Football is nearly upon us. In case you missed it, we previewed the Notre Dame offense as fall camp begins soon. You can read that HERE. Today, we take a look at the Irish defense.
Coordinator: Al Golden, 3rd Season
I never would’ve thought Golden would last this long at Notre Dame either through struggles, enough success to jump back to the NFL, or another college head coaching gig opened up that made sense for him to try again after leaving Miami years ago. Instead, he signed a 4-year extension this past February and is one of the highest paid coordinators in the country.
Golden is coming off an impressive 2023 that saw the the Irish finish 6th in FEI defense.
Returning Starters: 6/11
Notre Dame has to replace 4 NFL Draft picks from last season: 3rd round linebacker Marist Liufau, 5th rounders in corner Cam Hart and linebacker JD Bertrand, plus 7th round defensive end Javaontae Jean-Baptiste.
In the most technical sense, linebacker Jack Kiser is not a returning starter but we’ll include him as such because he’s played so much football and is locked in to move inside and start in 2024.
Injuries
DE Armel Mukam
DE Loghan Thomas
CB Benjamin Morrison
Fingers crossed because this is an extremely healthy looking defensive roster as we approach fall camp. The program did see Clarence Lewis (corner now at Syracuse), NaNa Osafo-Mensah (defensive end now at TCU), Aiden Keanaaina (defensive tackle now at Cal), Ramon Henderson (safety now at UCLA), Antonio Carter (safety now at Jacksonville State), Micah Bell (former corner now playing wide receiver at Vanderbilt) and Ryan Barnes (corner now at UMass) transfer out this off-season while defensive linemen Aiden Gobaira and Tyson Ford recently medically retired.
Where do I get this outfit?
There’s been quite a bit of lost personnel overall.
Each of Mukam, Thomas, and Morrison had shoulder surgeries. The last occurring procedure of those three is Morrison who had surgery in late March–which is a bit worrisome–but the official PR from Notre Dame mentioned he’ll return for the 2024 season. A skeptic would say a return could mean late October, let’s hope that’s not the case.
Camp Questions
#1 Are we good on the edges?
Notre Dame got a surprisingly effective season from the aforementioned JJB who parlayed his effort into a NFL draft pick. Now, the program will rely on another graduate transfer to replace JJB in 2024 and is still working on the rest of the roster at both edges.
Jordan Botelho returns on the other side following a solid season that saw him banged up quite a bit. For a strong defense with high ambitions, the edges still feel like a question mark especially when you look at the proven depth.
#2 The youth movement at linebacker
Things would’ve been wild at linebacker if Jack Kiser didn’t come back for a 5th season. As mentioned, he’ll be bringing so much needed experience. Everywhere else at this position we are in for plenty of new faces and young players moving up into larger roles.
The most important questions will need to be answered when Kiser isn’t on the field. Will he stay on the field for the entire game against A&M? How much will he sit on the sideline overall this year?
#3 Will Notre Dame hit on secondary transfers?
This Irish defense needed to plug a few holes this off-season and didn’t look to have many answers from the recruiting of younger players already on the roster. Bringing in a couple of key transfers from Northwestern and Arizona State might be the missing pieces to the 2024 puzzle. In fact, we’ll talk about them in the next section.
New Faces to Watch
DE RJ Oben
Oben transferred in from Duke and spent the spring as the primary option at strong-side defensive end. Barring something crazy, he should be the unquestioned starter in 2024 and brings an explosive pass rushing ability. There are questions about his every-down abilities and that will come into focus this fall camp.
LB KVA
The roster doesn’t set up too well in 2024 for a freshman to contribute unless it’s linebacker and unless that person is Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa. He was maybe the top recruit in this 2024 Irish class, enrolled early, and spent all of spring sharing a lot of Mike linebacker reps with Drayk Bowen. This could be a freshman All-American type of debut for KVA.
NB Jordan Clark
Clark could be a surprise.
I gave Clark a grade of 78 in our transfer recruiting review. Seventy-eight! I thought this was part of Marcus Freeman’s world tour to sign as many sons of former NFL pros as possible in some bizarre attempt to curry favor in the glad-handing relationships of college football. Surely, Clark would be a backup this year? Instead, once he recovered from a small injury, Clark went straight to starting nickel this spring and looks like he’ll do well.
S Rod Heard
Heard felt like the opposite to Clark as a proven high-level Power 4 defensive back who is coming to Notre Dame to make a big impact. The big question is how he acclimates into the defense after not being at practices this spring. Among the projected starters, he was the only one on defense not to be here in the spring so it’ll be an important early set of fall practices.
Key Positional Battles
Weak-Side Defensive End
I mentioned this last year when Botelho, Burnham, and Tuihalamaka were all moving up the depth chart–they were all converted linebackers and none have seemed to particularly fit perfectly as defensive linemen. While Botelho is pretty secure he might be pushed a lot by the rising Boubacar Traore, who is very much the prototypical pass rushing weak-side end.
