Notre Dame injury report vs. Florida State: Freshman DE Loghan Thomas ruled out
Injuries have hit Notre Dame hard this season with several Fighting Irish players shelved for the year with major ailments requiring surgery. But going into tonight’s game against Florida State, the players with which the Irish have to work — the ones who haven’t suffered season-ending injuries — were mainly healthy. Only two of them were listed as questionable at the beginning of the week — senior kicker Mitch Jeter and freshman defensive end Loghan Thomas.
Coming out of warmups at Notre Dame Stadium, it’s a mixed bag with that pair.
Jeter, managing some hip pain, went through an extensive pregame session that could lead to him kicking in a game for the first time since Oct. 9 vs. Stanford. Thomas, though, did not take in warmups of any kind. Instead, he stood off to the side with fellow defensive ends Jordan Botelho and Boubacar Traore, who are both out for the season because of ACL injuries.
Thomas, dealing with an ailing hamstring, will not play against FSU according to Notre Dame’s official pregame injury report. Jeter is available along with the rest of the players on Notre Dame’s two-deep depth chart. That was the case in the previous two games in which he did not play, so he’s still a game-time decision. But the pregame prognosis is good with him.
Thomas’ injury does not affect the Irish’s game plan at the top of the depth chart at defensive end. Junior Joshua Burnham is listed as the starter at Vyper, and he’s being backed up by fellow junior Junior Tuihalamaka. That’s been the Irish’s combination at that position since Botelho and Traore were lost for the year. At strong-side defensive end, Duke transfer RJ Oben and freshman Bryce Young are the players on the two-deep.
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At this stage, even with all the injuries, Thomas is nothing more than a series here, maybe a series there type of contributor for Notre Dame. That said, this could have been the type of game to get Thomas, a special teams staple who has already burned his red shirt, to get some defensive playing time. If Notre Dame blows Florida State out as expected, Thomas would have surely been on the field quite a bit in the second half.
Jeter, on the other hand, is very clearly Notre Dame’s best kicker. During his absence, walk-ons Zac Yoakam and Eric Goins both missed kicks. Goins missed an extra point vs. Navy. Yoakam missed a field goal against Georgia Tech and Navy. Jeter is 5 of 7 on field goal attempts this year, both misses being blocked kicks in the Irish’s loss to Northern Illinois. He’s made all 20 of his extra point attempts.
