Oct. 12, 2000
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Notre Dame head coach Bob Davie addressed the status of Julius Jones at his Tuesday press conference.
The Irish running game as well as the Irish return game depends heavily on the status of the sophomore tailback. A hamstring injury suffered in practice has hampered his efforts in the games, especially against Stanford.
“Just looking at it, I think Julius would agree, right now he’s not playing maybe like he’s done at other times for us,” Davie said. “But I think it is a little bit because he hasn’t practiced a whole lot.”
Davie attributed Jones’ somewhat lackluster performance to the fact that Jones did not practice that much in the week prior to the game against Stanford.
“I agree that I’ve seen him at where every time he touched it, you felt he could possibly break it,” Davie said. “You have not felt that quite the same these last couple weeks. I would tend to agree with that.”
Jones’ is still nursing the hamstring along with the sore thumb. On top of those already present injuries, he is also nursing a quadriceps contusion and is listed as probable for Saturday’s game.
“I think that the point right now of that surrounding cast has to raise their level of play,” Davie said. “That’s what we need to have and Julius is included in that group.”
Well the rest of the cast are nursing some injuries of their own. Saturday standout David Givens is listed probable, despite spraining his ankle on Saturday. Fullback Tom Lopienski should be back after taking a week off to nurse a nerve injury in his shoulder.
“We just found out that Mike McNair has a hip flexor,” Davie said. “He is probably out for this game but fortunately Tom Lopienski is back. We are just fortunate that we have been able to build the depth up at the fullback position.”
Jordan Black and Javin Hunter are both listed as probable for Saturday’s game.
“We’re in pretty good shape,” Davie said. “So that probably is the No. 1 most positive thing we have going right now. We’ve got to keep that thing going.”