6 Thoughts on a Thursday

There weren’t many areas where Notre Dame wasn’t good on defense last year. The pass defense, though? It was truly elite.

They were first in EPA (expected points added) per dropback, first in EPA per pass attempt, sixth in pressure rate, first in pass efficiency defense, third in yards per attempt, third in explosive passing plays allowed, and tied for first in passing touchdowns given up.

They only gave up eight touchdowns through the air in thirteen games(!). It’s an incredible accomplishment.

There was so much focus on the remarkable turnaround with their red zone defense that some areas of the defense weren’t as celebrated as they should have been. It’s understandable to marvel at going from dead last (79.4%) to third (41.2%) with their red zone touchdown percentage, but the pass defense as a whole didn’t get the credit it deserved. Neither did the third down defense, which was another area where they made massive improvements.

They went from 93rd in pass efficiency on third down all the way up to 15th. And it happened despite losing the guy who had the most sacks in the history of the program.

One of the biggest reasons for it was how Al Golden and the staff adjusted their personnel for “the money down”.

Linebacker Marist Liufau was activated even more as a pass rusher. Jaylen Sneed eventually replaced Jordan Botelho as another hybrid defender. The biggest piece was Notre Dame playing three safeties, which made them a Dime defense with six defensive backs on the field. It was their Spear package and they were able to run it because they felt comfortable with safety trio Xavier Watts, DJ Brown, and Ramon Henderson.

That might have seemed like it would be more difficult to duplicate this season with only Watts returning, but Adon Shuler’s development and the addition of Rod Heard as a graduate transfer could mean Notre Dame’s Dime package will be even better this season.

Shuler’s size allows him to match up better with tight ends in man coverage. Heard’s versatility to play deep and his experience as a slot defender should give Golden and Mike Mickens more options to go along with Jordan Clark at nickel. Add in Benjamin Morrison and Christian Gray or Jaden Mickey at corner and they have the pieces at defensive back that should make for a dynamite group to play in Dime.

The only difficult part might be narrowing down just who will be the five they play regularly at defensive line and linebacker.

Howard Cross is one of the best interior pass rushers in the country and is a lock to be on the field. Duke transfer RJ Oben has three straight seasons of proven pass rush production on film with a 20% win rate versus true pass sets. Boubacar Traore has better traits to get after the passer than any edge rusher Notre Dame has had since Justin Tuck. 

After battling through injuries and getting too big last season, Botelho has dropped 20 pounds and looks like the twitchy athlete who finished with 4.5 sacks and 17 pressures in the final six games of the 2022 season. If the Irish didn’t have Cross, more people would have been lauding Rylie Mills’ impact rushing the passer. He had the fifth best pass rush grade for returning power conference defensive tackles (Cross was second) and his 24.7 win percentage versus true pass sets was third.

There’s Sneed, who was a regular on 3rd down in the back half of ‘23. He’s a better version of the player he was last season and can also handle more responsibility. If he’s in Liufau role, then Jack Kiser seems like a natural fit to slide into JD Bertrand’s spot. That would leave out Jaiden Ausberry, who may actually be suited to play in a similar role to Shuler. There’s also Drayk Bowen and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, who was the second linebacker mentioned after Kiser by associate head coach/running backs coach Deland McCullough when asked about the most difficult linebackers to pick up on the blitz.

McCullough had this to say when describing this one play from KVA:

“Kyngstonn came up and we had two guys blocking him, and he spun off both of them, with the back being one of them. I was watching tape and I said, ‘Are you kidding me? You gotta be kidding me. We had a guy there and a back and he spinned off both of them. How’s that happen?’ So, again, that’s a credit to him — he’s a good player. He makes us better because we gotta make sure all our details are on point when we’re going against him.”

When a freshman is doing that kind of thing, it’s going to be hard to keep him off the field in these situations. They have more capable players than available spots to play on 3rd down and that may mean packages with packages for Golden and company to play around with from week to week depending upon the opponent.

That may also mean that Notre Dame’s defense is even better on 3rd down this fall and that’s bad news for the offenses they’ll face this season.

2. One thing that I’d like to see more of from Sneed this season is more of him blitzing from off the ball on 3rd downs. Most of what he did was on the ball/off the edge and while he does have a good first step, he’s more devastating off the ball as a blitzer.

Trainer Lawrence Barnett is a former defensive back at Indiana who worked with Sneed this spring at X3 Performance in Florida. He said this to ISD’s Matt Freeman this about Sneed’s explosiveness:

“Twitchy,” stated Barnett. “From an acceleration standpoint, Jaylen’s 10-yard build, 10-yard fly was 1.20, which is really good. We had some safeties come in and they were running 1.25 or 1.26. He can run. 1.20 is elite for the position he plays. Some of our guys who were drafted ran low 4.5, high 4.4 and were right around that time at the end of their Combine training.”

Sneed is a missile when he is attacking downhill. He also recorded a 38.5 inch vertical and 10-2.5 broad jump at Notre Dame this offseason. That would have been the second best vertical and fifth best broad jump out of any linebackers at the most recent NFL Combine.

It won’t be easy to pick up someone like him when he gets a running start. I also think it’s another way to help him have the kind of big season that linebackers coach Max Bullough has predicted for Sneed.

3. Notre Dame’s offense has been challenged in practice by Notre Dame’s defense for many years, but it’s a bit different now than it was under Clark Lea or even when Marcus Freeman was running things during his season as defensive coordinator.

