Notre Dame fans let out a collective sigh of relief on Tuesday when head coach Charlie Weis announced that star quarterback Jimmy Clausen only had a case of turf toe and is expected to play Saturday when Notre Dame travels to West Lafayette to take on instate rival Purdue.
Clausen was injured on a second quarter sack against Michigan State last weekend, but played the rest of the game with a rather noticeable limp. At his weekly Tuesday press conference Weis said that the MRI Clausen underwent Sunday came back negative and that he expected the nation’s #2 ranked quarterback to play Saturday.
The MRI came back negative other than the turf toe. So rumors of him having a broken foot and being done for the year are incorrect, but he does have a turf toe.
I’ll probably hold him from practice today because when you get a turf toe one of the things you do is they get one of these plates put in their shoe that, kind of lift your toe up so that you are not getting pressure on your foot when you are there, so we’re getting that plate in today. So what I’ll do today is I’ll give Dayne (Crist) the majority of the reps, and I’m going to give (Evan) Sharpley some reps too to knock off a little bit of the rust on him, because he’s been running show team. Sharpley will get a few reps.
Our plan is to give Jimmy some of it on Wednesday, all of it on Thursday, and see how it goes from there.
Weis also said that junior running back Armando Allen is expected to play on Saturday after getting banged up at the end of the Michigan State game. He too was given off from Tuesday’s practice.
What I’m probably going to do today is, the pattern for him is going be very similar. Hold him today. He’s got a little bit of an ankle. If he went out there today, he wouldn’t be full speed. You know, give the other running backs the reps today, You know, and ease him in to — build him, you know, build him up to be full-go by game time.
All injury news was not good on Tuesday though. Senior fullback will likely miss the next two games after missing the last two weeks with a shoulder injury. Weis said that he was leaning towards resting Aldridge for the next two weeks to give him another three full weeks (including the Notre Dame bye week) before resuming action.
Charlie Weiss better come down off his cloud nine. CW single handedly cost the Irish the game with his terrible play calling in the 4th quarter. CW, please explain to the fan base and alumni why you would continue to pass the ball in the 4th quarter when the runningbacks were averaging 6-7 yrds per carry against an undersized Michigan defense? Unacceptable is your playcalling and game management. I also suspect with all the silly mental mistakes the Irish commit during the course of a game, that you do not have your team prepared. This nonsense has to stop. Every year the sports world wants to prop ND football to the elite class. And, every year we are disappointed by your inability as coach to lead the team.
Our patience is wearing thin….
It looked to me that after Jimmy came up “hobbled”, that Michigan State tried to bring more pressure on him. With him still battling turf-toe this week, and Micheal Floyd out, I would guess that Purdue will try the same thing. While Jonas Gray gives us a boost with his running ability, he missed his blocks on a number of blitz’s. I think pass protection should be a top priority this week given the circumstances. Perhaps it’s time to put Robert Hughes in the back field for better protection?