Film Don't Lie |Oben, Traore, and Onye....Oh My
Anytime one rewatches anything, they pick up on things they missed on the first viewing. It’s why film is always important. A first impression can tell us a lot, but oftentimes context gets lost without rewatching a play.
Some of these plays and players already jumped out at me when I watched the Blue-Gold game live on Saturday. There were definitely things I didn’t catch the first time around, though.
Everyone who knows me knows that I am a D-line guy, so I focused a lot on the defensive line in these clips. It was a good day to be a D-line guy watching Notre Dame’s front four because they left everyone feeling good about this season based on how they performed in their final opportunity of the spring.
RJ Oben isn’t a one-trick pony
Oben wasn’t invisible during last week’s jersey scrimmage, but he also didn’t stand out in the same way he did in the B-G game. He had three good seasons at Duke when it came to rushing the passer with the pressure he was able to generate off the edge. Oben showed how he was able to do that by winning in multiple ways last Saturday.
Before I get into this play, I have to acknowledge that a lot of drop backs looked like this for Kenny Minchey. Considering all of that, he handled the pressure extremely well outside of a few poor decisions with one resulting in an interception.
As for Oben (9), he’s converting speed to power with a bull rush against Charles Jagusah (56). He was put on skates by Oben. Then it was a race to the quarterback for Oben, Boubacar Traore (51), Brenan Vernon (17), and a blitzing Drayk Bowen (34).
Props to Vernon as well here with a nice swipe to work the outside edge against Chris Terek (55). The defensive line has improved greatly with their hand usage rushing the passer the last two years and so much of that has to do with the job Al Washington and Nick Sebastian have done with this group.
I wanted to highlight this rush from Oben because winning this way helps set up his strip sack to end the first half. Jagusah pretty much steps to him here, likely wanting to nullify any kind of bull rush. Oben chops the hands of Jagusah and wins with a speed rush around the edge instead and ends up with the sack.
Oben is at the bottom of the screen here going up against freshman Anthonie Knapp (54). Knapp did a solid job against Oben and Traore most of the time, but got beat here with a push-pull by Oben that resulted in a pressure.
Minchey turned this potential disaster into a big gain as a scrambler, but what Oben and Traore did here was impressive nonetheless.
Traore wows with his first step quickness
I know I’ve been hyping him up since last August and people got to see the sneak preview of Traore with his sack against USC last season, but I hope that people understand now that Traore is the real deal. He’s going to be a problem for any offensive tackle to block in pass protection this fall.
Former Notre Dame captain Drew White agrees with me.
Traore’s ability to explode off the ball combined with his snap anticipation is outstanding. No one needs to be an expert to recognize how any offensive tackle who doesn’t get back in his set quickly against him can end up getting burned.
Tosh Baker (79) does get out quickly here, but you can see that rushing it makes him a bit off balance and just a quick stab with Traore’s inside arm is able to knock Baker back enough to allow Traore to get the outside edge.
I know that Notre Dame fans don’t want to relive the Ohio State game, but I have to mention it because this sack by Traore is reminiscent of what J.T. Tuimoloau did on Notre Dame’s final drive. The tight end on this play was very likely supposed to block down on Traore here, but even if he did, Traore is still probably beating that block and getting to CJ Carr. He was that quick off the ball.
Onye playing with confidence
Jason Onye (47) flashed a lot last spring and in fall camp, but lacked the consistency to take snaps away from Howard Cross and Rylie Mills in a lot of games last season. It’s just one practice, but it looks like Onye has found a higher level of consistency that is going to allow him to be a bigger piece of the defense this fall.
He was firing off the ball and was disruptive all day. Here he is lined up as the nose and this ball is out of Steve Angeli’s hands very quickly, but Onye is still able to get a hit on the quarterback.
This was him lined up as a 3-tech (outside shade of the guard) going up against Pat Coogan (78) early in the B-G game. He is working to the A-gap on a T-T (tackle-tackle) stunt and beats Coogan with getting enough of his wrist to win inside.
Onye did a great job of grabbing the wrist and lifting it up versus Sam Pendleton at center to split a double team for another disruptive pass rush later in the day as well. Ty Chan at guard couldn’t handle Onye at just about every snap.
In order to do this kind of thing in games, it starts by playing at this level in practice. Onye took full advantage of his last practice opportunity this spring.
Hello, KVA
It’s always nice for fans to see a young freshman do things that demonstrate why the coaches and media can’t stop talking about them. Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa delivered in that department with a couple of plays that were highlighted by the broadcast, but I wanted to share them again here for a couple of different reasons.
The first is this play where Notre Dame’s offense is running Duo and KVA recognizes it and triggers from depth to blow up this play. I know he gets knocked down by Billy Schrauth (74), but the decisiveness of KVA forced Schrauth to get off that double team quicker than he wanted to and KVA was already in the hole.
That forced Jeremiyah Love to bounce it outside where Jordan Botelho (12) was waiting and KVA was still able to work his way to get in on the tackle. So many young linebackers get frozen in these situations when reading these plays, but KVA recognized it immediately and the play went nowhere because of it.
The other KVA play that everyone saw was him dropping to the middle to break up this pass (and almost pick it off). Marcus Freeman mentioned this was cover two and KVA had to get deep to take this play away. The middle seam can be vulnerable in cover two with both safeties taking deep half, so the Mike linebacker is often taksed with getting deep enough to take this play away.
Not only is it a great play for him to flip his hips to make a play on this ball, but it’s one of those coverage plays that we’ve rarely seen from an inside linebacker from Notre Dame in the last decade. I believe the list of guys who have made a play like this dropping to the middle of the field includes Jaylon Smith, Drue Tranquill, and no one else.
Yes, it’s a spring game, but KVA just entered the chat in his first spring. He’s not just a guy who can play the inside run or line up and rush the passer.
Kahanu Kia is a ball player
I’m not sure if people realize how difficult it is to not play football for two years and try to not miss a beat. Kia (43) was away for that long and it wasn’t just missing strength and conditioning that made him have to catch up. It’s installs, it’s techniques that have been taught, it’s everything that you might have been used to before that you now have to get used to again.
I don’t think making a ton of tackles in a spring game automatically puts someone like Kia in the conversation to compete for playing time at linebacker this season, but there was certainly enough there from to suggest he’s someone who is going to be heard from while at Notre Dame.
Whether it was making plays in space like this screen he busted up.
Or coming through and finishing with this textbook tackle against the counter trey (great job by Devan Houstan by chasing this down from the backside as well).
It wasn’t just the 12 tackles that stood out. It’s the kind of plays he was making.
Kia was practicing at Vyper the last time he was on campus before his mission. He’s now been playing off the ball and he has the traits to succeed there. It’s a crowded depth chart at linebacker, but he can play and it’s going to be interesting to see how he develops over the next few years for the Irish.
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