2024 Notre Dame Football Offseason Position Snapshot: Defensive Line
2024 Notre Dame Football Offseason Position Snapshot: Defensive Line
We’ve wrapped up previews of Notre Dame football’s 2024 offensive position groups, so it’s time to move on to the defense. Working from front to back, we start with the defensive line.
Scholarship players: 17
Average 247Sports Composite Rating: 0.9162
Projected Starters: RJ Oben, Howard Cross III, Riley Mills, Jordan Botelho
It’s not a stretch to say that no unit on Notre Dame’s roster surprised more last season than the defensive line. A group that lost Isaiah Foskey and the Ademilola twins understandably dropped off a bit in pass rush, recording 31 sacks and 75 tackles for loss in 2023 compared to 38 and 84, respectively, the year prior. Even so, Howard Cross III and Riley Mills held down the interior — with the former earning second-team All-American honors — and Ohio State transfer Javonte Jean-Baptiste was a revelation at defensive end.
The interior is where this unit begins. Neither the sixth-year Cross nor the fifth-year Mills were expected to come back for their final years of eligibility, but Notre Dame coughed up NIL deals worth putting off the NFL Draft for one more season.
Howard Cross III takes a bow after sacking then-Duke (and now-Notre Dame) quarterback Riley Leonard in last seasons 21-14 Irish win.
The depth behind Cross and Mills looked somewhat tenuous, particularly when it seemed like Gabriel Rubio would not return for his fourth year in the program. However, with Rubio’s return confirmed, him and classmate Jason Onye make for a steadfast second-string interior. Junior Donovan Hinish and sophomore Brenan Vernon should be a capable third-string, although Vernon may be shifting back to the edge as the staff continues searching for his best position.
And speaking of edge rushers, the Irish have more question marks there. Jordan Botelho is a fifth-year who hasn’t really impressed outside of bowl games, but he knows the defense and is a reliable vyper/drop end. But Duke transfer RJ Oben is the X-factor, supplanting Jean-Baptiste at the strongside end.
It would be asking a lot of Oben to be as pleasant a surprise as Jean-Baptiste was in 2023. However, last season the Irish coaching staff got a first-hand look at Oben going against Notre Dame’s own left tackle and top-5 NFL Draft pick Joe Alt, so there seems to be confidence there.
Behind the first-string ends is some combination of Josh Burnham, Junior Tuihalamaka, Boubacar Traore, Bryce Young and Cole Mullins. Burnham and Tuihalamaka — both third-years who were recruited as linebackers — likely lead in the clubhouse given their experience in the defense. Burnham flashed at times last season, playing in all 13 games and recording four TFLs and one sack. Tuihalamaka, though, has struggled to find his niche on the D-line after putting on too much weight to stay at middle linebacker.
As for the true freshmen Young and Mullins, they likely slot in at third or fourth-string at their respective end spots. Still, their ahead-of-schedule physical makeups (Young is listed at 6-foot-7 and 246 pounds while Mullins is 6-foot-4and 244 pounds) provide some intrigue for getting on the field this year.
The one to watch, however, is Traore, the then-true freshman who strip-sacked Caleb Williams at the end of the first half against USC last season (and then almost gave Williams a free shot at the end zone by getting caught celebrating offsides, but hopefully he’s grown from that). The 6-foot-4, 240-pounder has a long build and could be a difference-maker if the light goes on early in his career. However, the key word there is “if” since he only played in five games last season (still qualifying for a redshirt since the fifth game was the Sun Bowl).
Beyond those names, the rest of the defensive line was neatly divided into two groups: guys for whom the writing was on the wall and guys for whom it wasn’t. The latter group consisted of the underclassmen who still have time to develop: true freshmen Loghan Thomas and Sean Sevillano, Jr. and redshirt freshmen Armel Mukam and Devan Houstan; the former were redshirt sophomores Tyson Ford and Aiden Gobaira, both of whom have now been classified as “medical non-counters” to help Notre Dame get under the 85-man scholarship limit.
Ford was a heralded four-star recruit who unwittingly got Notre Dame fans furious with former head coach Brian Kelly after The Athletic’s Pete Sampson reported that Kelly was essentially uninvolved in Ford’s recruitment (whereas Lincoln Riley, then the coach at Oklahoma — the other main player for Ford’s services — had a well-developed relationship with Ford). Then Marcus Freeman arrived at Notre Dame as defensive coordinator and wowed fans by turning the tide of Ford’s recruitment in a hurry. But Ford just couldn’t put it together in South Bend. And as for Gobaira, the former top-200 recruit redshirted his freshmen season and then missed all of his second year with an ACL tear suffered in preseason camp.
From a culture standpoint, it’s remarkable that Notre Dame didn’t have any transfers out of the defensive line this spring, although they came close with Rubio; he’s a player the Irish very much need for the season opener in College Station in August, so keeping him in the fold was a huge positive. And as for the medical cuts to Ford and Gobaira, it really boils down to the cold calculus of roster management.
When it comes to setting expectations for Notre Dame’s defensive line, there’s no Isaiah Foskey, Julian Okwara, Khalid Kareem or other established/household name at pass rusher, which is the money position. Even so, you can count on one hand the number of teams with an argument that their interior is better than that of the Irish. Ultimately, the goal is to replicate last year’s production at a minimum while seeing continued development of the young, raw talent under soon-to-be-third-year coach Al Washington