12/29/2022 football Edit

Gator Bowl injury report: Notre Dame starting DT Jayson Ademilola sidelined

Notre Dame DT Jayson Ademilola will miss the Gator Bowl with an undisclosed injury. (Jeff Douglas, Inside ND Sports)

Tyler James • InsideNDSports

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Covering Notre Dame football, recruiting and other Irish sports. Email: tjames@insidendsports.com

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — No. 21 Notre Dame will be missing another starting defensive lineman in Friday's Gator Bowl.

Head coach Marcus Freeman announced Thursday that starting defensive tackle Jayson Ademilola would not play against No. 19 South Carolina (8-4) due to injury. Freeman did not disclose details of the injury that will prevent him from playing at TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville, Fla.

Ademilola missed the Boston College game with a concussion but returned to play the next week against USC in the regular season finale. The 6-foot-3, 285-pound graduate senior started 10 games for the Irish (8-4) this season.

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Ademilola tallied 29 tackles in 11 games. His three sacks are tied with his twin brother, Justin Ademilola, for the second-most on the team behind All-America defensive end Isaiah Foskey, who chose to sit out the game to prepare for the NFL Draft. Jayson Ademilola also recorded the third-most tackles for loss on the team (five).

Notre Dame will likely use a combination of players to account for the starting defensive tackle's absence. Starting nose tackle Howard Cross III, graduate senior Chris Smith, junior Rylie Mills and sophomore Gabriel Rubio have taken reps at defensive tackle on a line that rotates a lot and moves players around to different alignments.

Freeman also noted that starting safety Brandon Joseph, who has been dealing with an ankle injury since early November, will be a game-time decision (3:30 p.m. EST on ESPN). Joseph missed the Navy and Boston College games before returning for the USC game and practiced with the team all week.

Joseph, who transferred from Northwestern with the goal of improving his NFL Draft stock, registered 30 tackles, one interception returned for a touchdown and one forced fumble this season.

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