Notre Dame’s Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa Building Toward More Impact
At 6-2½, 282 pounds, it isn’t necessarily a snap for senior Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa to excel as a defensive tackle against 300-plus-pounds guards.
However, his guile and instincts complement his physical skills enough that he will quietly be counted on to get most of the snaps along the interior.
It continues a pattern prevalent most of his career. As a freshman in 2017, Tagovailoa-Amosa was one of the top surprises on the team, appearing in all 13 games and totaling 329 snaps, or 25 per contest.
Highlighting that campaign were his two fourth-and-inches stops in the second half during tight contests against Boston College and North Carolina State that proved to be game-changing plays in victory.
At the time, Tagovailoa-Amosa was 293 pounds, with perhaps the anticipation that in a collegiate strength and conditioning program, he would be the 305-pound type achor in the interior that first-round selection Jerry Tillery was as a senior in 2018.
So here it is in Tagovailoa-Amosa’s senior year — and he’s actually down to 282. At 6-7, Tillery’s body structure was different from the more compact Tagovailoa-Amosa’s, whose skill set relies a little more on football acumen than physical dominance.
“It’s the natural development of a guy that not only has the physical tools, but awareness,” head coach Brian Kelly said. “He’s a guy that you can’t throw screen against, because he recognizes that. Certainly his athleticism shows itself. Recognition of blocking schemes — just that awareness that you get with experience.”
A broken foot in the 2018 opener versus Michigan sidelined Tagovailoa-Amosa the balance of the regular season, but fortunately the starter there, Tillery, was durable enough to repeatedly answer the bell, and he was blessed with the talent and dedication to excel as an All-American and became the school’s first defensive lineman in 22 years to be drafted in the first round.
Having to fill Tillery’s massive shoes in 2019, Tagovailoa-Amosa started 12 of the 13 games as a junior, missing only the regular-season finale at Stanford with an injury before returning for the Camping World Bowl win versus Iowa State.
Rather inconspicuously, he had the second-most overall snaps along the defensive line last year with 477 (about 40 per contest). Only graduated senior end Khalid Kareem, the 2019 Defensive MVP, with 561 had more.
In this year’s opener against Duke, Tagovailoa’s 44 snaps along the line were right in line with fifth-year seniors Daelin Hayes and Ade Ogundeji at end, who had 46 apiece. More importantly, his impact with four tackles (three solo, one for loss), helped aid the 27-13 victory.
Per Pro Football Focus, Tagovailoa-Amosa played only 16 snaps versus South Florida, which afforded the backups more time, especially with junior Jayson Ademilola sidelined. Freshman Rylie Mills racked up 26 snaps, while sophomore Howard Cross III matched Tagovailoa-Amosa’s 16.
The senior still remains the largest figure at his particular position. The 6-3 Ademilola is 279 pounds, while the 6-1 Cross is 275. Mills, who enrolled in January, added about 20 pounds to get up to 273 around his 6-5 frame. No one at the three-technique possesses prototype size, but like many other areas of the team, there is quality depth to augment the collective group.
Interestingly, as a junior in 2017 Tillery had 56 tackles, nine stops for loss and 4.5 sacks. The tackle total for him as a senior dropped to 29 (only seven more than Tagovailoa-Amosa last year).
That’s where effectiveness can’t always be necessarily measured by raw data. Tillery impacted the game more with 29 tackles in 2018 than the 56 in 2017, because with him as the interior anchor for the Irish, opposing offenses were forced to account for him a lot more — and that made the world a little easier for first-time starting ends Kareem and Julian Okwara, among others.
Tagovailoa-Amosa does not possess the size or game-changing skills of Tillery, but he does need to be more impactful at a position that has to be better than 22 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and a half sack — although his six QB hurries were among the best on the team in 2019.
There was some consternation expressed by Notre Dame faithful early in the 2019 season that the ends were not as productive or game-changing as perhaps expected to be, or as they were a year earlier. But the absence of Tillery in the lineup helped affect that dynamic.
Because Notre Dame does not have supreme bulk or size up front, it will have to be resourceful strategically against the run to compensate for the lack of sheer girth.
“Going into this year now, Myron has a great sense of what they’re trying to do to him and he can defeat blocking schemes, whether it’s a run game, or being savvy enough to understand whether it’s a screen or a drop back pass,” Kelly said. “He’s got a complete game.”
It will need to go a longer way to give the defensive front the push it needs, in more ways than one.
----
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, Blue & Gold Illustrated.
• Watch our videos and subscribe to our YouTube channel
• Sign up for Blue & Gold's news alerts and daily newsletter
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Follow us on Twitter: @BGINews, @BGI_LouSomogyi, @Rivals_Singer, @PatrickEngel_, @MasonPlummer_ and @AndrewMentock.
• Like us on Facebook.