Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2012 Notre Dame Football Preview
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58 ✦ BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2017 FOOTBALL PREVIEW Notre Dame showed faith in Adams, taking his commitment despite the fact he hadn't played a down of football in about a year and a half. "We were just really confident in a lot of the things that we had seen prior to [the injury], and then we were just sold on him as a person and knew that the surgery had gone well," Kelly said. "We just felt like all the boxes were checked and it wasn't a real big gamble for us with him. … I never felt like we were taking a risk. "There have been other times where there's been somebody with a knee injury. You don't know some of these other factors, and you kind of back off a bit. But in this case, because of all the other circumstances, we never felt that way." Adams has done nothing to let the Irish down during his career. On his first college carry, Adams scam- pered 14 yards for a touchdown in the 2015 opener against Texas. He finished his debut with five carries for 49 yards and two touch- downs, stepping in after Folston suffered a season-ending torn ACL in the first quarter. For the remainder of his rookie cam- paign, Adams split time with Prosise, highlighted by several long runs that gave fans a glimpse of his size, speed and agil- ity. At 6-2 and 220 pounds, he had a 98- yard touchdown run against Wake Forest, a 70-yarder against Massachusetts and a 62-yarder against Stanford. He only got better as the season wore on — Adams rushed for 100 or more yards in three of the team's last five games, including 168 in a narrow loss to the Cardinal. Adams followed up that season without taking a step back as a sophomore. He ran for 933 yards and showed off his improved receiving skills, catching 21 passes (up from just seven as a freshman). According to Blue & Gold Illustrated's count, Adams took more than double the amount of snaps of Folston in 2016, illustrat- ing Notre Dame's unbalanced rotation in the backfield. Adams played 495 snaps this past season — up from 338 as a freshman in 2015 — while Folston (209 snaps) and Dexter Williams (126) also contributed. Adams did his work while battling through a nagging hamstring injury suffered at the beginning of preseason practice last August. "I have to do a better job of starting strong and finishing strong," Adams said. "I felt like A native of Warrington, Pa., Adams suffered a torn ACL as a junior in high school. He still wears a large brace on the surgically repaired right knee. PHOTO BY RICK KIMBALL "It feels like I just got here; like I'm that guy just trying to find my spot and trying to do the best I can to get on the field." ADAMS