When Jaylen Sneed arrived at Notre Dame as a freshman in 2022, life couldn’t have been more different than what he knew from home in South Carolina.
Now, heading into his fifth season with the Irish, Sneed would’ve told his freshman self to let Notre Dame change him.
“I would tell him just let Notre Dame change you,” said Sneed. “That's what I would say. I would say don't fight it. Just let it change you. Let it make you become a better man. Let it make you become a better football player. Stuff like that.”
In the beginning, there was resistance to letting Notre Dame change Sneed.
“When you first get to Notre Dame, especially coming from South Carolina, at least where I come from, it's different,” said Sneed. “It's a big change. You don't want to change, but the teammates and the coaches you have around you just make it. You have to. If you want to be here, you have to change. You have to become a Notre Dame man. You have to live up to the values that Freeman talks about all the time.”
Another change that Sneed and the Irish defense had to endure was Chris Ash being brought in as defensive coordinator ahead of the 2025 season.
After a 0-2 start to 2025, Ash’s defense went from allowing 34 points per game to open the season to allowing just 14.3 points per game down the stretch.
Now in year two under Ash with lots of returning production, Sneed and the defense have seemingly figured it out a quarter of the way through 2026.
“I think just having all the people we do come back really made it click,” said Sneed. “Just because we were firing on all cylinders. We won 10 games at the end of the year. I felt like just all of us coming back and staying together really made it so much easier because we already know how to talk to each other. We already know how to communicate with each other. We already know how to play together. I felt like it just made it so much easier because we were already on one page last year.”
However, some things have remained the same in 2026 as they were when Sneed arrived to campus as a freshman and regardless of coaching changes—violence.
“Coach Ash always preaches physicality, violence, and speed,” said Sneed. “I feel like when you turn on the tape, that's what you see. You see speed and violence. That's what I want to show when you turn on the tape.”
While Ash has continued the message of violence after Golden’s departure, it’s a message that older teammates of Sneed’s preached to him when he arrived on campus.
Old teammates like J.D. Bertrand, Jack Kiser and Marist Liufau all contributed to Sneed’s understanding of how to play with violence.
“As a young player, you see how the older guys are playing and that's how you want to play,” said Sneed. “That's exactly how it was for me watching J.D., Jack and Marist. They were all violent linebackers, knew how to use their hands, they were smart, educated. Once you see that, it just makes you want to be that.”
Now Sneed is in the position that Bertrand, Kiser and Liufau were all in as the most veteran Irish linebacker.
For Sneed, practice is where he gets to share that message with his younger teammates.
“It starts in practice,” said Sneed. “Everybody is violent, locked in at practice. If you're mentally locked in at practice, you can be violent. I always like to tell the younger guys, you practice how you play. That's the best quote I got from, I don't even know, I think Max Bullough told me that. He told me, you practice how you play, you practice how you play. He drilled that in my head. I just try to drill it in everybody's head. You practice how you play. That's what comes to mind.”
As the Irish head to Chapel Hill to take on the Tarheels, Sneed will continue to preach and play with violence, just like he learned as a freshman.
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