Stocks, Raising Cane’s, Super Bowl rings: The best quotes from Notre Dame spring practice

It has been 10 days since Notre Dame football took the field for its final practice of the spring, otherwise known as the Blue-Gold Game. That’s 15 practices, dozens of hours and numerous media interviews with both coaches and players behind us.

You’ve read all about projected depth charts, star freshmen and potential breakout players, so here are some of the best quotes of Notre Dame’s spring, largely unrelated to those things and often completely separate from football. They are meant to shine a light on coaches’ and players’ personalities both on and off the football field.

WR Braden Lenzy on feeling old with so many younger wide receivers in the room

“There are definitely times we feel a bit older, but it’s only when we talk about stocks or things they’re just not worried about yet. We don’t talk about that too often, but when you’re 22 or 23, it isn’t weird. There’s this Instagram a lot of us follow. It’s great information. You should follow it. But as soon as we see it, we’ll just talk about it. (Jayden Thomas) actually probably knows the most of all of us.”

LB Prince Kollie on eating too much Raising Cane’s last year

“I’ve definitely trimmed some body fat down (this offseason). I got to 7.7 (percent). We have DEXA scans, and I was at 20 at one point. I had a rough going with Cane’s. You know, the ‘freshman 15.’ I was ordering Cane’s a lot.”

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WR coach Chansi Stuckey on inexperience as an excuse, Trevor Lawrence

“It used to be an excuse, but now after being with Trevor as a freshman and winning a national championship, being young is not an excuse. You go into the NFL, and rookies play. It’s not an excuse to be young. If you can play football, you play football.”

DL Howard Cross on his cooking hobby

“I can cook really well. There’s not a lot I can’t cook. Usually during the week I’m dead tired, but on a Saturday, I might as well. My Mom’s Bolognese is a favorite.”

RB coach Deland McCullough on using his NFL experience with the running backs

“It’s been really good, just continuing to earn trust from the guys. All the clips I show are NFL, (and I say) ‘This is where y’all want to go. Here are the guys I coached, the footwork we do, here are these guys doing that. So I’m not selling y’all something that doesn’t work.’ I bust out the Super Bowl ring every so often. I bang it on the table and say, ‘This isn’t 50 years ago, this is two years ago. So come on.’”

TE coach Gerad Parker on watching incoming TE Eli Raridon for the first time

“I got here, got settled and learned who he was. I watched his basketball highlight, and I was like, ‘Holy s—!’ I sent it to my brother, and my brother also texts back, ‘Holy s—!’ So that’s a good start. There’s a pretty good mold there of things he can do.”

LB JD Bertrand on having his brother and baseball player, John Michael, at Notre Dame

“I think the best thing is if we have free time, we say, ‘OK, what do you want to do?’ For example, he missed a ball back to the pitcher the other day, and so we get in here, I just hit tennis balls at him, and he just has to catch him. Just being able to find ways that we can improve together.”

DL coach Al Washington on the “In Wash we trust” spring game shirts, offensive line wearing them

“From what I heard, that was all Tommy (Rees). We had fun with it. I think one of the things Coach Freeman was trying to get done was the team-bonding element. I don’t have much interaction with the offense, so this was an opportunity to do that. That was pretty cool.”

K Josh Bryan on kicking in the snow

“So … I don’t … adapting to this cold weather in general … it’s going to take some time. I’m just going to suck it up!”

OL coach Harry Hiestand on what it means to have former offensive linemen come back to Notre Dame

“Everything.”