After being reported missing on Wednesday, the former Notre Dame defense was Louis Nix III was found dead on Saturday. Nothing was 29.
Nothing is missing since Wednesday in the Jacksonville area, Last seen Tuesday. The Sheriff of Jacksonville a car pulled out of a pond near Nix’s apartment that matches his vehicle’s description on Saturday night.
Nix was shot dead in December during an attempted armed robbery at a gas station in Jacksonville, his hometown, when he put air in his car tire. The bullet to his chest left Nix in the hospital for almost two weeks, and some of its fragments remained in his sternum and his left lung.
“I know it sounds cliché, but more than anything, I’m happy to be alive,” Nix said in mid-December. Eric Hansen of the South Bend Tribune.
The Jacksonville sheriff did not indicate that the shooting had anything to do with Nix’s death.
Nix was the defensive back for Notre Dame’s unbeaten regular season of 2012. When he was a junior, he started 11 games and led all Irish defensive lines by 50 tackles and made a team highlight. Since that defense allowed 10.3 points per game in the regular season, it was Nix who held on to the point of attack and as often as not, pushing it past.
Toe Stanford no. 17 had the first goal of the 4-yard line in overtime in October, it was Nix who stood up to return Cardinal, Stepfan Taylor, to reach the goal line. When he was first off, Nix absorbed the helmet of the main blockade in his chest because Taylor only got one yard. Slow to get up from the blow, Nix missed second, when Taylor pushed from the 3 to the 1.
The ensuing goal line is remembered for Manti Te’o’s tackles, for cornerback Bennett Jackson hitting around the edge and hitting Taylor before he even got to the line, for the safety of Zeke Motta, but it was Nix which from the middle and drops the line on third and then dumps two blockers on fourth.
Taylor’s reach of the end zone in the last game remains a point of contention, but if it had not been for Nix, Taylor would have crossed the goal line without any problem, not even at an earlier moment.
The Notre Dame defense knew just as much, Te’o took time to celebrate his locker room to find Nix.
“Hey Lou, they can not block you,” Te’o said, emphasizing each syllable. “You’re the best nose protector in the whole country.” (Jump to point 3:44 in this video.)
That would be the theme of Nix’s career, which was active for the Irish from 2011 to 2013, and he finished with 122 careers, including 14 for loss, along with eight times.
“Louis Nix was an animal,” Brian Kelly, head coach of Notre Dame, said in 2013 after a defeat in Michigan in which Nix only four dives with one for loss and the Irish lost 41-30. “They could not stop him. (He) played as well as he played for us. (Michigan) just had no answers for him. ”
This is the underrated, anonymous duty of most qualitative defensive attacks. They absorb double teams without giving a thumbs up to drive a Te’o to superstars.
Nix’s 2013 ended prematurely after he was sidelined by a knee injury. In an effort to give him time for rehabilitation and to protect him from further injury, the Irish Nix deliberately resisted the three-option violations of the Air Force and Navy, but Nix appeared only once more for Notre Dame before the season’s knee surgery.
He did what he could to play through a torn meniscus to help the Irish defense – a 7-2 season fell to an 8-4 final when Nix missed the year’s draw – and the prolonged damage to his knee affected his NFL. profession. Drawn in the third round of 2014 by the Houston Texans, he needed a second knee operation before his first training camp and a third knee operation ended his rookie before appearing in a game.
Nix would play four games for the New York Giants in 2015 before bouncing from their practice group to the Washington training group to the Jacksonville Jaguars training group.