rushing attack finished seventh in the country (269.5 yards per game), and had not lost any through the first six games this season. "It says a lot about Autry in just his ability to stay calm under not an easy circumstance," head coach Brian Kelly said of Denson, the school's all- time rushing leader during his playing days from 1995-98. "It's not the same group of guys every week. He's had to go in there and reshuffle the deck each and every week. "It takes an extraordinary coach and teacher to stay on task each and every week when it's somebody new, and we know that about him. He's been through it himself as a player here. He knows what it's like, and he's been able to do a great job with that room of getting the players ready that are available to him." Neither sophomore running back Jafar Armstrong nor junior drop end Daelin Hayes made the trip to Virginia Tech Oct. 6 while recovering from injuries, and their long-term status for the season remained uncertain as Notre Dame prepared to host Pitt Oct. 13 before heading into fall semester break (Oct. 13-19) and the Oct. 20 bye week. A knee infection two days prior to the Stanford game Sept. 29 sidelined Armstrong, and even at that point Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said the best-case return date for Armstrong would be "after the bye week." Armstrong actually spent six days at the local St. Joseph Medical Regional Hospital before getting released. He began moving around and getting range of motion during the week of preparation for the Pitt, but wasn't scheduled to get the sutures out until the end of week. "The draining of that knee now has com- pleted itself in the sense that he now can get into the full rehabilitation of getting that quad strength back," Kelly said. "We'll get him back into range of motion [during the bye week] and then see where we go from there." The Irish head coach opined that Armstrong was "trending" towards re- turning after the bye, but couldn't offer guarantees. "It's complicated in the sense that six days sounds like a lot, but we were draining that knee area and making sure that no infection would get in there," he explained. "It required around-the-clock maintenance on that, and it's something that's better done in a hospital environment than back in the dorm. … It was much easier for us to keep him at St. Joe's." Similar to Armstrong a week earlier, during the preparation for Virginia Tech Hayes was hampered by a brachial plexus, a network of nerves that extends from the spinal cord, through the cervicoaxillary canal in the neck, over the first rib and into the armpit. In layman's term it was a C6 "stinger," one that precluded him from making the trip to Blacksburg. Per Kelly, Hayes was cleared to practice and play prior to the Pitt game, but with the Oct. 20 bye week, no one was compelled to rush him. "We're very cautious and careful in mak- ing sure that we get consultations and make sure that everything is clearly presented," Kelly said. "This is just a matter of calming down this injury to the point where we can get him back out on the field. "They usually calm down in 24 to 36 hours. If they don't, then the window opens up to six weeks. So once he's asymptomatic, then he'll be cleared to play." Hayes has had several shoulder surgeries already during his football career, but Kelly noted that, per the MRI taken, this situation is not related to any of his previous injuries. "These are manageable," he said. "He's got all the facts. The parents have all the facts about him. This isn't something that has any inkling or any medi- cal background of paralysis. That is not in this injury at all. This is simply get- ting the nerve calmed down." After Hayes was cleared prior to the Pitt game, Kelly said he was looking forward to the bye week. "That bye week is going to get us the time to rest these guys up, and that's really the time we'll kind of assess where we are," Kelly said. Hayes was sidelined for the Virginia Tech game Oct. 6 due to a C6 "stinger," but he was cleared to practice and play during the week of preparation versus Pitt. PHOTO BY ANGELA DRISKELL Recovery Continues With Jafar Armstrong; Daelin Hayes Cleared RUNNING BACKS CONTINUE TO THRIVE UNDER AUTRY DENSON Denson was praised by head coach Brian Kelly for his ability to get the most from his running backs. Through six weeks, the Irish have had three establish career highs in rushing yards. PHOTO BY COREY BODDEN