Pass Rush Possibilites
One thing that we were fortunate to see plenty of at Notre Dame’s practice on Saturday was numerous competitive 11 on 11 situations. A good portion of practice was dedicated to it, likely because this was the only viewing the media was going to get until the Blue-Gold game.
I greatly appreciated that, even if they weren’t showing too much when it came to scheme on offense and defense. (That probably had more to do with the point they’re at in the spring rather than keeping things secretive.) They did show some glimpses on defense that got me excited about the possibilities for this season, though.
One thing I saw that we hadn’t seen much of in the past from Notre Dame was the safeties showing pressure and then blitzing. Under Clark Lea and then Marcus Freeman, we mostly saw safeties blitzing from depth and trying to time up the snap. On two occasions at practice on Saturday there were safeties lined up at the line of scrimmage and then disrupting the play with blitzes.
The first was DJ Brown and the second was Brandon Joseph. They came in free because the scheme overloaded one side and confused the protection, similar to what Cincinnati did here against Tennessee.
That’s one thing I’d expect to see more of this fall with Al Golden as defensive coordinator. Cincinnati didn’t just use their front six or seven up at the line to try and confuse protections. At times they activated their safeties and had them mugged up as well.
Another thing I think we’re going to see is linebackers rushing the passer more off the edge. There were a number of times where Notre Dame showed a 6-1 look with both outside linebackers lined up as edge defenders, but they had the linebackers drop.
That won’t always be the case when they start playing games in the fall and Golden did mention that a player like Marist Liufau, with his versatile skill set, “can come off the edge if we want to”.
Liufau did leave 7 on 7 to try and get in a one on one pass rush rep or two in practice. He didn’t get a chance to do so, the whistle blew to end the period right when he was up next, but Josh Burnham and Jordan Botelho both did.
Here’s a play from Cincinnati’s defense where they lined up two linebackers off the edge with the one on the left side (top of the screen) with a straight rush and the one on the right running a stunt with the defensive lineman.
The player who is lined up as the Mike on that play is actually defensive lineman Trey Hendrickson. He is also part of the rush and is ultimately the one who gets the sack. That could be Isaiah Foskey or Justin Ademilola for the Irish. It was interesting to see both of those players take reps rushing the passer from 3-technique (outside shade of the guard) alignments during one on ones. Both of them won their reps convincingly.
We got a glimpse of Ademilola attacking the B gap in the Fiesta Bowl and my guess is we’ll see more of him overwhelming guards with twitch in 2022.
They might not have revealed too much to us in the open practice, but they showed enough to where I can imagine the possibilities and they seem endless when it comes to activating more players as pass rushers.
Under Armour White Notre Dame T-Shirt
