Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM MAY 2022 25 bles, a lot more strips, a lot more picks." Irish players are inundated with drills and reminders designed to foster a turn- over-generating mindset. One example? Notre Dame practices typically start with "punch-out" drills where a defender tries to rip the ball from an offensive player's grasp one-on-one in the open field. On a simpler yet still critical level, Golden wants to build cohesion within his entire unit. Eleven playing as one with no preference on who makes the play or fills the stat sheet — as long as someone does. He found the best example of it not in football film, but clips from the San An- tonio Spurs dynasty that won five NBA titles in a 16-season span from 1999- 2014. That's how far a talented team with widespread unselfishness can go. "Just having a collective mentality and how well that team moved the ball around, how well they played together and communicated," Golden said. "The symmetry they have as a unit, really that's what we're trying to develop on defense. "From a championship team, it's one of the best portrayals of true collective mentality and true teamwork in the last decade." The specifics of Golden's schematic fine-tuning will stay behind the cur- tain until this fall. The Blue-Gold Game featured a watered-down playbook run mostly out of a 4-3 base defense. Free- man did reveal, though, a lot of the X's and O's enhancements installed this spring were in situational settings such as red-zone defense. Situational football might be where the right schematic balance of "enhance but don't overhaul" resides. It doesn't require ripping up the base defense. It's where coordinators can truly get cre- ative and be themselves. That's Golden's task, after all. 1. DEFENSIVE LINE PICTURE COMES INTO FOCUS Notre Dame knew it had defensive line anchors with senior vyper Isaiah Foskey and graduate student three-technique tackle Jayson Ademilola. The former earned a Day 2 NFL Draft grade and stiff- armed it for one more year and a shot at the first round. The latter was one of the most disruptive interior linemen in the country and logged a team-best 43 quar- terback pressures per Pro Football Focus. At the same time, three-year starters and team captains Kurt Hinish and My- ron Tagovailoa-Amosa leave a void on the other half of the line. They were respected leaders and consistent producers. The depth Notre Dame has cultivated on its defensive line left a few possibili- ties as replacements. Moving junior Ry- lie Mills from tackle to strong-side end made sense when the spring started. Sure enough, that's where Notre Dame stuck him in practice. He set up camp in the backfield in every open practice viewing as well as in the Blue-Gold Game. Meanwhile, senior Jacob Lacey was the first-team nose tackle. He played there when he earned a rotation spot as a fresh- man in 2019 and stayed there in 2020. He mainly played three-technique in 2021. Senior Howard Cross III is back at three-technique, where he could take first-team reps while Ademilola recovered from shoulder surgery. He's a starting- caliber player who was unblockable dur- ing a late March scrimmage open to me- dia and also impressed in the Blue-Gold Game. His first-step quickness, hand usage and slipperiness make up for his smaller stature (6-foot-1, 275 pounds). Notre Dame heads into summer workouts with a strong front four and reliable backups in Cross and graduate student vyper Justin Ademilola. Battles for the No. 2 jobs behind Mills and Lacey will likely last into fall camp. Senior Nana Osafo-Mensah and ju- nior Alex Ehrensberger are competing at defensive end. Junior Aidan Keanaaina was the likely backup to Lacey, but he tore his ACL on the first day of spring practice. Notre Dame landed Harvard graduate transfer Chris Smith as a pos- sible replacement. He arrives in June and will battle sophomore Gabriel Ru- bio for a rotation spot on the inside. Breakout Players Junior DE Rylie Mills The first hint that Mills could replace Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa at strong-side defensive end came last November. Notre Dame elevated him from his usual backup defensive tackle role to make an emer- gency start in a 28-3 win at Virginia when a bout with the flu sidelined Tagovailoa-Amosa. He responded with two sacks — an indication that his pass-rushing skills would translate to the outside just fine. Spring practice further confirmed he's a fit at end and a likely starter this year. The 6-5, 273-pound Mills' blend of power and speed fits at three-technique tackle or strong-side end. Last year's pseudo- breakout revealed a player who deserved a larger workload in 2022. Graduate student tackle Jayson Ademilola's return, though, meant Mills would be a backup again if he stayed on the inside. Notre Dame understands even more after 15 spring practices that Mills is no backup. It's hard to envision anyone else starting opposite Isaiah Foskey Sept. 3 at Ohio State. Sophomore LB Prince Kollie Kollie admitted he fought through freshman year growing pains and adjustments last fall. There were battles with self-confidence. He admittedly was lax with his diet. The on-field adjustment from small- town Tennessee high school football to Notre Dame threw obstacles at him. Notre Dame still gave Kollie a special teams role last year, but he couldn't crack the linebacker rota- tion even in its injury-stricken state. He appears to have moved past the Year 1 bumps and is challenging for a No. 2 job now. He made three tackles (2.0 for loss) in the Blue-Gold Game, flashing the athleticism that made him a coveted recruit. Athletic traits weren't in doubt. The diagnostic ability, motor and comfort in the defense he displayed in addition to his physical tools are the reason he's pushing for playing time. The spring game wasn't an outlier either. Kollie's progress was clear in a late March open scrimmage. Freshman CB Jaden Mickey Notre Dame's three-man cornerback rotation last fall bordered on untenable and reached a breaking point in the Fiesta Bowl. The Irish had nobody they trusted to give anyone a break in a game where the defense played 95 snaps and the corners struggled to cover Oklahoma State's receivers. Someone had to emerge this spring from the quintet of unproven underclassmen corners to make sure a repeat wouldn't happen in 2022. Freshman Jaden Mickey raised his hand. Notre Dame hap- pily called on him. Mickey is one of the Irish's more athletic corners and plays bigger than his 5-11½, 176-pound frame. He's sudden in his movements and displays a burst out of his breaks. He can climb the ladder to break up passes and is aggressive playing the ball when it's in front of him. He had a pick- six in Notre Dame's last practice, and he dropped a surefire one in the Blue-Gold Game. Mickey's self-confidence stands out as much as his skill set. He's unafraid to go up against older re- ceivers and let them know if he wins a matchup. He has an edge without being brash. "That's his zone he's in," cornerbacks coach Mike Mickens said. "I love that about him that he has a fire every day." — Patrick Engel