Josh Barajas Eyes The Field After Redshirt Season

Even with only four healthy scholarship linebackers available during spring ball, Josh Barajas didn’t attract the interest he did last summer when he arrived as a four-star recruit.

An injury sidelined Barajas during his crucial first practices at Notre Dame last fall and all but guaranteed that the Valparaiso, Ind., native would redshirt during his first season in South Bend.

This year, Barajas is hoping to achieve in 2016 what did not happen in 2015 with a veteran linebacking corps.

“Josh has probably remade himself physically more so than any player on our team,” head coach Brian Kelly said at the start of spring ball. “He looks really good. He's running well.”

Even with Notre Dame breaking in two new starters at linebacker, Barajas is unlikely to start this fall barring a few injuries. Classmates Te’von Coney, who missed spring practice with a shoulder injury, and Asmar Bilal, will compete for the starting Will position. Barajas spent most of the spring at the Mike spot behind junior Nyles Morgan, who displayed his skills as one of the breakout players during those 15 practices.

“Josh is doing great,” linebackers coach Mike Elston said. “He's learning. That's the important thing. He's shown the capacity to learn. We've poured it on him this spring. We haven't slowed down our install. We want to throw everything at him and see what he learns and then see what his retention would be in the fall. But the thing about Josh is when the ball is snapped and there's the tackle, he's always around the ball and getting to the football. He's going to be a very productive player while he's out there. We really like that about Josh.

Elston was quick to note that the combination of the fall camp injury and a 2015 season mostly spent on the scout team has made it an uphill battle for the 6-1 ½, 240-pound linebacker.

“He plays well with his hands and he's big and physical,” Elston said. “He still has a ton to learn, as you would imagine. A freshman that didn't play last year and was down on the scout team. Asmar was in all of our meetings. Josh was not. Josh has a lot to learn, but he's shown the capacity to learn, which is great. The next rotation we go through, it's going to be a big improvement for Josh.”

While Notre Dame cross-trained some of its linebackers during the spring, that opportunity was not available to Barajas because of the complexities of learning the Mike position. The coaching staff stressed the past two seasons how Morgan was still learning the ins and outs of the spot before he appeared to master it this spring.

“Right now he doesn't [cross-train] just because he's learning,” Elston said. “The Mike linebacker learns so much. You can't really play Mike and learn Mike and then flip over to the Will as a freshman. Nyles Morgan can go over and play Will because he's got enough base now at the Mike that he can go over and play the Will. He understands what those techniques are. Really Josh right now is not being double-trained, nor would he be in the fall. He's got to learn the Mike position.”

Just as Morgan’s sophomore season was mostly spent as a special teams contributor, that will be a likely path to the field for Barajas this fall.