Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Made For A PRINCE fits in well at Cat linebacker Junior Prince Shembo that it's imperative his players savor the jour- ney that is a long col- lege football season and find joy in individual moments along the way. It'd be difficult to find another player on the roster that extracts maximum pleasure out of both the banality of practice and the drama that accompanies game days more than ju- nior outside linebacker Prince Shembo. The 6-2, 250-pounder N otre Dame head coach Brian Kelly has stressed in recent weeks sees the game through the eyes of a child, but plays it like The Bogey- man. Since switching from Dog linebacker, which is much more responsible BY WES MORGAN for dropping into pass coverage, to the quarter- back-hunting Cat posi- tion, Shembo has found his niche. The North Carolina native led the dominant Fighting Irish defense with eight quar- terback hurries through seven games, and he also had two sacks among three tackles for loss. "Practice is the favor- ite part of my day," he said. "It's like recess for me. You've got class, lunch and then you have recess." He's learned to ap- preciate film sessions and has embraced the nuances of the four linebacker positions employed by defensive coordinator Bob Diaco. While still applying that information, Shembo has also figured out a way to simplify the game. our heads off and we want to do the same thing," he said. "… It's the same mental- ity; we're never going to change. We're like a bunch of little kids that like to run around. I just play football, man. When you start thinking about you've gotta do this and you've gotta do that, you start freezing." Diaco has given Sh- "Guys want to knock embo a long leash when it comes to improvising on the field, but Shem- bo's teammates know he'll be in the right spot. "First of all, we had Darius Fleming there last year and he did a great job in always set- ting the edge and mak- ing sure that the ball was always inside of our de- fense, and then you have somebody like Prince Shembo," senior inside