Notre Dame DE Justin Ademilola declares for NFL Draft

Published Jan 6, 2023

Tyler James • InsideNDSports

Publisher

The Ademilola twins will leave Notre Dame together.

On Friday, graduate senior defensive end Justin Ademilola announced he will enter the 2023 NFL Draft pool rather than return to Notre Dame for a sixth season.

His twin brother Jayson Ademilola, a graduate senior defensive tackle, exhausted his final season of NCAA football eligibility in 2022. Justin Ademilola could have used the COVID-19 eligibility relief to return to Notre Dame for the 2023 season, because he qualified for a redshirt season as a freshman in 2018.

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Instead, Justin Ademilola will end his Notre Dame career with 109 tackles, 13 tackles for loss and nine sacks in 50 games for the Irish. The 6-foot-2, 253-pound defender finished the season tied with two others for sixth on the team in tackles with 39. He added three tackles for loss, three sacks, four quarterback hurries and one fumble recovery.

Justin Ademilola started seven games for the Irish in 2022 as he split time between both defensive end positions. Much of his last two seasons were spent working in a rotation behind all-time program sack leader Isaiah Foskey at vyper defensive end. Only the NFL-bound Foskey had more sacks for Notre Dame the last two seasons combined, 22, than Justin Ademilola’s eight.

Notre Dame will be losing a combined 34 starts from the 2022 season along the defensive line with the departures of Foskey (12), Jayson Ademilola (10), Justin Ademilola (7) and graduate senior defensive tackle Chris Smith (5). The Irish will return 17 starts from the 2022 season on the defensive line: defensive end/tackle Rylie Mills (9), nose tackle Howard Cross III (7) and vyper Jordan Botelho (1).

The Irish have other experienced players returning on the defensive line, because the position group rotates a lot. Current senior defensive end Nana Osafo-Mensah played in all 13 games this past season. Sophomore defensive tackle Gabriel Rubio played in 12.

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Notre Dame will change you if you let it ☘️ pic.twitter.com/CpDW2ky6Dm
— JUSTIN ADEMILOLA🌹 (@JustinAdemilola) January 6, 2023

Notre Dame currently projects to have 17 scholarship defensive linemen on next year’s roster when counting current freshman Junior Tuihalamaka, who played vyper at the end of the season after spending most of his time as a linebacker.

Notre Dame had four freshman defensive linemen redshirt in 2022: ends Aiden Gobaira and Joshua Burnham and tackles Tyson Ford and Donovan Hinish. The Irish signed four more defensive linemen in the 2023 class: ends Brenan Vernon, Boubacar Traore and Armel Mukam and tackle Devan Houstan.

Notre Dame has also been actively perusing the transfer portal for defensive line reinforcements. The Irish offered and hosted Western Michigan defensive tackle Braden Fiske before he signed with Florida State. Utah State defensive end Byron Vaughns is visiting Notre Dame on Friday.

The Ademilola twins signed with Notre Dame out of Jersey City (N.J.) St. Peter’s Prep in the 2018 class. Rivals ranked Justin Ademilola as the No. 34 strongside defensive end and rated him as a three-star prospect. Rivals rated Jayson Ademilola as a four-star recruit and ranked him as the No. 13 defensive tackle and No. 169 overall in the 2018 class.