Marcus Freeman impressed with Xavier Watts' confidence
Xavier Watts gets better by the day. On Monday, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman discussed his starting safety’s development.
“I think it’s confidence,” Freeman said. “A guy that two years ago, right, where we moved him from wideout to safety. You’re just seeing his confidence level continue to rise, and give credit to [defensive backs] coach [Chris] O’Leary and the job he’s done with Xavier and that safeties room.”
In Notre Dame’s 45-24 win over NC State on Saturday, Watts recorded three tackles and an interception, the first of his collegiate career. In fairness, Watts hasn’t always been on the defensive side of the ball.
Notre Dame recruited Watts as a receiver. However, after the team suffered several injuries in 2021, the Fighting Irish staff placed Watts on defense. He hasn’t looked back. In his first two seasons at safety, Watts boasted 54 tackles, two tackles for loss and a sack.
Freeman couldn’t be happier with Watts and his fellow defensive back’s performances this season.
“We’re rolling three, four guys at the safety position and they’re all playing at a high level,” Freeman said. “That’s a part of that unit strength that we talked about, right, is that ability to be unselfish and you can go through many different positions and talk about that but the ability to be unselfish when you’re in there.”
Xavier Watts leads a team effort
Through three outings, Notre Dame is allowing just 123.3 passing yards per game, the 10th-least in the country. Further, the Fighting Irish’s secondary possesses the fourth-best defensive pass efficiency in the nation.
Watts is a key component to Notre Dame’s success, starting in every game so far this season. O’Leary knew from the start this was Watts’ year.
“This is gonna be his breakout year,” O’Leary said before the season began. “He’s put in the work for now, going on two and a half, three years, and you can just see it in his game. He’s playing confident. He’s doing things that you coach level-two, level-three of safety play. He started to do those in live situations, so he’s gonna make a lot of plays.”
Watts isn’t taking the moment for granted.
“Coach [Marcus] Freeman preaches one day, one life so take that into account of, like, one season, one life,” Watts said. “I think about parts of the season, like some plays I missed out on, some of the negative stuff, but I didn’t think too much about the accomplishments I had.”