SOUTH BEND — Both starting linebackers for Notre Dame football are on the mend from surgery, but the prognosis is good for returning captain Drayk Bowen and rising junior Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa.
Bowen, a rising senior, recently underwent offseason surgery to repair a torn hip labrum and is likely to be limited for spring practice.
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Irish coach Marcus Freeman said Bowen, the 2022 Indiana Mr. Football from St. John, “will be back at some point during the spring doing some type of activity” after undergoing what Freeman termed “more of a cleanup” procedure.
After leading the team with 67 tackles, including 4.5 for loss (3.5 sacks), Bowen should be just fine taking mental repetitions from the sideline. Less-experienced linebackers such as Madden Faraimo and Teddy Rezac, as well as midyear enrollees such as Thomas Davis Jr. and Jakobe Clapper, would benefit from additional practice time.
“I don’t know if he’ll be full go for the spring,” Freeman said of Bowen, “but he’ll be back obviously for some portion of spring in some capacity.”
As for Viliamu-Asa, who suffered a torn left ACL on Senior Day against Syracuse, the timeline is less certain.
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“I expect him to be back sometime in the fall,” Freeman said. “I don’t know exactly where. Every ACL is different. But he will be back in the fall.”
With the injury happening on Nov. 22, the Sept. 6 season opener against Wisconsin would be a little more than nine months after Viliamu-Asa went down. He overcame an ACL tear on his opposite knee early in his high school career at St. John Bosco in Bellflower, Calif.
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“We expect him somewhere around the start of the season to be full go,” Freeman said. “He’s doing really, really well in his rehab and recovery process.”
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Though the Irish played just 12 games last season, Bowen finished with 585 defensive snaps. Viliamu-Asa, despite playing a little over 10 games, led the team with 7.5 tackles for loss (three sacks) and was tied for fourth with 48 tackles.
He added an interception, a fumble recovery and 23 quarterback pressures.
A likely captain candidate in his own right, Viliamu-Asa played 435 defensive snaps and posted a Pro Football Focus grade of 89.2. That ranked fourth nationally among all linebackers with at least 400 snaps, and at the Power 4 level, it trailed only highly decorated Jacob Rodriguez of Texas Tech.
Rodriguez, who finished fifth in Heisman Trophy voting, swept the Nagurski, Bednarik, Butkus and Lombardi awards. Notre Dame also has linebackers Jaylen Sneed and Jaiden Ausberry returning this season from their primary four-man rotation.
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Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Updates on Notre Dame linebackers Drayk Bowen, Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa
