Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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for opposing teams to isolate the Will position in a similar way, Kelly said. "[I've been] watching guys like the great Manti Te'o controlling things and really just regulating things from the inside," Smith said. "That's something that I'm looking forward to doing." The move also cuts down on the cramming Smith has to do this offsea- son. Originally, he was asked to learn multiple positions in a complex and brand-new defensive scheme. At the start of spring, he played on one side of the defense in its base and moved to the weak side when Notre Dame pulled one of its linebackers off the field in fa- vor of a nickel back, a personnel group that the Irish plan to use frequently. Switching to the Will keeps him in the same place no matter who the other 10 players on the field are. "We're not going to take Jaylon off the field under any circumstances," linebackers coach Bob Elliott said. "He wasn't a nickel, and we're going to be in nickel some so he had to learn how to play somewhere else. He kind of learned that and he started showing some stuff, and now we're thinking maybe he can do that all the time." Smith said the deluge of information thrown at him during the first weeks of March slowly started to make sense by the time he took the field for the Blue- Gold Game April 12. He said he thinks he has a handle on "a great chunk" of what VanGorder is trying to accom- plish with the new scheme. Elliott agreed that Smith made prog- ress during the second half of spring ball. He praised the Freshman All- American for his sponge-like willing- ness to learn and take coaching despite his early success. The biggest challenge for Smith will be getting used to seeing the game from