Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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16 SEPT. 14, 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA I t was third-and-9 for the Texas A&M offense at the Notre Dame 39. Tie game, 6-6, early third quarter. Every yard mattered. In a game like that, every inch mattered. Nobody displayed it better on that particular play than Notre Dame grad- uate student defensive end Jordan Botelho. Aggies quarterback Conner Weig- man was in shotgun with a tailback to his right. The boundary was to his left. One wide re- ceiver there, three in the field. Botelho was lined up as the field-side end with sophomores Bou- bacar Traore and Adon Shuler flank- ing him as blitzers to his left. If you slow the play down, Botelho jumped off the line of scrimmage at the exact same time as the ball. Really — the exact same time. Notre Dame has a talented defensive line but nobody else on it springs to action like Botelho did in this instance. He was already working over the A&M right tackle when the ball got to Weig- man's hands. When it was in the hands of the running back for an outside zone rush to the boundary, the first thing he saw was Botelho crashing into the backfield. The ball carrier couldn't get outside with Botelho having the angle, so he cut up and to the middle. That's where Shuler took him down for a gain of just 1 yard. " I t wa s a b o u t setting the edge and making the plays," Botelho said. Check and check. Texas A&M, clearly setting up for four-down territory, turned it over on downs on the next snap. Give an assist to Botelho for one of many plays in the game in which he showcased his new self — the slimmer, cerebral version who has connected the dots. "He has great talent," Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. "He's a very talented football player. But tal- ent and skill are two different things, and that's what you've seen Jordan be able to do, develop his talent into true skill that is now becoming production for this defense." Getting off the line as quickly as he did is a skillful act, one that enables someone as physically gifted as Botelho to use the "God-given ability," as Free- man calls it, more quickly, efficiently and effectively than anyone who can't. As previously noted, that was everyone else along the Notre Dame defensive line on that play. Shuler made the tackle because he was an unblocked blitzer. Botelho won't get any sort of recognition on the stat sheet for setting Shuler up, but any- one who knows ball also knows what Botelho did directly aided in an eventual change of possession. Not even as much as an assisted tackle on the play be darned, Botelho still wound up with a career-high 6 tackles in Notre Dame's season opener. The only Irish player with more stops was graduate student linebacker Jack Kiser with 8. It was Botelho's 49th col- lege football game. Never before, not in any of the first 48, had he reached half a dozen tackles. Perhaps that's because he had never gotten ready for a game the way he did leading up to Aggieland. "His performance is a reflection of the way he's prepared," Freeman said. "He's preparing his tail off, and he's playing at a high level right now." "I feel like it starts at practice," Botelho added. "You just need to work harder. Everyone did a good job preparing for the game and it carried into the game." Notre Dame coaches awarded Xavier Watts with defensive player of the game honors. Freeman said they could have easily been bestowed upon Botelho. He was that good against the Aggies. "A rg u a b l y t h e best performance," Notre Dame defen- sive coordinator Al Golden said. "He played really well. He played with high energy." To their credit, Notre Dame coaches saw this in the cards for Botelho. In this era of college foot- ball, with the trans- fer portal and players still hanging onto a COVID-19 waiver for an extra year of eligibility, it's become commonplace for coaches to have tough conversations with players — to essentially tell them it'd be best for both parties if they fin- ished their careers elsewhere. That conversation was not had be- tween Botelho, who's never gotten more than 4.5 sacks in a single season, and the Irish, who decided to take another chance on the Hawaiian they truly be- lieve has his best football in front of him. If the 2024 season opener was any indication of the type of force h e ' l l b e a l l yea r, they are most defi- n i te ly co r re c t i n their assessment. "I was truly blessed and humbled they wanted me to come back," Botelho said. "I was just happy and thankful for the opportunity." Botelho was the third-highest graded Notre Dame defensive player against Texas A&M, per Pro Football Focus, be- WHEN TALENT MEETS SKILL Jordan Botelho has never been a linchpin for the Notre Dame defense, but he is on the verge of stardom in Year 5 "He has great talent. He's a very talented football player. But talent and skill are two different things, and that's what you've seen Jordan be able to do, develop his talent into true skill that is now becoming production for this defense." NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH MARCUS FREEMAN ON BOTELHO