SOUTH BEND – Most of the spaces in one of the Shields Hall defensive meeting rooms on a recent August night were occupied by Notre Dame football faces who don’t know what they don’t know.
Freshmen treading the college football waters after another demanding/difficult day of practice and film and weights and everything else. Sophomores who believe they know what it takes to climb the depth chart but are stuck on a wrung for some reason.
All of them needing added teaching time at night before they woke early the next day to do it all again. And again.
That’s what should have made seeing one player step into the room and take a seat among the newbies so surprising. Did he get lost in the new football facility and stumble in by mistake? Had to be something like that for someone in his third program and his fifth season with more than 5,300 snaps played in 40 career games under his veteran cornerback belt.
Nope, no mistake. No accident.
DJ McKinney was in that defensive refresher course of sorts on purpose. He wanted to be there. He felt he had to be there. He’s the old new guy of a ridiculously deep and talented and driven position group. He also doesn’t believe the quest for knowledge just ends because you’re old.
It could stop, maybe even should stop. A guy who’s played as much as McKinney has played (two seasons at Oklahoma State before the last two at Colorado), would arrive in South Bend believing that he’s better than many of those young guys. Maybe even some of the old guys, too. That his resume automatically bumps him atop the cornerback depth chart opposite all-everything All-American Leonard Moore.
“The good Lord creates football players and then he creates young men like DJ McKinney, who I believe is made to play corner,” Notre Dame co-defensive coordinator/defensive backs coach Aaron Henry said. “I’m just excited to see where this young man goes. His skill set, there’s no ceiling to it.”
That’s not how McKinney sees it. Guarantee him a significant role because he’s played all that ball? Nonsense. McKinney said as much when he met a trio of reporters on Saturday, August 8 after the third day of fall camp.
No, Notre Dame’s defensive coaching staff never said anything about moving veteran corner (and starter) Christian Gray to nickel this season to clear a spot for him. No, the staff never said that he would be an instant front-line guy to lure him to Notre Dame.
If anything, it was the opposite.
“They said I was going to have to come in and compete,” McKinney said. “Nothing’s given. You’ve got to earn everything. I was ready to get here and see everything, get into the playbook and get my feet wet.”
McKinney got into the playbook in the spring, after his transfer from CU became official. He found an apartment near campus. He moved his belongings from Boulder to South Bend. He finished his spring semester work online. When he wasn’t in class, he was in the Irish football facility attending defensive meetings and learning how it all works at Notre Dame.
Getting those feet wet would have to wait until fall camp. He couldn’t practice for his new school while enrolled at his old one. There would be a catch-up process. A fast one.
“We kind of had to force-feed him a lot of things in terms of understanding the scheme and the system,” Henry said. “He’s an old player, but he’s a young player in our system.”
Thus, the reason for McKinney to attend those evening meetings. He had to learn the defense inside and out. He needed to understand his assignments from every angle. He wanted to be coached, critiqued, evaluated every day like this was his first year, not his fifth.
“He’s at those meetings,” Henry said. “It’s not mandatory for him to be in those being an older guy, but he shows up because he wants to continue to grow in the system and the scheme.”
Henry didn’t wait long to see the impact McKinney could make. On the first day of practice, in his first rep at corner in 11-on-11, McKinney made a play, lunging to swat away a pass intended for an Irish receiver.
That one snap, one pass breakup, was affirmation for the 6-foot-1, 190-pound McKinney, a native of Colleyville, Texas. Like, he can do this. Here. At Notre Dame. Two days later, mention of the sequence brought a smile. Like, yeah, that’s what I do.
“Just setting the standard, trying to build that consistency,” he said. “Building off that every single play, staying neutral and making sure I’m locked in each play.”
McKinney ended the first week of fall camp still on the second team behind sophomore Jayden Sanders, a Michigan transfer who had the benefit of learning the system on the field during spring practice. Sanders is a talent. McKinney is a talent. One will start. One won’t.
Both will play, and maybe play a lot, as they combine to chase one common goal. For McKinney, it’s not about logging more snap counts or even being a starter. When he decided to transfer, he did so not with the thought of individual success, but team success.
Even sitting in his apartment last spring, McKinney felt something about the culture of this Irish program that he never felt anywhere in his college career.
“There’s nothing like it,” he said. “It’s something bigger than me that I wanted to be a part of.”
Many believe it’s a matter of when, not if, McKinney is in the group alongside Moore and Gray and fellow defensive backs Brauntae Johnson and Adon Shuler. He’s long and lanky and athletic. He’s got quick feet. He can play fast and he can play physically. He can flip his hips and stay with receivers down the field. He looks like a starting corner. Looks elite.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: This old new guy on the Notre Dame football defense already gets it
Reporting by Tom Noie, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Tom Noie, South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
