FanHouse DarrinWalls

In the last calendar year, the Fighting Irish have done a lot of losing. Whether it's games on the field, or players on the roster. This weekend the Irish lost another player in starting cornerback Darrin Walls, but on the bright side, at least he's not transferring to another school because he doesn't get along with Charlie Weis.

While the school is saying that Walls won't be on the team this fall due to "personal reasons" they aren't saying what exactly those personal reasons are. Though, considering that we haven't seen any "Irish cornerback arrested for DUI/assault/identity theft/triple murder" type headlines in the news, we can assume he hasn't done anything illegal.

So it's probably something to do with academic issues (and according to Irish Illustrated, that's exactly what it is). Either way, Crewcut Charlie isn't all that worried.

"Fortunately, cornerback is a position of strength on our team, and this will provide opportunities for increased playing time for our corners," Weis said in a statement.

I'm not sure why Charlie is so confident in his corners, as the two likely replacements for Walls--Raeshon McNeil and Gary Gray--haven't had that much playing time. McNeil started in one game last season, and played in eleven racking up an entire 9 tackles while Gray never saw the field. Considering that the Irish defense is trying to re-invent itself this season, losing someone with Walls' experience will probably hurt more than Weis is willing to admit.

It's a good thing that Charlie Weis and Notre Dame are still able to recruit the nation's top talent out of high school, even after an awful year in South Bend, because the players they already have on the roster just keep leaving. The latest is sophomore cornerback Munir Prince.

Prince has decided that South Bend just isn't the place for him, and he's going to start over at Missouri.

Munir Prince (above), a reserve cornerback from St. Louis, has left Notre Dame and is transferring to Missouri.

Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis confirmed the departure, and [Prince's high school coach] Pat Mahoney confirmed the pending arrival.

Obviously, as with any player transfer, Prince is going to have to sit out the 2008 season. When he's able to play again in 2009, he'll still have two years of eligibility left.

Prince is the fifth member of the 28 in his original sophomore class to have left Notre Dame. He was also the first recruit to verbally commit to Notre Dame after Charlie Weis took over the program. Prince was originally a running back in his freshman season before being converted to cornerback this past season.

With all the players the Irish had ahead of Munir on the depth chart, Prince didn't see much time on the field and only recorded three tackles this season. With news that Terrail Lambert has applied for a fifth year of eligibility, and Darrin Walls also returning for 2008, odds are that Munir wasn't going to see much playing time next season either.