Flashy won’t be the word used to describe Notre Dame’s 2025 defensive interior. Then again, is that ever a good description of the big guys who play inside? This is the unit doing more dirty work than any other on the team. That was the major task for this past year’s defensive tackles and they ended up being a bit of a surprise in a few other areas.
Precarious Situation
I wasn’t the only one sounding the alarm ahead of the 2025 season. Rylie Mills and Howard Cross were walking out the door after terrific careers, Jason Onye had left the program mid-season in 2024 with a return in doubt, and then Gabriel Rubio entered the transfer portal in December. The transfers coming in didn’t look to be transformational, and the rise of young and unproven players to supplement this position looked underwhelming.
Things could’ve been really bad.
Development
In review, things were most definitely not bad. Onye ended up coming back to the team, Rubio withdrew from the portal (or was his entry a reporting mistake, I can’t remember the exact details?) and the depth proved just good enough to keep things together for the defense.
Like most of the team, the development really seemed to come after those first 2 games as the schedule eased. In particular, incoming transfers Jared Dawson and Elijah Hughes were a couple of players who didn’t look to be impact interior pieces and then ended up creating a nice solid season for themselves.
Snaps
Notre Dame largely rolled with 5 defensive linemen during the 2025 season–a nice core group especially with the aforementioned worries about how things were shaping up during the off-season. Sadly, Rubio ended up injuring his elbow in October and only played in 6 games. His injury was announced leading up to the USC game and he would’ve been available for the post-season if the powers that be didn’t want to see Alabama lose its 4th game of the season.
| PLAYER | SNAP |
|---|---|
| Jason Onye | 354 |
| Jared Dawson | 323 |
| Donovan Hinish | 310 |
| Elijah Hughes | 264 |
| Gabriel Rubio | 173 |
| Armel Mukam | 69 |
| Cole Mullins | 59 |
| Sean Sevillano | 17 |
| Davion Dixon | 9 |
| Gordy Sulfsted | 7 |
Hughes saw his playing time increase and turned into a tidy player who we’re glad still has eligibility remaining after coming over from USC. I’m guessing there was a disagreement over the future of Mukam–which led to his transfer portal request–as in the old days he would’ve been moving right up to fight for a starting spot in 2026. If he was looking for bigger money, things needed to shake out in the transfer market and they did in a big way for the Irish. In the end, Mukam probably didn’t offer a ton to other school’s with his resume to date and is definitely needed more as a depth piece heading into 2026. And maybe he’ll develop to something more.
Hughes stepped up into a larger role late in 2025.
Grade: B+
Stout may be a good word to use for this 2025 unit. Using traditional stats, this group was nothing to write home about. The top 5 players in snaps combined for about 7 tackles per game with 9.5 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks total for the whole season. Individually, these are some of the meekest numbers imaginable.
Yet, advanced stats are clear this was a very strong group of interior players. While they weren’t terribly disruptive in the backfield it’s not like offenses were having the time of their life and running the ball very well. Only 2.99 yards per rush allowed! Only 8 touchdowns on the ground allowed for 12 games! Pretty much no opponent had a good day running the ball against Notre Dame in 2025, even the combined Miami/A&M totals were 262 yards at 3.74 per carry.
This felt like a transition year for the Irish as they moved on from Cross and Mills. It would’ve been interesting to see how this group performed in the playoffs when the stakes were higher and the competition stiffer. Looking back, there’s no doubt the defensive tackles were the biggest surprise of the season given the question marks and worries before the opener.
I might even go A- here. They were so consistently good against the run. It’s hard to tell what exactly they were asked to do in Ash’s first year against the pass.
The DEs were pretty clearly a disappointment in my mind, but they also didn’t have the advantage of having two elite interior pass rushers like they did in 2024. I’ll be interested to see if ND is willing to give up a bit more against the run in 2026 to get a bit more pressure up the middle, or if the DTs will basically be asked to maintain the status quo next year.