Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Irish senior cornerback could make it back — mentally and physically. A little more than nine months earlier, the younger Wood was going through his paces in Notre Dame's indoor practice facility. He was 10 days away from making his first collegiate start for the Irish. A junior at the time, Wood had tilted a few heads on the Irish coaching staff with the unexpected speed with which he settled into his new role. He sunk into his backpedal during a drill that day and slid about 15 yards down the field before he felt a pop followed by a burning sensation in his heel. He hobbled off the field and tried to return the next play, but Wood had ruptured his Achilles tendon. His debut season was over. Wood is one of two Irish secondary players whose 2012 coming out party was put on pause because of a preseason injury. Austin Collinsworth, also a junior at the time, was scheduled to be a regular in Notre Dame's three-man rotation at safety before shoulder surgery in June derailed those plans. Collinsworth and Wood spent a lot of time together in the trainer's room. They forced each other to show up to practices and games no matter how painful it was to watch their teammates and wonder. The unbeaten regular-season run that was unfolding in front of their eyes magnified the what-ifs bouncing around inside their helmetless heads. "It was really tough when you can't be out there sharing the victories, the great moments and going down in history with your teammates," Wood said a day after he arrived in Miami to watch his team fall to Alabama in the BCS National Championship Game. "In the beginning of the season, it was [frustrating]. You don't want to be at practice because you just want to be out there so bad." He and Collinsworth commiserated on the sideline. They pushed each other during their long and frustrating rehab process, and occasionally they propped up the other's chin. "It's good to have somebody to go through that with," Collinsworth said. "Obviously I would never wish that on somebody else, but it was nice that we could kind of comfort and build up and encourage each other." When they were finally healthy, the tough part started. *** Wood and Collinsworth returned to the field for spring practice in March and found the spots they once held on the defensive depth chart occupied. They had been usurped by younger players with less wear and tear on their bodies and reputations for being more athletic and more physical. As seniors, both would have to find a way to pry open their fleeting window of opportunity before it shut for good. And neither was fully himself yet. Wood jumped immediately into the mix with the first-string defense. Senior Bennett Jackson was sidelined with a shoulder injury, and Wood played Jackson's boundary position in his absence opposite sophomore KeiVarae Russell. It was Russell who stepped into Wood's vacated spot last year and finished fifth on the team in tackles on his way to Freshman All-America honors. Head coach Brian Kelly said midway through August's training camp that Russell had proven himself enough in