It didn’t take long at all for Kyle Hamilton to make his presence known at Notre Dame this year as fall camp was pretty much just a daily breakdown of how many interceptions the freshman from Atlanta had that particular afternoon.
It didn’t take long for him to make an impact on the gamefield either, getting substancial playing time as a true-freshman in the opener against Louisville before returning his first career college interception for a touchdown a week later against New Mexico.
The season would see him pull down four interceptions in total and have pretty much an entire defensive gameplan built around him in October’s win over USC.
On Friday Pro Football Focus named their Freshman All-American Team and named Hamilton their first-team safety.
Notre Dame landed the best coverage safety in the entire 2019 recruiting class. Hamilton recorded a near-elite 89.7 coverage grade in his true freshman season, allowing just seven passes to be completed on 22 targets. Those seven went for 74 yards and no touchdowns. However, the Fighting Irish safety stole possession four times by way of interceptions, and he forced another five pass breakups for a passer rating of 3.0 when targeted, best among all defenders in the nation with at least 15 targets.
– Pro Football Focus 12/6/2019
High praise for a star in the making at Notre Dame.