It has less to do with the talent and more to do with how Golden has his defense bringing pressure constantly. They have so much installed already by the first day of fall camp that they force the offense to be prepared for it from the jump as well. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock has talked about it since the spring and quarterback Riley Leonard laid out the benefits of it for the offense.

“It doesn’t get any better than to be able to practice against this defense every day,” explained Leonard. “I’m so thankful for it because hopefully, when game time comes, it will be, in theory, a little easier, maybe, to unravel a defense pre-snap and have a presence in the pocket. They’re bringing pressure here and there. They’ve given us every look possible. It will be fun.”

Best on best is always going to be the most competitive part of camp before the season. When best on best also means the protection having to be on point and decisions made by the quarterback happening at a rapid rate, it’s the kind of thing that makes game day a lot easier.

How Notre Dame’s offense performs against a very talented Texas A&M defense in week one is yet to be determined. No one can claim they weren’t prepared to face what they’ll see, though, because who they practice against is as challenging as defense in the country.

4. The preseason projections for FEI and SP+ came out this week and here’s where Notre Dame ranked in both.

FEI

Sixth (17th on offense, seventh on defense, third on special teams)

SP+

Ninth (10th on offense, ninth on defense, 53rd on special teams)

Texas A&M is 14th in the pre-season SP+ projections. They are ranked 11th on offense, 24th on defense, and 73rd on special teams.

They are 15th in FEI projections. They are 24th on offense, 15th on defense, and 24th on special teams.

The difference between 14th and 15th is minimal. The same with sixth and ninth for Notre Dame. However, it does feel like how FEI gets to their ranking feels more in line with how I’d feel about both teams as opposed to SP+. SP+ looks like it has overrated the offenses for both programs and underrated the defenses.

Just based on studying Notre Dame’s opponents prior to the season, I think SP+ seems too high on Florida State’s offense (21st compared to 29th in FEI) as well.

I’m not sure how to feel about the big gap between how FEI (28th) and SP+ (49th) project Louisville’s offense, Purdue’s offense (43rd in FEI, 70th in SP+), Georgia Tech’s offense (53rd in FEI, 33rd in SP+), and Stanford’s defense (111th in FEI, 84th in SP+), but it’s something worth monitoring for me going forward.

I lean on the combined rankings (F+) during the season and that eventually takes all of the projections out of it.

I think FEI is going to end up being a lot more accurate with Notre Dame’s special teams this fall and third and 53rd is a massive difference. Having one of the top special teams units in the country can help swing games in the fall and that’s something no one is talking about in what should be a close game to start the season.

5. These quotes from Howard Cross from last week stuck out to me about how teams approached blocking him after his dominant game against Duke.

“I got a taste for it last year after the Duke game,” explained Cross. “Everybody kind of figured out that, ‘Hey, there’s actually somebody here.’ But the very next game, I immediately saw — the things they were doing, I was like, ‘Wait a minute, that’s suspicious.’ They would do stuff for me.

“I came back fully knowing that, right? I know I’m probably gonna be double-teamed every play. But that’s also the great thing about having Rylie (Mills) and RJ (Oben) and (Jason) Onye and everybody else is that there’s other people, so they can’t do that all the time. So that’s good.”

Cross playing nose means it’s a lot easier to double him than if he was playing 3-technique (aligned outside shade of the guard). When he’s on the field with Mills, Cross will typically be the nose on those snaps. When Cross is on the field and paired with a different defensive tackle, I think it would be a lot better for him to play 3-tech on those snaps.

If teams are focusing on doubling him, it means they have to adjust to a different alignment and that could cause some confusion at times. There’s also a big difference between constantly doubling a 3-tech or a nose in protection.

A 3-tech might cause a protection to slide his way, which could open up some opportunities for edges to get matched up with a back or a tight end. It’s usually that or a tackle might end up helping a guard rather than a guard helping a center. If that’s the case, that could also be a very good thing for players like Oben and Josh Burnham.

Whenever there’s a defensive lineman who is causing enough problems that teams are changing their protections to slow them down, Cross is 100% correct. It’s a great thing for his teammates.

6. This is definitely a topic that will get written about by myself and others a lot more after the season, but the roster limit of 105 players total is coming and the scholarship limit increasing to 105 is as well.

I can see a lot of teams going right up to 105 with scholarships who are happy to go heavy in the transfer portal. For Notre Dame, who will never be a program who tries to build through the portal, I don’t see them heading that direction.

I think there should always be room for walk-ons at Notre Dame. It’s not just about someone like Luke Talich eventually earning a scholarship. It’s more about players who are part of the program who come in without expectations to be a star. They have a role and take pride in that role. There’s a ton of value in that for a football team.

There will be some trial and error to find the right number of scholarship players worth adding above 85. It might mean taking more chances on some recruits who are under the radar or having that same approach with a transfer who might not have been a target if numbers were tighter.

There’s still management that will need to be done with the roster and oversigning at positions is probably not the answer because there are still only so many reps to go around at each spot. I doubt we see Notre Dame go wild by signing way more players in each recruiting class than we’re used to. They will find the right number of scholarship players to settle on and that could look a lot different from year to year.

Whatever they decide, I hope they continue to keep walk-ons as part of Notre Dame football. The movie Rudy might not be as accurate as people want it to be, but the spirit of it is something that should be held on to.

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