ATLANTA — Gabe Rubio knew immediately the moment he felt a stabbing pain in his left foot on July 31 that he had hit yet another detour in pushing himself toward the high ceiling he for himself he was sure still existed.
It was the first day of Notre Dame training camp for the Irish senior defensive tackle. The first day of any real football-related activities since the Sun Bowl in late December of 2023. The first day to redeem himself from missing spring semester at ND for personal reasons. And his reaction to what turned out to be a fractured food was succinct.
“Damn! This sucks,” Rubio shared on Saturday ahead of Monday night’s CFP National Championship Game between the seventh-seeded Irish (14-1) and 8 seed and Vegas heavily favored Ohio State (13-2).
TV start time at Mercedes-Benz Stadium is 7:30 EST, at which time Rubio will be making his third career start. Against his third-straight college football blueblood — 2 seed Georgia, 6 seed Penn State and now the Buckeyes.
With a metal plate in his foot and enough intermittent discomfort in it to remind him how far he’s come. And what aspirations he’s still fervently chasing anyways.
And that’s how he landed on Inside ND Sports’ Players to Watch list. Irish players on a redemptive arc of some sort keep showing up in big moments during the ND playoff run. Is it Rubio’s turn Monday night?
He’s certainly got the appetite for it.
“It’s going to be a heavyweight battle, man,” he said. “Heavyweight fighters, they fight. So, it’s going to be bloody. It’s going to be gruesome. It’s going to be a long 60 minutes.”
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Ahead of the game on Monday, the WSBT Gameday SportsBeat pregame radio show will run from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. (wsbtradio.com/96.1 FM), with Inside ND Sports' Eric Hansen part of that broadcast team.
Inside ND Sports has you covered after the game on our YouTube channel with our Postgame Takeaways show with Tyler James and Eric Hansen. That drops late Monday night for your Tuesday morning viewing.
Rubio was an important rotational player on ND’s interior line heading into the playoff, then became the starter at defensive tackle when grad senior Rylie Mills — ND’s sack leader — suffered a season-ending knee injury Dec. 20 in the College Football Playoff opener against Indiana.
The 6-foot5- 316-pound Rubio didn’t join that rotation, though, until mid-October and played 21 snaps in a 49-7 rout of Stanford. In the 27-24 win over Penn State Jan. 9 in the CFP semis/Orange Bowl, he logged a career-high 47 plays.
“Every week gets a little bit better and better,” he said. “I still feel pain every now and then, but it’s definitely not as bad as when I first started. But like when did I start feeling like myself? It was probably right before the playoff run, we were playing USC [on Nov. 30].
“It was definitely being able to trust my body again. So like I obviously trust it now, but when I first started getting back, I didn’t trust my bone to hold up, even though I knew there was no chance of it getting hurt again. So, it was just getting over that little mental barrier to like get ready again.”
Rubio has 22 tackles in his 10 games played, including 2.5 for loss with one sack,. He also had a pass breakup. He’s expected to be the start next season when he returns for a fifth year.
But he’s only focused now on the immediate future.
“It’s that ‘next man up’ mentality,” Rubio said. “Once Rylie went down, I was like, ‘All right I have to step up. I have to fill his shoes and then I need to excel and do good for this team.’ And that’s what I intend on doing.”
There’s a long list of players on both sides of the ball with similar intentions. It’s Inside ND Sports’ practice to zero in on four, two from each team. Here are the others:
Notre Dame offensive tackle Charles Jagusah
Like Rubio, Jagusah suffered an injury early in training camp that hijacked a season in which he was expected to ascend into being one of Notre Dame’s best players.
The 6-7, 328-pound sophomore still might end up there after missing the entire regular season as well as Notre Dame’s CFP opener with Indiana on Dec. 20. And the Irish need him to be Monday night as the starting left tackle, given the elite edge players Ohio State can throw at Notre Dame in both pass-rush situations (the Buckeyes are third in the nation in sacks) and in the run game (OSU is also No, 3 in run defense).
Jagusah warmed up by playing five special teams snaps Jan. 2 against Georgia, then 53 plays at right guard in relief of an injured Rocco Spindler in the Penn State win a week later. He steps in Monday night for an injured Anthonie Knapp at left tackle.
“It’s really what we bring as a group as a whole,” Jagusah said of the Irish offensive line adjusting to a series of injuries this season and yet continuing to collectively improve.
“Everybody believes in each other. We believe everyone in our room can play at the highest level. To be able to show that throughout the year that we have multiple guys at multiple positions that can play at a really high level is something that we’re all super proud of.”
It’s a rerun of sorts to last season’s Sun Bowl start in which Jagusah missed the entire 2023 regular season coming back from knee surgery and didn’t start practicing full-go until December of 2023.
The same timeline he followed this season.
“Coming back to play this season was a goal of mine, but I actually didn’t think about it too much until we made the playoffs,” he said, “because my timeline for my injury was like, I maybe would be cleared by the end of the season.
“But by that point, we had already had the guys up for so long that it just really didn’t make sense to switch it up, But I just kind of kept preparing the same way as if I had been playing the whole year, and it really helped me out.”
Ohio State wide receiver Emeka Egbuka
For all the talk about freshman phenom wide receiver Jeremiah Smith — and he deserves every bit of it — Egbuka actually has a few more catches this season than Smith (75 to 71) and also has a history of torching Notre Dame’s pass defenses.
In the 21-10 Buckeye victory in 2022, in the first regular-season game Marcus Freeman served as Notre Dame’s head coach, Egbuka led the OSU receiving threats with nine catches for 90 yards and a TD.
In the 2023 sequel, a 17-14 Ohio State escape at Notre Dame Stadium, Egbuka led the Buckeyes with seven catches for 96 yards, including a 21-yarder on third-and-19 late in the fourth quarter that set up the winning score.
Arizona State grad transfer Jordan Clark at nickel figures to have the primary coverage duties on Egbuka.
Ohio State linebacker Cody Simon
When it comes to Players to Watch on the Buckeye defense, it’d be easier to list who NOT to watch — and that might end up being an empty queue.
Simon isn’t the most obvious choice hare, but he’s an intriguing one, The younger brother of former Notre Dame linebacker Shayne Simon has really come into his own in his fifth college season.
Cody Simon leads the Buckeyes with 104 tackles in 14 games, 11.5 of them for losses. He also has a fumble recovery and a forced fumble. Simon is part of the elite pass rush, with seven sacks of his own. And he’s outstanding in coverage, as his seven pass breakups attest.
Overall, Pro Football Focus grades the 6-2, 235-pounder as OSU’s No. 2 overall defender behind only defensive end Jack Sawyer, the hero of the Buckeyes’ CFP semifinal win over Texas.
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