There are good debut seasons. And then there are debut seasons like the one Justin Brent just had.
The Indianapolis native enrolled early in South Bend, exciting fans with his physicality and size that made him look like a potential fit in a receiving corps lacking a college-ready body like the one Brent already possesses. But Brent’s season was a roadmap of what not to do at Notre Dame, making headlines for all the wrong reasons as a mostly anonymous special teams performer.
(It’s not worth going over again, so just move on from here if you don’t know what happened…)
While he worked his way out of Brian Kelly’s doghouse before the bowl game, Brent enters his second season in a similar spot—looking for reps in a competitive wide receiving depth chart, and now having some negative headlines to overcome.