Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2019 Notre Dame Football Preview
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1133608
BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2019 FOOTBALL PREVIEW ✦ 85 DEFENSIVE LINEMEN QUOTABLE: HEAD COACH BRIAN KELLY ON THE OUTSTANDING QUALITY AT DEFENSIVE END: "There's not enough reps for everybody there. You'd even look at, 'Can you redshirt somebody there?' … There's great depth. They're all going to want to compete, they're all going to want to play, it's going to be hard to get all those guys on the field. It's a great situation to have." 2018 VS. 2019: STOCK UP OR DOWN? So much for the once popular notion that Notre Dame can't recruit premier defen- sive linemen. The foundation of the perfect regular season in 2018 was the line. Every end who played a meaningful snap in 2018 is back, and the Irish enter the 2019 campaign with arguably the best end rotation in the country. Per Pro Football Focus, Notre Dame is the lone team with three players to rank among the top 25 run- stopping ends, and it is one of just five teams with two ends to rank in the top 30 in pass rush success rate. The difference between having a strong line in 2019 and an elite one will be the play of the less seasoned tackles. X-FACTOR Junior nose tackle Kurt Hinish was solid last fall while partnering with the gradu- ated Jonathan Bonner at nose tackle (Bonner had 427 snaps to Hinish's 354), and sophomore Jayson Ademilola could become Notre Dame's most productive tackle this fall. However, the true X-Factor is junior tackle Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa, who was expected to be a top rotation player a season ago. An injury in the opener cost him the next 11 games, and he didn't return until the Cotton Bowl, where he played well in his 18 snaps off the bench. Notre Dame needs Tagovailoa-Amosa to stay healthy and tag-team with Ademilola to give the Irish playmaking production at three-technique. FRESHMAN OUTLOOK Tagovailoa-Amosa and Hinish were surpris- ingly effective rotation players as freshmen in 2017, and Ademilola was a regular in the 2018 lineup. None of them showed up at Notre Dame with the size and power that freshman Ja- cob Lacey possesses and demonstrated this spring. Enrolling early provided Lacey with a much-needed head start, a benefit the 2017 and 2018 first-year defensive tackles did not get. Lacey will be a needed cog in the in- terior rotation. He possess the power and playmaking ability to develop into the most productive freshman defensive tackle in Brian Kelly's decade-long tenure at Notre Dame. DID YOU KNOW? This spring, Jerry Tillery became the first Notre Dame defensive lineman in 22 years to be selected in the first round of the NFL Draft, with Renaldo Wynn in 1997 having been the most recent to have that distinction. The 2020 NFL Draft, could see the Fighting Irish go back-to-back in the first round along the defensive line for the first time since 1975 (Mike Fanning) and 1976 (Steve Niehaus). Senior drop end Julian Okwara and his prowess off the edge have already had him appear in the first round of at least a couple of 2020 mock drafts, including No. 25 by CBS Sports and No. 31 by The Athletic. Classmate and fellow end Khalid Kareem was pegged No. 25 overall by WalterFootball.com. Notre Dame most recently had two defensive linemen taken among the top three rounds in 2014 with Stephon Tuitt (second round) and Louis Nix III (third round). SCHOLARSHIP PLAYERS (18) Listed after the class year is the years of eligi- bility remaining. Defensive End 53 Khalid Kareem (6-4, 262), Sr./1 91 Adetokunbo Ogundeji (6-4½, 250), Sr./2 44 Jamir Jones (6-3, 257), Sr./1 47 Kofi Wardlow (6-2½, 245), Jr./3 18 NaNa Osafo-Mensah (6-3, 235), Fr./4 Nose Tackle 41 Kurt Hinish (6-2, 295), Jr./2 54 Jacob Lacey (6-2, 294), Fr./4 55 Ja'Mion Franklin (6-1½, 308), So./4 58 Darnell Ewell (6-3, 340), Jr./3 Defensive Tackle 95 Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa (6-3, 286), Jr./3 58 Jayson Ademilola (6-3, 285), So./3 90 Hunter Spears (6-3, 295), Fr./4 — Howard Cross III (6-1, 265), Fr./4 Drop End 42 Julian Okwara (6-4½, 240), Sr./1 9 Daelin Hayes (6-4, 268), Sr./1 19 Justin Ademilola (6-2, 250), So./4 29 Ovie Oghoufo (6-3, 230), So./4 — Isaiah Foskey (6-5, 240), Fr./4 In his first season of seeing extended action as a reserve, senior end Ade Ogundeji recorded 22 tackles in 2018, highlighted by a sack in the Cotton Bowl. PHOTO BY ANGELA DRISKELL