Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/80354
SEASON KICKOFF: DEFENSIVE BACKS Junior Lo Wood's injury delivers another sucker punch to Notre Dame's Achilles' heel on defense LO BLOW J BY DAN MURPHY Earth with a cruel twist of irony. The weakest point of an otherwise strong Irish defense ust as things started to look as if they were pointed in the right direction for Notre Dame's razor-thin defensive backfield, the group crashed back down to absorbed a heavy blow less than two weeks before kicking off its 2012 season in Dublin when junior cornerback Lo Wood ruptured his Achilles tendon during a non-contact drill in practice on Aug. 20. Wood did not start a game on defense in his first two years at Notre Dame, yet he was easily the team's most experienced cornerback with just a little more than 150 live game snaps under his belt. He locked down one of the two vacant cornerback positions in the secondary early in fall camp. Now — with Wood likely sacked with a season-ending or possibly even career-ending injury — the Irish are back in scramble mode, trying to find an answer to the team's biggest question mark heading into the upcoming season. "I feel terrible for him," head coach Brian Kelly said. "He's a young man that we all wanted to see get this op- portunity that he's worked so hard for. He's a great young man, and I just feel terrible for him." Wood's progress during the offseason surprised the coaching staff during the first weeks of training camp. The Irish staff expected junior Bennett Jackson to be their playmaker at cornerback heading into the preseason after an impressive spring. But Wood outshined Jackson with an intensity and know-how he had not displayed during his first two seasons of college football. His play led cornerbacks coach Kerry Cooks to laud Wood not only one of the best players in the secondary, but one of the best on the entire defense four days before the injury. "Whatever's he doing, he's a night and day different player from what he was last spring to now," Cooks said. As a sophomore, Wood made two memorable plays. One was a 57-yard touchdown run after intercepting a pass against Maryland. The other, the one he remembers best, was getting burned in a major mismatch against USC's Robert Woods. The Trojans' All-American wide receiver left Wood in the dust for a game-clinching touch- down catch midway through the fourth quarter. Wood said he spent the next 10 months rolling that play through his mind whenever he needed a little extra moti- vation. He added 14 pounds to his 5-11 frame and focused on building upper body strength to contend with physical receivers in close quarters. He also worked on defending the deep ball and developed the technique textbook that allowed him to hang with opponents despite his lack of elite speed. "All defensive backs have that one play," Wood said about the USC touchdown. "They feel like that one play 62 PRESEASON 2012 Wood had surprised the Irish coaching staff and made notable progress to lock down the field corner starting slot before suffering a season-ending Achilles tendon injury on Aug. 20. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA is going to be their motivation to get to the top spot as a cornerback. Since mine happened to me as a sophomore, I feel like I'm just going to hang on to that until I dominate every receiver out there." It appears Wood will be hanging on for at least another year. The devastating injury puts the pressure even more firmly on Jackson, who like Wood, still hasn't started a game in his collegiate career. Jackson is a hurdler on the Irish track team and has all the physical assets he needs to compete with the top receivers on Notre Dame's schedule. He has the best raw ability Cooks says he has ever seen in a player he's coached during his eight-year career. The concern with Jackson is that he didn't come to BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED Notre Dame to play cornerback. In fact, of the six healthy scholarship cornerbacks on the Irish roster, only two were