CB Christian Gray: Mindset Shift Sparks Notre Dame’s Defensive Turnaround
Notre Dame’s defense could have sulked and packed in following the first three weeks of the season.
The Irish entered 2025 with high expectations, but after three games, the defense had not lived up to what they envisioned heading into the Arkansas matchup.
Instead of folding, Marcus Freeman and defensive coordinator Chris Ash rallied the defense and the results have followed. Over the past two weeks, the Irish have delivered their best football of the season.
Cornerback Christian Gray said the turnaround started with a shift in mentality.
“I’d say we changed our mindset,” explained Gray. “We changed our mentality. After the Texas A&M loss, we knew that we really weren’t ourselves. We just returned back to ourselves and became the people with our back against the wall.”
The message in the building was also to the point. Fight.
“What are you going to do?” stated Gray. “Are you going to fight back, or are you going to die? We just started growing with that mentality, started fighting as hard as we can, got back to our routine and our real coverages. We just became ourselves again.”
Ash’s arrival brought schematic changes, but Gray doesn’t believe the early struggles stemmed from adjusting to a new coordinator. The early adversity came from the players.
“Surprisingly, they mixed together,” Gray said of Ash and Mickens. “They are both smart. They talked the same language. When Coach Ash came in, we were already on the same page. It was already good.”
Notre Dame’s defense turned in its best performance last weekend against Boise State. The Irish recorded four interceptions and held the Broncos offense to seven points.
“That was great,” said Gray. “That was really great for us. That’s team glory and everything. I’m happy that we got four interceptions and Lenny (Leonard Moore) got two interceptions. Tae (Johnson) got his first one and Luke (Talich) too. I feel like we’re going to keep growing from there. We’re going to be an unstoppable defense.”
It also gave the defense confidence that they are headed in the right direction, which is significant for a group that wasn’t confident early in the season.
“We’re just really dogs,” Gray explained. “Our confidence is always going to be up. We’re a back seven. We’re DBs. We just have a lot of courage. We’re brave. We’ll go against anything that goes between us. We respect our opponents, but then we just don’t fear them. We just go with all we got and just go ball out.”
On a personal level, Gray is excited to have Moore back on the field. It makes the secondary complete, but it also leads to more balls to his side of the field.
“I know it and I love it too,” Gray said when asked if he’s expecting more action. “I don’t hate it at all. I love it. There’s going to be some people that catch balls, some people that are not going to catch balls. It’s college football, you know? Everybody’s good.
“That’s the fun part about it. You’re going out there to play football, having fun, not letting anybody dictate who you are or change up who you are. You’re just going out there to ball on the field.”
Gray’s mindset shows maturity.
Cornerbacks are going to give up completions and even touchdowns at times. Yet, bouncing back and making a play is what separates the greats.
“I definitely say I’ve matured on that,” stated Gray. “They catch a ball, so what? Next play, I’m going to have to go shock ‘em over here. It’s that mentality. You don’t want to just say, ‘Oh, shoot, OK, he just caught a ball.’ You want to say, ‘Alright, next play, I’m going to win this one. I’m going to win this one every time.’ I know my mentality just grew from that.”
The St. Louis native has experienced the ups and downs of college football, which has prepared him to handle adversity. Gray doesn’t worry about the little things as he knows, good or bad, he has to focus on the next play.
“I would get in my head a little bit on stuff,” said Gray. “If they just caught a little slant ball, I’d say, ‘Oh, no, I’m crashing out.’ Not anymore. That was just my younger self.”
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