Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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• Grant Blankenship played behind Rochell last year and was credited with 12 stops, but his 6-4 frame remains a relatively lithe 252 pounds. "He hasn't really gained a lot of weight, a lot of bulk, at this point, but he plays quick, he's a tenacious kid, he's got a lot of good traits about him," Gilmore said of Blankenship. "Hope- fully over the summer he adds some of that bulk to help him maintain through- out the course of a season." • Jonathan Bonner arrived as a line- backer prospect, but made the most strides physically while he was red- shirted last season. He increased his weight to 275 and was playing behind Rochell before a turf toe injury necessi- tated surgery in April and will sideline him into June. • Jhonny Williams has some of the "freaky" athletic traits of which Trum- betti speaks, and he and Hill were classified last August by head coach Brian Kelly as possibly the best speed rushers on the team. However, the 6-4, 260-pound Williams arrived relatively raw as a football player. "His biggest thing is to get into his playbook and understand what he's doing a little more and just spend more time learning football," Gilmore said. "He's a guy who played one or two years of high school football so there's a big learning curve with him … it's a work in progress, but if he keeps grind- ing it, he'll get it." It's not a defensive end class that ar- rived with the freakish star power of players such as Aaron Lynch, Stephon Tuitt, Troy Niklas and Ishaq Williams in 2011, but how the rush improves with these sophomores — with Trum- betti at the head of the class — will determine how effective it will be over the long haul. ✦