Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/200019
Earning His Way Former walk-on Joe Schmidt has become a key contributor at linebacker in his junior season W By Andrew Owens hen junior tight end Troy Niklas unleashed a bonecrushing hit on junior linebacker Joe Schmidt to celebrate the latter's key pass defended on the penultimate play of Notre Dame's 14-10 win over USC Oct. 19, it wasn't the first time the big-bodied Irish tight end's full force came Schmidt's way. The teammates faced each other before college, when Schmidt played for Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei High School and Niklas was a two-way star for Anaheim (Calif.) Servite High School. "Me and Troy played eighth-grade football together, and our dads played college football together, so I've known Troy for a long time," Schmidt said. "In high school, he was an offensive lineman and a tight end and I was a linebacker, and my senior year he blocked me almost every play. "I basically followed Troy wherever he went, and it was funny because we were friends and he's an incred- ible football player, so that was an extremely challenging game and unfortunately he won that year." Schmidt admitted the hardest Niklas hit he has endured might have been the most recent one when the linebacker helped secure the program's third win over the Trojans in four years. The teammates' paths have at times taken different routes, but it's taken them each across the country as important contributors at Notre Dame. As was documented by Blue & Gold Illustrated earlier this season (in the August 2013 edition), Schmidt received scholarship offers from the likes of Arizona, Cincinnati and Air Force, as well as a preferred walk-on position from nearby USC, but he opted to pay his own way at Notre Dame. After two years as a walk-on, head coach Brian Kelly called Schmidt into his office this summer to inform him that he had earned a scholarship for his final two years. That decision is already paying dividends for the Irish. Schmidt has risen from relative anonymity to become