Notre Dame Wide Receivers Look To Regain Health, Consistency

With two-thirds of the season in the books, Notre Dame’s wide receiving corps is trying to gain some level of consistency. The unit came into the season with a wealth of talent that lacked experience.

Players like true freshman Jaden Greathouse, sophomore Tobias Merriweather and juniors Deion Colzie and Jayden Thomas flashed their talent and raised expectations early in the season, but the production has not been there in recent weeks and for different reasons.

Thomas was a picture of early consistency, with four receptions and at least 62 yards in three of Notre Dame’s first four games. But he has just three receptions for 40 yards over the last four games since suffering a hamstring injury prior Notre Dame’s Sept. 30 win at Duke.

Greathouse tallied 12 receptions for 166 yards and a touchdown through the first five games of his career, but like Thomas, a hamstring before that Duke game has limited him for nearly a month. After missing the Duke game, he played against both Louisville and USC, but did not have a catch in either game.

Irish head coach Marcus Freeman is hopeful things are headed in the right direction for both of those players.

"They’re going to be as close to 100 percent this week than they’ve been all year,” Freeman said on Monday. "JT (Jayden Thomas) was probably a step below where he was two weeks ago. So, Louisville, he was probably at a higher level in terms of how he felt than he was versus USC, which dictated a little bit of what we did with him.

"Greathouse has continuously gotten better and better with his hamstring,” Freeman continued. "I think both of those guys will as close to full as you’ll see all year and that’s a week-to-week basis. We have to do things to try to prevent obviously soft tissue injuries from happening and we’ll continuously try to do that. But you never know in the game of football.”

Colzie has been slowed by injury as well. He made a splash with three catches for 45 yards and a touchdown in the season opener against Navy, but hasn’t had a reception since. He played in the first four games, but has missed the last four after a knee scope the week after the Sept. 16 game against Central Michigan.

"He will probably start some individual (position drills) this week,” Freeman apprised. "He’s probably a little bit behind where we thought he would be with the scope on his knee. But I still see him coming back here in the next couple of weeks and being able to be available.”

The most confounding piece to the puzzle is Merriweather. The 6-4 sophomore started five of the first six games of the season and has played in all eight. He is arguably the most talented player of the bunch and has been fully healthy all season.

Merriweather has eight receptions for 164 yards but the bulk of that production came in the first four games. He tallied six catches for 141 yards in those first four games but has two catches for 23 yards since. He went without a catch and had a pair of drops when Thomas and Greathouse were out against Duke.

Getting Merriweather going in the last four games is a priority for Freeman and his staff.

"We talked about this today in our meeting,” Freeman began. "We’ve got to try and find ways to get him the ball and take some shots downfield with Tobias with his body, his length, his speed. We’ve got to continuously find ways to truly take shots and not look for just the wide open, perfect play and that’s what at times we can end up doing. We’ve got to take shots and believe that he’ll make a play on a 50-50 ball and we have full faith that he will.”

Converted running back Chris Tyree remains Notre Dame’s most productive receiver through. He has 16 receptions for 355 yards through the first eight games while tight end Mitchell Evans leads the team with 24 receptions for 356 yards.