Late injury report addition for Notre Dame ahead of Wisconsin?

Everything appeared normal with veteran nose guard Kurt Hinish following last week’s 27-13 Notre Dame victory over Purdue. Hinish was awarded the game ball by Brian Kelly and seemed primed for the showdown with Wisconsin this weekend.

But is he?

The long story made short is we don’t have confirmation either way after hearing Brian Kelly speak on Thursday. At first he was asked about if there had been any changes to the depth chart that was released on Monday of this week.

“The only guy we haven’t made a decision yet on is Michael Carmody,” Kelly said. “We had some chances to get some reps yesterday. We’ll need to evaluate him today and tomorrow. I would say that’s going to come down to a game-day decision.”

Rumors have swirled around campus this week about a possible question regarding the availability of Hinish, a mainstay on Notre Dame’s defensive line which will obviously have its hands full against Wisconsin’s powerful running game this weekend. When asked about Hinish specifically Kelly offered the following:

“There’s always going to be guys that are questionable during the week that have lingering injuries from the week before,” Kelly said. “But we don’t rule anybody out unless they’re clear that they are not going to play. So, as I said, I think the only guy right now that clearly is not playing is the guys that we told you that were unavailable earlier in the week. Other than that, some of these are gametime decisions. I think each week you’ll find that there’s going to be some rumors and there’s going to be some speculation as to some guys may be available or unavailable. I’ll let you guys know if there’s somebody definitely not available leading into the game, but I think there’s always going to be a little bit of that from week to week.”

So what did Kelly say about Hinish or was it perhaps what he didn’t say?

Kelly stated that Carmody is the only player that a decision is yet to be made on but didn’t come out and say that Hinish was going to be able to go versus the Badgers, either.

Stay tuned as this is suddenly a big story to keep an eye on heading up to the 12:00 p.m. ET kickoff between Notre Dame and Wisconsin this Saturday.

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