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Notre Dame Defensive Line Depth Still Under Construction

The return of Jarron Jones aids the starting unit, but finding more depth is imperative.
The return of Jarron Jones aids the starting unit, but finding more depth is imperative.

There is a significant difference between having numbers at a position and possessing legitimate depth. The 2015 Notre Dame defensive line was a prime example. It had enviable numbers, but come game time, it wasn’t appreciably deep.

Even with starting nose guard Jarron Jones suffering an August knee injury that shelved him the entire regular season, the 2015 Notre Dame team had 14 available defensive linemen on scholarship, or three and a half teams in a 4-3 alignment. Ideally, a staff would like to have the confidence to construct a unit where at least eight players can comfortably rotate, with the reserves maybe putting in about 20 quality snaps per game. That way, not too much is placed on the second group, while at the same time the first unit is able to maintain relatively fresh legs into November.

First-year defensive line coach Keith Gilmore’s line was able to use six men while having a rotation at two of the four positions in 2015. The questions now is whether more can more work their way into the mix in 2016.

Last year as a junior, Isaac Rochell unofficially led the line in snaps with 783, or about 60 per game (50 to 55 has usually been demarcated as the threshold for defensive linemen). Graduating senior Sheldon Day wasn’t far behind at 748.

As sophomores behind that duo, Jonathan Bonner and Grant Blankenship saw only token or mop-up action. Until the Fiesta Bowl, Bonner had 69 snaps during the regular season (about six per game), while Blankenship had — by BlueandGold.com’s count — 24.

In fairness, most of Notre Dame’s numbers along the 2015 line were manned by greenhorns, with nine of them either sophomores or true freshmen who were in developmental phases. Only Jerry Tillery played among the four freshmen, while the other three — Elijah Taylor, Micah Dew-Treadway and Brandon Tiassum — were redshirted.

Among the sophomores, end Andrew Trumbetti (368 snaps, about 28 per game) and nose guard Daniel Cage (262 snaps, about 20 per contest) played regularly, and Jay Hayes also redshirted with most of the freshmen, while Bonner and Blankenship and Peter Mokwuah (16 snaps) played sparingly.

This spring, with the return of Jones, the inclusion of early freshman entrants Khalid Kareem and Daelin Hayes (a hybrid rush end/linebacker), and the switch of senior John Montelus, a former offensive lineman, to defense while Jacob Matuska shifted to tight end, Notre Dame has 14 scholarship linemen in tow.

On paper and based on past performance, the prime performers are clear: Rochell at strongside end, Jones at nose guard, Trumbetti at weakside end and Tillery moving over to Day’s vacated three-technique slot.

The second wave of linemen is the bigger inquiry. Cage was a tag-team partner of Tillery at nose guard last year, and he is expected to have a similar role with the more veteran and NFL prospect Jones this year.

But who else is primed for meaningful snaps to ease the burden on the starters? Numbers don’t mean much if the staff lacks confidence in not having a significant drop-off in production.

There’s a lot of competition,” Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly said of the defensive line following the fifth practice of the spring. “That’s where there’s a lot of guys that are using this time to really try and hone in on what that rotation looks like. We’re trying to get guys on the edge — we moved Jay Hayes out to the defensive end position. Hayes and Blankenship are guys we’re really looking at. We’re looking at [Elijah] Taylor. He’s so strong and physical. Can he play the three [technique]?

“… We’re trying to make sure we get through all of our individual [drills] so we can get to that ‘team’ work so our twos get a lot of work. We really have got to sort it out.”

The seventh-year Notre Dame head coach recognizes there isn’t an elite pass-rushing figure coming off the edge, but that can be worked around resourcefully with different strategies or teamwork. The 6-3½, 257-pound Daelin Hayes might come closest to fitting that prototype, but with multiple shoulder surgeries and limited high school action on his dossier, the five-star prospect is in a holding pattern this spring while not engaging in contact drills.

At worst, he could be a situational pass rusher, a la freshman Kolin Hill in 2014, before he transferred to Texas Tech.

All of his ‘measurables’ in terms of the individual work we do with him without contact has been really good — how he bends, how he retains information, how he competes,” Kelly said. “It’s hard to say we know that that’s going to translate [in live play]. We feel really confident, but we’re still in that hoping stage that it’s going to come out the way we think it is.”

Until then, the difference between “numbers” and “depth” remains pronounced.

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