Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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22 AUGUST 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED NOT DONE YET Notre Dame's two longest- tenured wide receivers, Jayden Thomas and Deion Colzie, have more in the tank and a lot more to prove BY TYLER HORKA J ayden Thomas and Deion Col- zie are Notre Dame's two longest tenured wide receivers. They've played a combined 55 games for the Fighting Irish, with the latter re- sponsible for 28 of those and the former taking care of the remaining 27. Only in three of the 55 — just three — have they both caught multiple passes in the same game; against Navy and USC in 2022 and versus Navy in 2023. That's it. April's Blue-Gold Game was a shining example of Thomas and Colzie, both of whom arrived in South Bend in the recruiting class of 2021, not being able to concurrently produce. Thomas did not suit up for the spring scrimmage because of a hamstring injury. Colzie, meanwhile, took advantage of his co- hort's absence — along with those of fellow receivers Jayden Harrison and Cam Williams — to reel in 4 receptions for 58 yards. That's a good day for Colzie, who had 3 catches for 45 yards in the entirety of the 2024 season. All of those came in the season opener against the Midshipmen. A knee injury unraveled the rest of his junior season. Thomas can relate. He also had a strong showing in the season-opener with 4 catches for 63 yards and a touchdown. Colzie scored on one of his 3 catches, too, for that matter. Then Thomas didn't score against until the Sun Bowl against Or- egon State. And Colzie, well, … yeah. His knee injury did him in. Thomas' hamstring hampered him. That's all in the past. They're both doing everything they can to be avail- able in the future. The immediate fu- ture, that is, as seniors. This might be it for them in a blue-and-gold uniform, even though they each have two years of eligibility remaining because of redshirt seasons. You can only take one year at a time in this era of college football. Who knows where they'll be in 2025. They're still not hanging their heads about what could have been to this point. It's full steam ahead. "It's just never fun to sit on the side- line and kind of watch the guys have fun and do what we love to do," Colzie said. "At all costs, I'm trying to be in practice and participating in some way, whether it's individual and no contact or what- ever it has to be. I want to be part of practice." "I had a couple of injuries that made me miss some games and not be able to play 100 percent last year in some games," Thomas added. "That's just football. Everybody gets injured. It's the most physical sport in the world, I would say. I just definitely keep in mind the ex- tra treatment, doing the little things that nobody sees to keep me on the field." Colzie had 3 catches for 45 yards and a touchdown in the season opener ver- sus Navy last year, but he did not record a single sta- tistic thereafter because of a knee injury. PHOTO BY JOHN CROTHERS