Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SUMMER 2025 9 UNDER THE DOME a season-long starter if he wasn't in- jured early in fall camp. "[Craig] was playing at a high level when he was starting for us," Freeman said. "Charles Jagusah, a guy who was coming into the season as a starter, tears his pec, comes back and plays in two of the biggest games of our season." That leaves left tackle, a hot button discussion topic for Notre Dame fans, but the answer appears to be the same one it was for the first 15 games of last season. Knapp. Ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Freeman hypothesized Knapp played as much as anybody for an Irish team that nearly won it all. Everyone but Wagner and quarterback Riley Leonard, yep. Beyond the incumbent stalwarts, there are younger players pushing for playing time — junior center Joe Ot- ting, junior do-it-all utility man Sul- livan Absher and sophomore tackle Guerby Lambert being the headliners of that group. That's what excites Free- man. Nothing goes as planned along an offensive line from start to finish of a calendar year. It's the teams that have the correct personnel to pivot that over- come adversity the best. The Irish had it in 2024. They seem to have it again in 2025. "The depth of the room is really im- pressive, and credit to Coach Rudolph for the job he's done in recruiting," Freeman said. "We've had some really good young guys and guys who maybe haven't played who had a great spring." NEXT MEN UP IN THE MIDDLE Notre Dame's starting defensive tack- les for the better part of the last two seasons culminated their time together by both being a part of the 2025 NFL Draft weekend. Rylie Mills was picked in the fifth round by the Seattle Seahawks. How- ard Cross III was immediately signed as an undrafted free agent by the Cincin- nati Bengals. They're next-level talents. What Notre Dame looks like without them has been a popular discussion point this offseason. "You don't replace Rylie Mills and Howard Cross with two guys," Freeman said. So, how do you? By committee. Free- man feels good about his team being able to do that. "I believe we have five, six guys that can really go in there and perform at a high level where we can replace their pro- duction with multiple guys, not just with two guys, but it's about replacing pro- duction, not the person," Freeman said. Numbers-wise, Notre Dame did per- form a person-for-person swap by bring- ing in transfers Jared Dawson and Elijah Hughes from Louisville and USC, respec- tively. They're two of the five to six Free- man has in mind to man the middle of the Irish defensive line this year. The others? If you've watched Notre Dame foot- ball in the last few seasons, you know the names. "I think about guys like [Donovan] Hinish and how he's continued to im- prove, and Gabriel Rubio and Jason Onye, and I could go on and on," Freeman said. Three, four, five. Freeman went to six and seven for good measure — Armel Mukam and Sean Sevillano Jr. They rep- resent the divide of having been there and done that and still waiting to do so. The former is a true junior who hasn't factored into the rotation yet. The latter is a sophomore who can say the same. But if Freeman is true to his word — if this really is going to be a three-deep, by- committee approach to moving past the era of only needing a two-deep because Mills and Cross were so dominant and available and such stalwarts — then ei- ther Mukam or Sevillano, or both, should be ready to play at more meaningful and pivotal points of games than before. And it does sound like Freeman will be true to his word. "It's a deep room, but you're not re- placing Rylie Mills and Howard Cross with two guys right now," he said. "You're not doing that. You're going to have to do it with multiple guys. But we do have the guys, the depth of guys to hopefully get the job done that we need." ✦ Jared Dawson (above), who transferred in from Louisville this offseason, will be part of a committee approach the Fighting Irish will use to replace the production of departed stalwart defensive tackles Rylie Mills and Howard Cross III. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER