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Newsstand: Notre Dame makes depth chart changes in the secondary

Singer headshotby: Mike Singer15 hours agoMikeTSinger
notre dame safety tae johnson
Notre Dame safety Tae Johnson. (Mike Miller, Blue & Gold)

Typically, the depth chart Notre Dame releases on Monday afternoons before Marcus Freeman‘s weekly press conference only changes to remove players with long-term injuries.

But for this week’s update, Notre Dame had a change at field safety — listing Tae Johnson as the starter of Jalen Stroman, a transfer from Virginia Tech.

Against Miami, Stroman logged 57 snaps to Johnson’s nine, but in the matchups with Texas A&M and Purdue, Johnson played more.

According to Pro Football Focus (PFF), Johnson played 56 and 70 snaps in the last two games, while Stroman had 26 and 43.

Notre Dame also made a change at backup nickel. Karson Hobbs started and played 56 snaps against Texas A&M after DeVonta Smith was injured in warmups. But against Purdue, freshman Dallas Golden started, and Hobbs moved back to outside cornerback.

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Quote of the day

“Yeah, absolutely. He’s as good as I’ve been around at that position. We’ve had discussions. If we need to match him up with the best wide receiver no matter where he’s at, we will. But you also gotta do a good job of being able to do that and playing some zone. You can’t just tell the offense, ‘Hey, we’re playing man. We’re playing man.’ Because no defense is good enough to just say, ‘Hey, we’re playing man every play. Stop ‘em.’ We have considered that. We’ve talked about it. We need to get him available and ready to go before we can do that. And that might be this week. He’s still questionable right now. But we’ll see if that’s what we decide to do.”

— Irish coach Marcus Freeman on if they’ve considered Leonard Moore matching up against best receiver compared to field vs. boundary designation

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