The Non-Morrison Cornerback
Gray could be a breakout player in 2024.
If Jordan Clark has locked down the nickel corner spot–and Clarence Lewis plus Micah Bell both transferring out after being in contention for this job signals that is definitely the case–then we are lining up for a big competition at one of the outside corner spots between Jaden Mickey and Christian Gray.
Middle Linebacker
The hype of every new recruiting cycle almost always floods out the hype from the previous class. Not even 18 months ago, Notre Dame signed a future middle linebacker who was just outside the top 100 in the national Composite rankings. Drayk Bowen might be damn good someday!
Then along comes KVA who was a borderline 5-star and in contention, along with Clemson’s Sammy Brown, as the best inside linebacker of the 2024 class. What’s more, KVA immediately jumped into spring practice and was making an impact. His ceiling is massive and we could see plenty of shared reps if the staff can trust him early in the fall.
The Non-Watts Safety
When was the last time Notre Dame felt really good about both of its starting safeties? We’d have to go back to Kyle Hamilton’s last season, I believe. With Xavier Watts now in superstar status it’s time to figure out who best pairs with the All-American.
Will it be Rod Heard without a doubt? Did Adon Shuler make a big enough jump in the spring to make some noise? Are we sleeping on the skills of Luke Talich who might continue improving at a high rate as he works his way back fully from a broken collarbone suffered late last year?
Redshirt Watch
Last year, 8 out of the 11 defensive prospects took a redshirt with the aforementioned Bell also redshirting but transferring out this off-season. Heading into 2024, it’s looking pretty rough for any freshmen to see the field. We know KVA is a lock not to redshirt, but who else?
If his conditioning holds up, the Irish might value Sean Sevillano’s presence on the interior enough for him to play once and a while. Does Bryce Young get steady 3rd-string reps immediately and is it enough to burn a year? I don’t really see much for anyone else unless it’s special teams work which could be anyone from the linebackers or secondary where there are plenty of bodies to use.
Freshmen Numbers
DE Loghan Thomas #10
DE Bryce Young #30
DT Cole Mullins #42
DT Sean Sevillano #59
LB Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa #27
LB Bodie Kahoun #36
LB Teddy Rezac #35
CB Karson Hobbs #21
CB Leonard Moore #15
S Tae Johnson #16
S Kennedy Urlacher #23
S Taebron Bennie-Powell #31
*Blue italics indicate true freshmen who enrolled in January.
This will be season #6 for Kiser, talk about bringing back some experience
Holy crap, you’re right. I really thought it was just a 5th year. He might leave with 7 different degrees. I’m pretty sure he finished his undergrad a looooong time ago.
Dr. Kiser
Dr. Kiser, Attorney at Law, MFA, BBA, MTS, PharmD
A huge mitgator for a lot of these defensive questions: returning production from the interior DL. Cross is a high motor problem for teams: while definitely not aaron donald, hes that undersized*, high motor, always-around-the-ball interior dude. Couple that with mills, who’s a physical monster playing season 2 at a more natural fit position (he was a DE in Goldens first year). These dudes will:
-command double teams on runs, which frees up the young LBs to run
-ruin the pocket on passing downs with interior pressure, which negates QBs stepping up into the pocket. This softens the edge the DEs have to turn for viable pressure/sacks, which benefits the pass rush.
-bonuses from a right-now middle of the field pass rush will shorten QB decisions to the benefit of the secondary.
The nirvana state is always consistent pressure with a 4 man rush, and these 2 madlads will be force multipliers for the whole defense.
As far as Cross, it is kind of interesting to do a defensive preview and not mention one of two pre-season All Americans.
Harumph!
Need to get a single-digit number on Bryce Young pronto
Program negligence not to.
Kia out for the year with a torn ACL 🙁
First day of camp. Ugh. He could have had a decent role as a sub package pass rusher on a team that, as noted, has questions about pass rush.
I think this was during summer workouts actually but they just announced it yesterday. But yea bummer for him. Though I’d imagine that sub-package role is going to be filled by another one of those young LBers who have so much athleticism.
Ah, gotcha. I guess at least better for him getting back for spring ball.
Very true that of all the positions, this is not the worst. Tons of young inexperienced LBs, and others that will probably play more overall. Rubio is probably a bigger impact.
Gabriel Rubio broken foot in the first practice.
Granted ND isn’t estimating a return date on the day of the injury, but if we figure 6 to 8 weeks to heal, plus a bit of time to work back in he could conceivably return during the first bye week, post-Louisville and pre-Stanford. Conceivable he’s in mid-season form for the FSU game.
Bummer for him personally. He’s got a lot of potential but with being out in the spring and another injury that’s rough for him. Hopefully he can get healthy and contribute down the stretch. It seems likely we’ll need him this year and to be a starter next year (so even more important that he shows it with extended snaps this year).