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The tireless motors behind Jayson and Justin Ademilola’s rise

Jayson and Justin Ademilola were curious in a rare moment of defeat.

The twin brothers were the biggest kids on the Jackson Jaguars youth football team in Central New Jersey, and unsurprisingly, a chore for fellow 8-year-olds to block. Except for one teammate, who could hold his own.

They wondered why. What did he do that they weren’t doing? So they asked.

The teammate responded that he wrestled. The same day, the twins made a request to their father, Ade. If wrestling could help a teammate, they figured it could help them too.

“They came home and said, ‘Dad, we have to wrestle,’” Ade said.

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It was an early sign of his sons’ insatiable hunger to better themselves. A sign of motors that are always running and an obsession with chasing perfection.

Those inherent traits have not waned in the years since a youth league practice brought them to light. They sent Jayson and Justin down the path to their current roles as senior defensive linemen at Notre Dame and the consistent impact they have made this season.

Jayson, the Irish’s starting three-technique tackle, is tied for second nationally among interior linemen with 20 quarterback pressures through five games, per Pro Football Focus. He has 3.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, two passes broken up and a forced fumble — he’s a bowling ball of disruption. His 22 total tackles are third on the team, a ranking not typical of a defensive tackle.

“He’s running to the football,” head coach Brian Kelly said. “There is no play off for him. That kind of play, for a guy who plays inside, it’s unmistakable. You see it.”

Justin, meanwhile, is the Irish’s No. 2 vyper. In defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman’s scheme, that means playing on the line of scrimmage and at linebacker. He has pass-rush and coverage responsibilities.

After two years as the backup strong-side end, Justin has transitioned into a more agile position with aplomb. He has 19 tackles (ninth on the team) and two sacks, in addition to 20 snaps in coverage.

“He has good spacial awareness that when he does drop, he has a pretty good feel of where he is,” Kelly said. “And he has been disruptive. When he drops, he gets underneath the curls.”

Their roles are different, but their mental wiring is identical. The best way to summarize it?

“I want to be elite each and every day I come on the field,” Jayson said. “That’s my one goal.”

‘They Sought This Out’

The twins picked up wrestling as a football cross-training tool and turned it into a second sport through high school. Somehow, they kept it up, even as their list of football demands voluntarily grew.

When they decided in middle school to chase college football dreams, they wanted to go all in. That meant playing for a high school that competes in New Jersey’s best league.

St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City fit the description. One problem, though: It’s a 90-minute drive in New Jersey rush hour traffic from the Ademilola’s home in Jackson Township.

Still, they brought up the idea to Ade. He approved. They would leave before the sunrise to get there on time. On days with football practice, they wouldn’t return home until 8 or 9 p.m.

“They sought this out for themselves,” Ade said.

But simply playing in the North Jersey Super Football Conference wasn’t enough. The twins wanted to dominate it.

Pete Kafaf runs a lineman camp a couple times per week in the offseason in Red Bank, about 45 minutes from Jackson and the same distance from St. Peter’s. He has trained about 25 future college players and a few NFL guys, including Indianapolis Colts and former Notre Dame guard Quenton Nelson. Ben Petrula, now a guard at Boston College and the Ademilolas’ St. Peter’s teammate, also was among his clients.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football senior defensive linemen Jayson and Justin Ademilola
Defensive linemen Jayson and Justin Ademilola are among Notre Dame's top 10 tacklers this year. (Chad Weaver/BGI)

The twins learned of Kafaf through Petrula early in their high school careers. They also discovered he worked with Rashan Gary, a New Jersey native who was the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2016 class (and now in the NFL).

Want to be elite? Train with a coach who has been around other elite players. Shortly after meeting them, Kafaf saw elite upside. Not just because of physical ability, but dedication.

“They day I met them, these kids wanted to be great and wanted to know how to be great,” Kafaf said. “The motor they have on the field is inherent to their athleticism and their being.”

It’s one of innovative spirit, too.

“They started to create their own moves that were pretty sophisticated,” Kafaf said. “That’s when I knew these kids were special.

“You can teach someone to do a swipe or an outside block. What they’d do, particularly Jayson, instead of blowing into a lineman, he would sidestep, get the lineman to commit and do a move on them they couldn’t combat or counter.”

Naturally, they wanted to push themselves in college, and Notre Dame offered the competitive and academic outlet that would challenge them. They were a package deal, no questions asked. Their motors run the fastest when they’re together.

“They’re constantly at each other,” Kafaf said. “I think they singularly would not be as good as they are if they didn’t have each other to push and challenge each other.

“I watched them time and time again, if one of them worked a great move, the other would get challenged by that and want to be better. Those two pushed each other more than I did, more than their coaches did or parents did.”

Senior-Year Surges

Maybe it was the strip-sack versus Wisconsin where he kept churning his legs, walked back a guard and shed him before bear-hugging Badgers quarterback Graham Mertz to jar the ball loose. Or maybe it was the tackle for loss against Toledo where he slipped past his man then swiped away a pulling guard to make the stop.

Whatever the highlight, Jayson Ademilola is no longer under the radar for Notre Dame fans thanks to his frequent havoc plays this year. He’s no longer a secret.

He is, though, hard to miss even when he’s not in the backfield. He has made tackles on receivers and tight ends outside the numbers. He has brought down running backs 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. That’s how an interior lineman averages nearly five tackles per game.

“I want to make every play,” Jayson said. “I’m a hungry player. When the ball is in my area or across the field, I’m hunting it down.”

A starting-caliber rotation player in 2019 and 2020, Jayson posted 4.0 tackles for loss as a sophomore. He ended last season with arguably the two best games of his career in losses to Clemson and Alabama, with six total pressures and 1.5 sacks. Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa’s presence at three-technique, though, kept him as the No. 2 option throughout. He was involved, but not the starter.

Then Notre Dame moved Tagovailoa-Amosa to strong-side end this season, paving a clear road for Jayson to start. In his first year as a starter, he’s averaging 48.2 snaps per game, a larger workload than prior Notre Dame starting three-techniques, but a deserved one given his impact.

Tagovailoa-Amosa’s move hurt Justin’s case to start at strong-side end, but he has made himself valuable as a vyper with his coverage improvements and pass-rush acumen. He is averaging 28.5 snaps per game, by far the highest mark of his career.

Notre Dame needed a dependable second vyper with sophomore Jordan Botelho unavailable the first two games for undisclosed reasons. Justin met the moment — and has kept the role.

As a result, the twins are on the field together more than any point in their Notre Dame tenures.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Jayson said. “We’ve had different careers here up until this point. There wasn’t one time in my head where I thought my brother wasn’t an elite player. We both grew up hard-nosed wrestlers. That’s where I get my mindset, where he gets his mindset.”

The answer to an innocuous question to a youth league teammate is still paying off. And by extension, flustering offenses.

“When I look to the left and see we’re both together,” Jayson said, “that whole side of the field is shut down.”

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