Notre Dame Football: Injury Updates From Irish Summer Camp

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish begin summer camp at Culver Academies Tuesday — and the break from organized practices has allowed some important players to heal from injuries.

Coach Brian Kelly updated us on the prognosis of defensive tackle Daniel Cage, cornerback Shaun Crawford, defensive tackle Elijah Taylor and kicker Justin Yoon.

OUT: DANIEL CAGE

As previously reported, senior Cage will not play this year due to concussion and knee issues.

Kelly said:

Daniel will not play for us this year. He's had a couple of medical conditions that, one, I think we all know publicly that he's had a couple of concussions, and he has a knee, so he's going to step away this year. Will not play for us. And reevaluate the situation at the end of the year.

RECOVERING: ELIJAH TAYLOR

In Cage’s absence, the Irish need seldom-used defensive tackles to play meaningful snaps. One of those is junior Elijah Taylor, who made the most of 10 snaps against the USC Trojans in the 2016 finale — recording three tackles (one for a loss).

Taylor suffered a Lisfranc injury — basically a broken bone in the middle of his foot — in March.

Kelly said today:

Elijah straight line, I think he's probably ten days to two weeks, and I think he'll be able to do everything for us. Fully linear, excellent, great strength, side-to-side, probably not there yet. But moving towards that. I think it's probably going to require him some camp work to get that side-to-side movement.

FULLY BACK: SHAUN CRAWFORD AND JUSTIN YOON

Crawford tore his Achilles tendon during the Irish’s win against the Nevada Wolf Pack last September.

Kelly said he’s “fully cleared (and) doing everything.”

Coming off an achilles, we'll be smart. We'll rely on Shaun, who is extremely locked in on how he feels, and a little bit of science and GPS and probably put some restraints on him, but he's doing great in everything.

Yoon, a junior, sat out the summer after suffering a “chondral defect,” which is a fancy way of saying he twisted some cartilage in a bad way.

Kelly said he and the staff were prudent in confining Yoon to rest.

Physically, outstanding summer. Healthy, was able to do all the things that we wanted him to do. If Coach Balis was here right now, he would tell you he was happy with the progress that he made even in the weight room in terms of his strength development. All of the things that we had put markers on him, he exceeded all of those.

He had a chondral defect, so that required rest. It has since healed. We wanted to be cautious with him. It allowed us, you know, with color, to do that. He was, as you know, a senior that had experience and he came out in the spring and did a really nice job. So it allowed us to really just sit him and allowed him to heal properly. It was the smart thing to do. It was the prudent thing to do. We weren't playing him in the games and it showed to be an effective thing because he had a really good summer.