Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM NOV. 16, 2024 7 UNDER THE DOME UNDER THE DOME Staying Healthy Is Of Utmost Concern By Todd D. Burlage Looking at the final three-game stretch of the 2024 Notre Dame regular season, there are plenty of concerns the Irish need to guard against, even if they'll be prohibitive favorites in all three games. But given a roster that has already been ravaged and thinned by countless injuries, staying healthy down the stretch is the most important storyline for Notre Dame the rest of the way. Because, simply put, it would be darn near impossible to absorb any more player losses and still stay competitive. On offense, starting offensive linemen Ashton Craig and Charles Jagusah both suffered season- ending injuries, and starting guard Billy Schrauth missed multiple games after injuring his leg against Purdue. This O-line unit cannot take any more player losses. Defensively, the situation is even more dire. Along the line, standouts Jordan Botelho and Bou- bacar Traore were both lost for the season. Botelho was playing the best football of his career, and Traore is still second on the Irish with 5 tackles for loss. In the secondary, All-American and team captain Benjamin Mor- rison was also sidelined for the rest of this season after suffering a hip injury against Stanford. In all, injuries have knocked eight Irish defenders out for the year. As my colleague Jack Soble suggests, a trip to USC for Notre Dame to close the regular season — with a possible playoff berth at stake — will be a concern- ing weekend for the Irish. But staying healthy enough to even field a viable lineup remains the primary worry and concern for the Notre Dame program. Trip To Southern California Is Never Easy By Jack Soble Todd is absolutely right that Notre Dame can't afford another injury loss, particularly at the cornerback position. The storm seems to have quieted down since the Irish lost Morrison — knock on wood — but staying healthy is still a huge issue. However, as far as the action on the field goes, I have my eye on Notre Dame's Week 14 matchup at USC. The Irish should take care of Virginia with relative ease. Their Shamrock Series matchup against Army could get dicey, but they typi- cally do very well in Shamrock Series games and the Black Knights could be without star quarterback Bryson Daily. If Notre Dame does indeed take care of business against both, some fans might look at USC's 4-5 record entering Week 11 and think, "We're home free!" That would be a mistake. Road rivalry games are always challenging. Case in point: The home team has won nine of the past 10 matchups in the Notre Dame-USC series. And even though the Trojans have been disappointing this year, they've still been awfully tough on teams from the Eastern or Central time zones that travel to Southern California. USC took care of business at home against Wisconsin, 38-21. It easily dis- patched Rutgers, 42-20. When No. 6 Penn State came to town, the Trojans pushed the Nittany Lions to the limit in a 33-30 overtime game that they arguably should have won. USC has fallen by a single score in all five of its losses. As dysfunctional as things seem to be in Los Angeles under third-year head coach Lincoln Riley, this is a better team and a more challenging road test than its record lets on. Point ✦ Counterpoint: WHAT IS NOTRE DAME'S BIGGEST CONCERN ENTERING FINAL STRETCH? Talk about wearing a lot of hats. As the first executive director of RALLY — a recently launched lifestyle agency to help connect Notre Dame stu- dent-athletes with businesses to maximize their name, image, likeness (NIL) earning opportuni- ties — Kayla Rogers is a marketer, a salesperson, a negotiator, an event planner and, sometimes, even a sports agent. A day in the life of the former starting point guard and 2012 graduate from the University of Delaware puts her in many roles, all designed to build profitable relationships between student- athletes and interested businesses in this ever- changing NIL era of college athletics. Upon completion of her graduate work at Dela- ware in 2013, Rogers, 34, stayed in Newark, Del., and worked for her university in a variety of roles. After that, the Wilmington, Del., native took a job in South Bend at Anthony Travel as a senior manager, then moved onto Altius Sports Partners, where she connected Irish student-athletes with promotional opportunities when NIL remained in its infancy, until she became the head of RALLY Nov. 1. Blue & Gold Illustrated recently caught up with Rogers to talk about the importance and mission of her new role, during these unpredictable times in college athletics. RALLY works in close conjunc- tion with Notre Dame, but it is an independent business and not a branch of the Irish athletics department. BGI: What is the RALLY mission statement? Rogers: "Our mission is to provide meaningful NIL opportunities to the Fighting Irish student- athletes, while providing extraordinary experi- ences for the Notre Dame community. The NIL landscape is a puzzle where the pieces change on a daily basis, and that is such a perfect analogy." BGI: What does your plan include? Rogers: "I work with student-athletes on find- ing, locating and creating what their NIL opportu- nities might look like, and how it can best provide them with the most value. Along with that, it's making sure that any opportunity is something our student-athletes are interested in doing." BGI: What goes into that mission? Rogers: "Much of it is through deals with local businesses, our corporate partners, regional busi- nesses. Hopefully, they will all want to see how successful it can be working with our student- athletes from a marketing needs perspective. And, hopefully we are able to funnel more of those through RALLY." BGI: How does RALLY fit into Notre Dame's NIL strategies? Rogers: "Because it addresses how we are go- ing to generate revenue opportunities for the student-athletes — whether that will be through events, selling merchandise, other endeavors — and just how to best capitalize and provide the best opportunities. And I work very closely with the University of Notre Dame to make sure every- thing that RALLY does is compliant." BGI: What does this new role mean to you? Rogers: "Being able to keep Notre Dame at a competitive advantage from a recruiting stand- point by offering different opportunities in that [NIL] realm is an important service. And, I'm su- per grateful to be able to work with these stu- dent-athletes at Notre Dame. They definitely set such a high standard at the university." — Todd D. Burlage Five Questions With … RALLY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR KAYLA ROGERS Benjamin Morrison Lincoln Riley Rogers, who played Division I college basket- ball at Delaware, works to help build profitable relationships between Fighting Irish student- athletes and interested businesses in this ever- changing NIL era of college athletics. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME