Irish won't stop celebrating after Tranquill's ‘freak' injury

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SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame players won’t stop celebrating big plays after Drue Tranquill suffered a season-ending torn ACL against Georgia Tech.

Tranquill, a sophomore safety from Fort Wayne, Ind., broke up a second quarter pass in the end zone and leaped to celebrate with linebacker Joe Schmidt. He landed awkwardly on his knee and crumpled in a heap, becoming the sixth Notre Dame player to succumb to a season-ending injury since the beginning of preseason camp.

“It's a freak thing,” Schmidt, who still appeared emotional over the injury on Wednesday, said. “Funny, I hardly ever celebrate after plays but that was a really great play and he was really excited so I got really excited. Things happen.”

Coach Brian Kelly admitted that Notre Dame does have a breaking point with all the injuries it’s suffered, even if it's shown the depth to fill in for those six players so far. Plenty have been of the “freak” variety, too — freshman nickel back Shaun Crawford tore his ACL while backpedaling in practice, and junior running back Tarean Folston tore his ACL while trying to cut outside against Texas.

Like Tranquill’s injury, those weren’t altogether preventable.

“I don't think you can tell guys not to celebrate,” safety Matthias Farley said. “It adds so much to the game and it creates so much energy to everyone else over on the sideline or on the field with you.

“And also I guess the biggest question guys have when things like that happen is, why? It isn't necessarily related to the play. It's not a football play. It happened between whistles. It's one of those questions, why do things like that happen to anybody?”

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Farley and defensive linemen Sheldon Day both said they gave up leaping celebrations earlier in their careers, and perhaps more Notre Dame players will join them in staying on the ground. Kelly said he didn’t have to remind his players to take care of each other after Saturday’s game, as they all were reeling from seeing Tranquill go down in such jarring fashion.

“I don't need to remind them about safety and how important it is,” Kelly said. “We had guys crying in the locker room because they lost one of their players. They are so locked in, they don't need me to remind them about something like that.”

Perhaps the cruelest reality of Tranquill’s injury is it came during the best game he’d played since debuting as a true freshman last year. Tranquill had four tackles, two tackles for a loss and the pass break-up that precipitated his injury.

“He played one of the best halves I've ever seen him play,” Schmidt said.

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