Notre Dame's 2025 Defensive Line Is DIFFERENT, In A BIG Way...

AtoZ Sports

Ryan Roberts talks about some updates and insights from Notre Dame spring practice, as the Irish hit the field earlier this week for the first time in the 2025 campaign.

Transcript

00:00For years, Notre Dame fans have been arguing and wanting to see more impact size inside

00:07defensively for Notre Dame and in the defensive tackle position.

00:10Well, folks, don't look now.

00:12The time is here.

00:14Notre Dame finally has some size inside.

00:20Ryan Roberts from A to Z Sports, breaking down everything Notre Dame football.

00:23Folks, spring practice is upon us and had a fun little opportunity to look through the

00:27Notre Dame spring roster, see the new heights and weights, and something dawned on me.

00:32Over the last few years, we have had the constant conversation around size at defensive tackle

00:37for the Fighting Irish.

00:38And we know that they've been undersized a lot throughout the years, obviously most recently

00:43with guys like Howard Cross III and Riley Mills, although he's 295-ish, is still a relatively

00:50undersized defensive tackle from a pure weight perspective.

00:53But I looked at this roster and for the first time in a while, it feels like this is going

00:59to be a massive interior defensive line, especially for what Notre Dame has typically been trotting

01:04out there in recent memory.

01:06I went and looked at the seven players that I would say are the most likely contributors

01:11inside for Notre Dame in 2025, and six out of the seven are 300 pounds or more.

01:18And not into the too distant past, we would be talking about hopefully having one or two

01:24guys that are 300-plus pounds.

01:26You are going to have in 2025, potentially, Gabriel Rubio at 319 pounds.

01:32You're going to have Jason Ongye at 308 pounds.

01:35You're going to have Jared Dawson at 300 pounds, Armo Mookum at 305, Sean Cevillano at a massive

01:41341 pounds.

01:44The only outlier of that potential top group is Donovan Hynash, who is at 280 pounds.

01:50But even with Donovan Hynash in that top seven, potentially for Notre Dame, they still average

01:54306 pounds per interior defensive lineman.

01:59How quickly things have changed on the interior, and you can even go a little bit deeper if

02:03you wanted to.

02:05Brendan Vernon, now up to 293 pounds, Elijah Hughes, 290 pounds, and then also true freshman

02:11Davion Dixon at 323 pounds.

02:14You have seven interior defensive linemen on this roster that are over 300 pounds.

02:19Think about that for a second, and how very recently we were having a discussion over

02:23why is there no 300-pounders on this roster?

02:26Well now, the bulk, the majority of this roster is 300-plus pounders, and I'm very interested

02:32to see, applicable with new defensive coordinator Chris Ash, is this team now going to be more

02:37focused on, instead of being one-gap penetration style that we've seen in the past with Howard

02:43Cross and Riley Mills, are they going to be more to want to two-gap a little bit more,

02:49hold the point of attack, and let guys off the edge like Boubacar Traore, Bryce Young,

02:53and then the linebackers behind them run free?

02:56We want to have now the interior defensive line take up more blockers and let the athletes

03:01on the first and second level be more of space-oriented players, guys that can make plays.

03:06I'm interested to see how much this shifts Notre Dame's just defensive scheme and philosophy,

03:12if at all, but regardless, I do think that this raises the floor of the team.

03:16I have no idea how impactful they will be on the high end, but what I know is having

03:20that much size and impact potential size in a room at one time, leaves a lot of raising

03:26the floor and a lot of upside for this group.

03:29So folks, spring practice, rest of the way, we'll take you the rest of the way through

03:33the 2025 season, make sure to like and subscribe to the channel, and as always, Go Irish!

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