Notre Dame's football team cancelled practice Thursday afternoon for the second time in three days.

No immediate reason was given for the cancellation, but Notre Dame head coach Bob Davie hinted Wednesday that the Irish might not be practicing Thursday.

"We've pushed our players to the limit," he said. "At some point, you have to let your players get their wind."

Wednesday afternoon, Notre Dame and Purdue postponed their game originally scheduled for Saturday, just one day before conference commissioners decided to postpone all Division I football games.

After Wednesday's announcement, Davie suggested he might give his players Thursday off to mentally prepare themselves for Michigan State, Notre Dame's next opponent.

"We started Sunday morning fully planning on playing this weekend," said Davie. "With all the different things going on this week — game on, game off — there's much bigger things going on now than what we have going on here. We just need to take a deep breath and pull away from this ..."

Davie said it was difficult for the Irish to focus Wednesday afternoon. While no Notre Dame players have been immediately affected by Tuesday's terrorist attacks, both players and coaches agreed that there was a different atmosphere in practice Wednesday.

"I think it's a real good decision not to play," co-captain Anthony Weaver said. "A lot of players on this team and all the other teams have family that are in that area. Our thoughts right now need to be with the families back there and to come together as a nation."

"Right now, we're just trying to deal with this situation in the best and most presentable way and try to be there mostly for our peers who may have been affected by this disaster," Ron Israel said.

• ND football cancels practice for second time in 3 days
  
• To play or not to play
  
• To play or not to play