SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -A season away from football gave Notre Dame cornerback Darrin Walls time to realize that being able to run down field covering receivers just isn’t enough.
“Being a cover corner, that’s good, but it’s never enough,” Walls said.
Secondary coach Corwin Brown said Walls has returned with more maturity, taken on a greater leadership role and has played with bit more of a nasty attitude.
“He’s probably hungrier than he was a year ago,” said Brown, who missed last fall for “personal reasons.”
Walls won’t go into why he wasn’t at school last fall. But he said he never thought about transferring, saying he promised his teammates and coaches he’d return.
“I was coming back here no matter what,” he said.
The 6-2, 190-pound senior missed football and his teammates more than he expected. When he returned to campus for several games, he found it hard to watch.
hat I needed to do to get back,” he said.
Walls has contributed at Notre Dame from the time he arrived on campus, getting into his first game as a freshman in 2006 and helping to hold Georgia Tech’s Calvin Johnson to two catches in the second half. As a sophomore he started all but one game and finished with 32 tackles and nine pass breakups. He also had a 73-yard interception return for a touchdown against Penn State.
“He’s a tremendous cover corner,” defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta said.
Walls worked with a personal trainer to get stronger while he was away, even keeping the same workout schedule as his teammates. Still, he was a little rusty when he got back on the field last spring. He remembers going one-on-one against receiver Michael Floyd in practice.
“He beat me off the line. That was a mental lapse, nothing physical. It was a shock,” he said. “It was like, ‘Whoa, where’d this come from?’ It woke me up.”
Walls did well enough during the spring that he appeared to be a lock to start at right cornerback. But coach Charlie Weis said earlier this week that an inflamed thigh that kept Walls from practicing some the past two weeks has made the competition closer.
Walls said he’s just about at full speed and not worried.
“I know what I’m doing mentally,” he said. “It’s just the physical aspect of being able to have confidence in running and things like that.”
He knows that if he’s healthy he’ll be on the field plenty this season. That’s part of his newfound perspective.
“I learned to appreciate the things I have. I look at life a lot differently,” he said. “So much has happened. I’ve tried to make everything negative that’s happened into a positive.”
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