Corey Holmes put himself on the radar with a 40-yard dash time that the coaching staff couldn’t ignore. Now he’s working to make sure he’s not just the latest spring sensation—a 15 practice standout who gets lost once fall comes around.
Brian Kelly put Holmes’ name on the front burner for Irish fans when he revealed that the seldom-used rising junior ran a sub-4.4 during Notre Dame’s pre-spring testing. But he also talked about the need to translate that track speed to the football field, an effort that’s a work in progress.
“There’s track speed. There’s in-line, straight-line speed, and then there’s, quite frankly, football speed,” Kelly explained. “I think that’s been the struggle with Corey in the first couple years is to get that to translate.”
He’s not alone. It look multiple seasons for Chris Brown to make that transition, helped along by the utilization of GPS monitoring during practice and a confidence growth that became apparent during a productive senior season.
After a sophomore year where Holmes took a redshirt (that flew by most who just assumed he was buried on the depth chart), returning to a competitive fight for playing time had Holmes looking at things through a different lens after the team’s top three pass catchers all departed.
The staff has certainly noticed.
“I really like Corey Holmes and what he’s done. He’s been more consistent than he’s ever been to this point,” associate head coach and wide receivers coach Mike Denbrock said. “I’m a hard guy to please. He’s got more work to do but I like the direction he’s moving.”
Holmes credits the progress he’s made to a new attitude and a look inward. It also helps to have a father who has played the game—in Holmes’ case, his father played at Syracuse before being drafted and playing briefly with the Miami Dolphins.
“My dad used to tell me all the time, ‘Trust your speed. You’re fast, just trust it,’” Holmes said. “At times, I kind of get caught up in trying to make people miss and not show the speed.”
It took that trying sophomore season to figure that out. It also took watching a new generation of impressive young receivers arrive to understand that it was never about battling the roster, but more about challenging himself.
WR Corey Holmes' father told him to be patient. Now he's reaping the rewards. #NotreDamehttps://t.co/xziUPghyDr pic.twitter.com/0yHosP84E9
— Irish247 (@NotreDame247) April 4, 2016
“It wasn’t about until halfway through the season that I finally just stopped worrying about other people and started to just worry about my own game,” Holmes said. “It was hard at the time, but I just looked it as a year for me to get bigger, faster, stronger and work on my game. I just took it as a blessing in disguise. It was a really humbling experience all of last year.”
Now the challenge isn’t getting off the bench, but finding a spot on the field. As Kelly and Denbrock mix and match their rebuilt receiving corps, Holmes is looking for a home in that rotation.
He’s lined up in Fuller’s X position, top-end speed on the wide side of the field. He’s moved inside to slot, a position that opened up with C.J. Sanders recovering from a hip injury and Torii Hunter showing flexibility.
It’s all a possibility for Holmes.
“Now that everybody else is gone, you could say it’s my time to step up,” Holmes said. “That’s what I’ve treated this spring as, an opportunity for me to really make some noise. This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for to finally earn a starting spot. That’s in my grasp if I continue to do my thing.”
#NotreDame HC Brian Kelly says WR Corey Holmes is “gaining the confidence” to translate track speed to football speed.
— Jake Brown (@Jake_Brown) April 1, 2016