Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1540307
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 18, 2025 29 B oubacar Traore repeatedly clapped his hands together above his head, the univer- sal sign for "safety." His teammates were doing it, too, but they were on their side of the line of scrimmage dur- ing a TV timeout as officials re- viewed whether or not NC State's botched snap had cost the Wolf- pack two points (it did). Traore stood right in front of NC State's huddle, knowing full well his foes couldn't say anything in return. Traore's actions earned Notre Dame an unsportsmanlike con- duct penalty on the ensuing kick- off, but in that moment, no one particularly cared. The redshirt sophomore defensive end had earned the right to talk his talk, as had the 10 players behind him. "You can see we're out there having fun," redshirt sophomore safety Adon Shuler said. The Irish have allowed 14 points in its last 10 quarters of game action. They're having fun, but they're also playing fast, aggressive and violent. They have made two signal-callers in Boise State's Mad- dux Madsen and NC State's CJ Bailey — good quarterbacks, mind you — look ab- solutely ridiculous by the time their day was done. Bailey threw a fourth-down pass directly to Shuler for his first pick of the day. His second was a ball that he tried to throw away under heavy pres- sure, only to watch it sail right into the waiting arms of sophomore linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa. Notre Dame had Bailey in a blender. He was seeing ghosts. Use whatever meta- phors you want, but what matters is this: The Irish racked up 4 sacks and 3 inter- ceptions, and they watched him drop a snap and pick it up while the ball was in the end zone and his knee was down for a safety. Aside from one deep ball on which NC State's best wide receiver beat true freshman nickel back Dallas Golden, the Wolfpack had nothing. Traore, for his part, sacked Bailey twice. "Our emphasis this week was just to play our ball, play violent and play as one," Traore said. It started against the run, and more broadly with containing star running back Hollywood Smothers, because NC State tried to get him involved in the passing game as well. Smothers finished with 12 carries for 46 yards (3.8 yards per attempt), along with 4 receptions for 21 yards. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Free- man stressed gang tackling Smothers before the game, and boy, did the Irish do that. They swarmed to the football, re- fusing to let him break free. Sophomore linebacker Drayk Bowen was the catalyst behind covering Smothers, blasting him after one catch for a third-down stop. With the run game under wraps, NC State turned to trickery but that didn't work either. Smothers tried a throw- back pass to Bailey in the mid-third quarter, but senior defensive end Junior Tuihalamaka sniffed it out and killed it for a loss of 4. After Tuihalamaka pressured Bailey on the very next snap, Notre Dame de- fensive line coach Al Washington was so fired up he looked like he was about to line up and get after Bailey himself. That's all the Irish did as the sun dipped below the west-side bleachers. With no other options for NC State, the Wolfpack had to drop back and take its chances on every snap. Notre Dame pinned its ears back, attacked and created havoc. The Irish, on all three levels, looked like they did from 2023-24 under ex-defensive coordinator Al Golden. They've done it for a large enough sample size that we can confidently say that this is who this group is. The defensive nightmare that was Games 1-3 is behind them. That's a credit, Freeman ex- plained, to everyone on that side of the ball: The players, the position coaches and yes, defensive coordi- nator Chris Ash. They didn't blame each other or hope for a quick fix. They got to work, and they made the change happen. "Their mindsets are right," Freeman said. "This is our defense. This is ours, and that's the buy-in that I think you're seeing the reflection of." The buy-in is clear for all to see. Take Bailey's third interception, picked off by redshirt freshman nickel back Kar- son Hobbs. It's been a difficult season for Hobbs, who lost his job to Golden after Week 3. But when he caught that ball, his teammates erupted on the sideline — specifically Golden, Shuler and junior cornerback Christian Gray. The three of them, with their helmets off and their days done, jumped up and down and shouted with joy as Hobbs reveled in the north end zone. They celebrated for their teammate, which sure seemed to happen a lot at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday after- noon. They played together — 11 play- ers working as one — which Shuler and Traore said after the game was the big- gest difference. "There was a lot of not togetherness, and it wasn't the Notre Dame standard that we're used to and that's what we had to get back to," Shuler said. "You got to get back to playing our style of football." They did. And their style of football is here to stay. ✦ Defense's Resurgence Feels Real Staff writer Jack Soble has covered Notre Dame athletics for Blue & Gold Illustrated since August 2023. Contact him at Jack.Soble@on3.com. OFF THE DOME JACK SOBLE The Irish defense — which has allowed only 14 points over the last 10 quarters — is playing fast, aggressive and violent. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER