Notre Dame 2020 Two-Deep Projection: Defense
The “Way Too Early” polls in college football have been out in full force this month for the 2020 season. Notre Dame has been a popular pick in the No. 8-to-10 range.
Thus, it’s “Never Too Early” to start looking ahead to how the depth charts will formulate.
After yesterday's overview of the offense, today we will look at the defense, with the class years referring to the 2020 campaign.
DEFENSIVE ENDS
Scholarship Players: 10
Remember the days where recruiting defensive ends was a problem area? Notre Dame graduated potential first-to-third-round picks Khalid Kareem and Julian Okwara from last year — yet still is replete with quality and experience at this position group.
Starters: SDE Ade Ogundeji (graduate student) and DE Daelin Hayes (graduate student)
Drop end Hayes incurred a season-ending injury in game 4 last year that led to a medical redshirt, yet he is still tied for the most career starts (13) coming back on defense.
Ogundeji made the most tackles (34), stops for loss (7) and sacks (4.5) among returning Irish linemen.
Top Backups: Ovie Oghoufo (junior) or Justin Ademilola at drop end, and Isaiah Foskey (sophomore) on the strong side
Last season Oghoufo and Ademilola combined for 118 and 92 snaps, respectively, with Oghoufo displaying flashes of the fast-twitch explosiveness of Okwara.
Next to safety Kyle Hamilton, no one in last year’s freshman class passed “the eye test” better than the 6-5, 250-pound Foskey, whose blocked punt at Stanford dramatically altered momentum when Notre Dame trailed 17-7, and helped propel the victory. Look for him to have similar impact as Ogundeji did last season behind Kareem.
In the developmental phase will be sophomore NaNa Osafo Mensah and freshmen Rylie Mills — who could also grow into a tackle — Jordan Botelho and Alexander Ehrensberger, all three of whom are early entrants this January.
Senior Kofi Wardlow rounds out the unit.
DEFENSIVE TACKLES
Scholarship Players: 8
Everyone from last season returns, and only incoming freshman Aidan Keanaaina (not an early entrant) has not seen collegiate action.
Starters: NT Kurt Hinish (senior) and DT Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa (senior)
Only one start was missed by the duo last season (Tagovailoa-Amosa at Stanford) while they combined for 37 tackles, seven for loss.
Tagovailoa-Amosa, who has two years of eligibility remaining after medically redshirting in 2018, finished with 477 snaps (about 40 per game) and Hinish 433 (33 per contest).
Top Backups: NT Jacob Lacey (freshman) and DT Jayson Ademilola (junior)
This duo actually combined for more stops (39, 5.5 for loss) than the two starters in a liberal interior rotation that saw Lacey take 247 snaps and Ademilola 238.
Their 20 snaps per game apiece could increase in this strong four-man rotation, with Lacey’s strength as a freshman last year well advanced.
As a sophomore last year, Ja’Mion Franklin also played 118 snaps after medically redshirting as a freshman, while first-year tackles Howard Cross (seven tackles) and Hunter Spears got their feet wet as well without losing a year of eligibility.
LINEBACKERS/ROVERS
Scholarship Players: 11
One reason why no linebacker was signed in the 2020 recruiting class is because among the current 11, only Jordan Genmark Heath is out of eligibility after this season — although two other seniors could opt to turn pro rather than return for a fifth year.
Starters: Jeremiah Owusu Koramoah (senior) and Drew White (senior)
These are the only two certainties, as they finished as the top two tacklers in 2019 with 80 apiece, Owusu Koramoah at rover and White in the middle (Mike).
The X-factor is who replaces the graduated Asmar Bilal at Buck.
Head coach Brian Kelly has hinted that a position change might be in the works at Buck — which would follow the pattern Drue Tranquill (2018) and Bilal (2019) had each of the last two seasons when shifting from rover to Buck for their fifth season of eligibility and then excelling.
Owusu-Koramoah, who made the ESPN All-Bowl Team, was the prototype rover while tying for the team lead in tackles (80), and pacing the unit in stops for lost yardage (13.5 for 159 yards) and sacks (5.5 for 34 yards). He also was fourth in passes defensed (4) and could be an effective "big nickel" in sub packages.
However, the Buck in this system has been even more valuable, and his playmaking skills there would be an appealing option.
Top Backups: Paul Moala (junior, at rover), Jack Lamb (junior, at Buck), and Shayne Simon (junior, at Mike or Buck), or Bo Bauer (junior, at Mike).
Moala had 104 snaps last season while Simon (dislocated patella) and Lamb (torn hip muscle) — used in the dime package for his coverage skills — were sidelined in November. The availability of Simon and Lamb, who has had a litany of injury setbacks, is sketchy at best for this spring.
Bauer — named the team’s Special Teams Player of the Year — ended up with more defensive snaps (91) than Simon (90) and Lamb (87) after the duo suffered their injuries.
With the participation level of Simon and Lamb uncertain, current freshmen Jack Kiser (rover) and JD Bertrand (Mike), Osita Ekwonu (Buck) and Marist Liufau (Buck) might have an opportunity to emerge. Kiser and Liufau were used on special teams last year without burning a year of eligibility, and the overall quartet impressed the staff enough to where linebacker recruiting was not deemed an urgency in this cycle.
Similar to the original intended plan with senior defensive end Jamir Jones last year, it wouldn’t be the craziest notion to have Genmark Heath redshirt as a senior to either return more seasoned in 2021 or have graduate transfer eligibility elsewhere.
CORNERBACKS
Scholarship Players: 8
Other than quarterback, no position group features more gaps between classes than cornerback, where six of the eight scholarship players have four years of eligibility remaining.
The number dropped to eight this weekend after Landen Bartleson, who signed his letter of intent in December, was taken into police custody this Friday back in his Kentucky hometown and accused of multiple serious charges involving auto theft and firearms. After reviewing all the facts internally, Kelly confirmed that Bartleson would no longer be part of the Notre Dame community.
Starters: TaRiq Bracy (junior) and Shaun Crawford (6th year graduate student)
The return of Crawford is significant, but tempered by the knowledge that he missed all of 2015 and 2018 with torn ACLs, and all but the first five quarters of 2016 with a torn Achilles. Even last year, torn ligaments in his elbow sidelined him for three games.
Bracy’s 467 snaps last season while appearing in 11 games (starting two) are the most among the returning corners, and his seven pass breakups in 2019 paced the team.
Top Backups: KJ Wallace (sophomore) and Cam Hart (sophomore)
Wallace was an active figure last August when practice was open to the media, and he did play 18 snaps (without losing eligibility), but there was too much veteran presence on the back end for him to see action.
In order to provide more range and size to the position, 6-2 ½, 208-pound receiver recruit Hart was shifted to cornerback and was temporarily listed on the two-deep when Crawford was injured.
Also in the current sophomore class is Isaiah Rutherford.
Four developmental corners, led by Bartleson, were signed in December to help restock the position. Two of them, Caleb Offord and Ramon Henderson, enrolled in January and are available for the wide-open competition this spring at the backup spots. Clarence Lewis will enroll in June.
SAFETIES
Scholarship Players: 5
No area needs more restocking more on the current recruiting circuit than safety.
Starters: Kyle Hamilton (sophomore) and Isaiah Pryor (graduate transfer) or Houston Griffith (junior)
The graduation of 2019 captains Alohi Gilman and Jalen Elliott would have left an immense void were it not for the presence of Ohio State graduate transfer Pryor and Freshman All-American Hamilton.
Pryor started seven games for the 13-1 Buckeyes in 2018 before opting to transfer last fall because of a more limited role in the scheme.
Hamilton paced the 2019 Irish in passes defensed (10) and intercepted (4), and was second in pass breakups (6) and seventh in tackles (41) despite more of a part-time role.
Hamilton was utilized in a lot of three-safety alignments, and it wouldn’t surprise us if Griffith — Notre Dame’s top-ranked recruit in 2018 (No. 44 nationally) — could take on such a role, especially with cornerback such an inexperienced unit.
Top Backups:D.J. Brown (junior) and Litchfield Ajavon (sophomore)
Converted cornerback Brown played 75 snaps last season, while Ajavon was singled out by Kelly during the December bowl practices as someone whose solid play was becoming more conspicuous among the younger players.
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