Bringing More Heat To Notre Dame's Defensive Line
One of the coldest Aprils on record in the Midwest hit home for Ewa Beach, Hawai’i native and now sophomore Notre Dame defensive tackle Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa.
“I was definitely pretty upset,” he said after the April 21 Blue-Gold Game. “I was like, ‘Come on now, it’s the middle of April and it’s still snowing.’ … I knew that it was going to be a cold year, but I guess when you’re actually playing in it it’s a whole different thing.”
In another week, following final exams at Notre Dame from May 7-11, Tagovailoa-Amosa will return to the warmth of his native state for about a month, but it will remain business as usual to him.
“You can’t stop training,” Tagovailoa-Amosa stated. “If you want to be the best, you’ve got to do what the average people don’t do. You go home, it’s not vacation … you’ve still got to work.
“After last year seeing how far we went, of course we want to go further.”
Next to co-starting offensive right tackle Robert Hainsey, nobody in Notre Dame’s 21-man freshman class saw more action and had greater impact in the 2017 lineup than Tagovailoa-Amosa, whose 329 snaps (about 25 per game) trailed Hainsey’s 455.
On two different games his explosion off the ball resulted in crucial, momentum-swinging plays. The first came with the Irish leading 14-10 at Boston College and the Eagles going for it on fourth-and-one at Notre Dame’s 30-yard line early in the second half. Tagovailoa-Amosa’s penetration and tackle stopped them short, and the Irish romped from there.
The second saw Notre Dame clinging to a 28-14 second-half lead versus NC State, and the Wolfpack facing fourth-and-one at Notre Dame’s six-yard line. Again, Tagovailoa-Amosa knifed through to record a one-yard loss in the victory.
At 6-2 ½, 285 pounds, he has shed eight pounds from his freshman season and will back up senior Jerry Tillery, Notre Dame’s top lineman, at the three technique. That’s where Tagovailoa-Amosa worked exclusively this spring to provide potentially one of the better on-two punches at any position on the team.
“It’s a fun position,” he said of the opportunity to use his skill set more than at nose tackle, where fifth-year senior Jonathan Bonner and sophomore Kurt Hinish will form a tag team.
Meanwhile, the end positions have an all-junior outlook, with Daelin Hayes, Julian Okwara and Jamir Jones at the drop spot, while Khalid Kareem and Ade Ogundeji align on the strong side.
Physically, Tagovailoa-Amosa said the adjustment to the college game was a little smoother than he expected, but recognized more this spring that if his snap count is to expand, he won’t be able to rely merely on his quickness and instincts.
“In the weight room my numbers are pretty low. I feel like I’ve got to get that up, as well as be an in-game technician,” Tagovailoa-Amosa admitted. “You can do all that in practice, but as far as taking that into the game, that’s what I have to work on as well.”
Where he had to grow the most is becoming more a student of the game.
“If you really love the game you really have to study your film,” he said. “That was the biggest thing I learned. Last year I didn’t really put my time and effort into watching the film. I would just depend on what my coaching was telling me to do instead of watching the film myself.
“I would come on the field and I would see the different formations that the coaches had out, but at the same time I was kind of lost in my head.
“Playmakers do big-time things when they study their opponent, study their every little move, technique and what they do on certain blocks, certain techniques.”
After coming in cold as a freshman, Tagovailoa-Amosa is truly just now starting to warm up, even in northern Indiana.
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