Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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12 PRESEASON 2017 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED UNDER THE DOME DANIEL CAGE RULED OUT FOR 2017; AUSTIN WEBSTER EARNS SCHOLARSHIP Senior nose tackle Daniel Cage will sit out the 2017 campaign because of health reasons, while senior captain, wide receiver and special teams regular Austin Webster was awarded a scholarship this August. The 6-1½, 329-pound Cage was a co-starter the past two seasons with 11 total starts in 2015-16. In 2015, he shared time with freshman Jerry Tillery after Jarron Jones was sidelined for the season with a knee injury. Cage had seven starts, and finished with 18 stops and four tackles for loss. With Jones back last year and Tillery moved to tackle, Cage started four games while sharing time with Jones, and finished with 10 tackles. However, Cage was sidelined all four games in November be- cause of a severe concussion suffered in the win over Miami Oct. 29. This spring, a noticeably slowed Cage also was recovering from hernia surgery in addition to knee problems. Whether Cage will return for a fifth season in 2018 is unknown. Head coach Brian Kelly said the staff will "re-evaluate the situation at the end of the year." Webster became the second Irish receiver in as many years to merit scholarship status after first walking on, joining current junior Chris Finke. In December 2016, Webster made history by getting selected as the first captain of a Notre Dame football team who still had walk-on status. "Grit" has become one of the most popular words in Kelly's lexicon this year, and nobody better manifested the traits of attitude, leadership and maximizing performance than Webster. The 5-11, 192-pound senior from Westchester, Calif. — whose father, Keith, played basketball at Harvard — was placed on scholarship for his senior year, but Kelly said it was not an inevitable act because of Webster's captaincy. "Somebody was going to earn one because we're below our [scholarship] numbers," Kelly said. "There were a number of guys that were on that list, and he was on the list but he wasn't guaranteed one. He had to go earn it. "He's on two of our running teams on special teams — he's earned that. Coach [Brian] Polian's not giving out memberships to the special teams club because you're a nice guy. You've got to earn them, and for him getting on two of those teams says a lot about the production that he's going to be able to give us. It was only fitting for him to be awarded a scholarship." "There were definitely times where you're struggling and the path is really difficult," said Webster, who caught 43 touchdown passes during his high school career. "I'd reflect and call my parents and say, 'This is just really hard.' It's not something I wanted to walk away from but you ask yourself, 'What could I do more to show the coaches that I deserve to be here?' "There are definitely difficult times, but I've loved Notre Dame all my life and this is a dream come true." Including Cage, Notre Dame now had 84 players on scholarship as of Aug. 21, one short of the NCAA limit. BILL REES HIRED AS DIRECTOR OF SCOUTING In the 1980s and early 1990s, two of the most esteemed recruiting coordi‑ nators in college football were Notre Dame's Vinny Cerrato (1986‑91) and UCLA's Bill Rees (1979‑94). This August, Rees — the father of former 2010‑13 Notre Dame signal‑ caller and first‑year Irish quarter‑ backs coach Tommy Rees — was hired by Brian Kelly as the football team's director of scouting. After his tenure at UCLA under head coach Terry Donahue — high‑ lighted by seven straight bowl wins from 1982‑88 (third in NCAA his‑ tory) and five top‑10 finishes — Rees served as a scout for the Kansas City Chiefs (1994‑97), the director of col‑ lege scouting for the Chicago Bears (1997‑2001), the director of college scouting (2001‑03) and the director of player personnel (2003‑04) for the San Francisco 49ers, the director of player personnel/college scouting for the Cleveland Browns (2004‑08), and a pro and college scout for the Chiefs (2008‑09). Most recently he was Director of Scouting at Wake Forest, where he was on the staff with new Irish de‑ fensive coordinator Mike Elko and linebackers coach Clark Lea. Rees, the father of former Notre Dame signal- caller and first-year Irish quarterbacks coach Tommy Rees, has nearly 40 years of experience in football as a coach and scout. PHOTO COURTESY WAKE FOREST Webster, a wide receiver and special teams regular, made history in December by getting selected as the first captain of a Notre Dame football team who still had walk-on status. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND