2016 Notre Dame Football Preview

2016 Notre Dame Football Preview

Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2012 Notre Dame Football Preview

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48 ✦ BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2016 FOOTBALL PREVIEW BY ANDREW OWENS H aving a season wiped out only seven snaps into the first game can make an athlete miss some surprising aspects of his routine. Just ask Notre Dame running back Tarean Folston. For the Irish senior, who essentially missed the entire 2015 season with a torn ACL, that was practice. "Definitely. I appreciate practice more. It's crazy," Folston said. "When you're out for that long, you start appreciating things that you thought you wouldn't. "I do [enjoy practice now], I do. It's crazy." This fall, Folston is expected to form a three-headed running attack with sophomores Josh Adams and Dexter Williams. The Cocoa, Fla., native began last season as the starter. After Folston's injury, C.J. Pro- sise and Adams rushed for 1,032 and 835 yards, respectively. "Just knowing you're out for the season and the season didn't even really start, it was really tough," Folston said. "I was definitely down, but I had to keep my head up and get over it and just start working from then on. That's what I did." After losing a season on a cut that did not appear to provide the opportunity for such a devastating injury, he admitted there can be a mental block attached to such plays in the future. Running backs coach Autry Denson, however, said he thinks Folston is past that and ahead of progress. "It's funny. That's what he said," Denson said. "What we saw is we put him in a position where he had to just run, and I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with what he did the first couple times. "It's human nature for someone like Tarean who's highly competi- tive to be harder on himself, but he's exactly where we want to be. I would say trending actually maybe ahead of schedule in my book." Because Folston rushed for 1,359 yards in his first two seasons at Notre Dame, the coaching staff knows what it is getting from the veteran running back. As such, there wasn't the usual rush to get him back into contact situations during this past spring because of the reps he has already accumulated. "What we're trying to do is really get Folston back into as much of a competitive environment relative to 11-on-11 team work," head coach Brian Kelly said the latter part of spring. "He's got some strengths. He runs the inside zone play very well. When we get into some of our spread offensive sets, he's very, very good at keeping the ball inside the tackles and getting some box looks that are very favorable. He runs the ball extremely well inside, where Josh runs the outside zone extremely well. Dexter has the speed that we're looking for. "It's really all three of those guys and balancing their work over the past couple days." Now that Folston knows what it's like for football to be taken away from him, he doesn't want that to ever happen again. "Just knowing that at times I couldn't help my team and just being away from the game [was the toughest part]," he said. "It's the longest I've been away from the game." The first time Adams touched the football in his collegiate career, he scored a 26-yard touchdown. Even that play paled in comparison to his 98-yard jaunt against Wake Forest as part of a brilliant rookie season with the Irish. Now, Adams is looking toward building on his first-year success this fall. "I just know how much more I need to improve because as a team we have that place we want to get to and we didn't get there," Adams said. "I know that if we want to get there I know how much harder I need to work, how much harder we need to work as a unit to be the best. "We were almost there, but we don't want to settle for almost. We want to be great as a unit." It's easy to characterize last year's rushing ef- fort as "great," considering Notre Dame finished eighth in the nation in yards per carry (5.63) with a pair of new faces at running back. With Folston back in the mix along with Adams and Williams, the rushing attack could again power the Notre Dame offense. "[The potential is] great," Adams said. "Espe- cially Tarean, who's been here for longer than we have, and with me and Dexter getting experience last year, we should all be able to help each other out and get better." "Josh Adams' confidence level was sky high when he got to Notre Dame," Denson added. "It didn't do anything but continue to grow, but that's because he's confident. He's not cocky. He puts in the work." Even with Adams' 835 rushing yards — which broke Darius Walk- er's Notre Dame freshman record of 786 in 2004 — the running backs coach said he was not surprised by the production. "He didn't [exceed expectations] and I'm going to tell you why," RUNNING BACKS THREE-HEADED ATTACK Tarean Folston, Josh Adams and Dexter Williams will share the load in 2016 Folston — who posted a team-best 889 rushing yards in 2014 — missed most of last season after suffering a knee injury in the opener, but will once again be important to the Irish rushing attack this fall. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA AVERAGE RUSHING YARDS PER ATTEMPT UNDER HEAD COACH BRIAN KELLY Year Average (National Rank) 2010 3.98 (77) 2011 4.82 (26) 2012 4.87 (30) 2013 4.46 (53) 2014 4.28 (70) 2015 5.63 (8)

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