Notre Dame's DL & Rylie Mills Ascending in Crucial Stretch
Notre Dame’s defensive line has been a revolving door of bodies this season as the injury bug has hit the room hard.
The Irish have lost vypers Jordan Botelho and Boubacar Traore for the year, defensive end Joshua Burnham has missed multiple games due to an ankle injury, defensive lineman Gabe Rubio broke his foot in fall camp and now Jason Onye is out with a personal situation.
That doesn’t include Howard Cross III nursing a hamstring injury through fall camp, which has clearly impacted his effectiveness on Saturdays.
On Saturday, Burnham and Rubio returned to the rotation and their presence was immediately felt. Cross and Mills started to turn a corner over the last two games, which defensive coordinator Al Golden has been extremely pleased to see.
”I think they’re playing their best football right now,” Golden said of his two veterans up the middle. “I think they would tell you they’re playing their best football and we’re going to need it. This is a Georgia Tech offense that’s averaging 450 yards and 200 yards on the ground a game and this is a heckuva rushing attack, 5.5 a carry I think. This is it. They’re made for this. This will be a great challenge for us.”
Notre Dame has worked its way right back into the thick of the College Football Playoff and Mills understands the importance of raising his level of play each week if the Irish want to get to where they know they can go.
"I would say last week there was a big emphasis on wanting to keep this season going,” Mills explained. “After Louisville, seeing how good we can be, that definitely added to it. I just want to set a good example for the guys around me. Getting the feedback from Coach Golden and Coach Wash (Al Washington), hearing that I'm kind of doing the right things, definitely helped out a lot for me."
In the 49-7 win over Stanford, Cross and Mills combined for five quarterback hurries and three sacks. It was pure chaos for the Stanford offensive line and something the duo wants to do every week.
“It’s fun,” laughed Mills. “I’m a fan of it. We should keep going with it. I think playing at that level is something that we could see we could play at. Ultimately, that’s how we want to play every time we step on the field. We want to keep that as the standard and we know we have more we can put in.
“You watch that game and I think we could have gotten two or three more. You can’t get complacent.”
The Irish didn’t have Onye on Saturday, but Rubio’s return somewhat offset it. If you’re Golden and Washington, you want both in there, as the St. Louis native brings an important edge to the interior of the Notre Dame defensive line, which has been missing at times.
“Gabe’s a guy who goes in there and it’s literally like a battering ram,” stated Mills. “You’re going to go in and there’s going to be four people on the ground. Whatever gap he’s in, he’s going. It’s great because he’s a guy who has been around the program a lot and he’s definitely got a lot of leadership.”
Golden echoed much the same as Rubio’s style of play immediately enhances what Notre Dame can do upfront and that will be key on Saturday against Georgia Tech’s rushing attack.
”We just missed his strength, his anchor, his ruggedness,” Golden explained. “You saw it the other day. Was it a toss or a flair to the field, I think it was a toss. Drayk (Bowen) had the first shot and missed him. then X (Xavier Watts) was there and then Gabe. It might have been an option. But that’s what Gabe is. He’s just a rolling ball of nails and loves the game.”
Burnham’s return couldn't have come at a better time as Notre Dame was searching for answers at the vyper position. Now, the Michigan native has spent the last year working as a big end, but vyper is familiar to him and Burnham was able to make a game-changing play by tipping a Stanford option pitch and almost taking it to the house.
“The one thing that I say about Junior and Josh is they play the design of the defense,” Golden said. “You know in your mind that if you’re running a play, even if you don’t see the whole thing, you know where he fits and you can trust that they’re going to fit.
“Josh does a really good job of giving us the design back and making it go where we want it to go based on the people that are around him or behind him. He’s a really smart kid. You saw it the other day. It’s a technique that we use and rarely does it get tested. He used it and it was activated and made a big play.”
As for those big picture goals, Mills and his teammates are focused on a daily approach, but he and Mills know they have a chance to obtain the goals that motivated them to return to a final year.
"I would just say from the beginning we want to play as good as we can,” said Mills. “When we decided to come back, we knew the pressure was on and people were going to know who we were. This and that.
“Ultimately, at the end of the day, every game is like your last. You can’t go out there and be like, 'Oh, we got 12 more.' We're trying to be 1-0 every week.”
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