First Glimpse Of An Al Golden Led Defense Shows Major Potential
It has been a very long time since we saw Al Golden running a defense, which made seeing his unit in action in the Notre Dame Blue-Gold Game intriguing. I can't speak for everyone else, but it was one of the aspects of the spring game I had the most anticipation for.
Yesterday we finally got to get a taste of what a defense led by Golden and with Al Washington coaching the defensive line will look like. It would be worth throwing in graduate assistant and former Ohio State All-American James Laurinaitis, who also works with the linebackers.
It was just a taste, keep that in mind, but it was impressive.
Notre Dame's defense, on both the Gold and the Blue teams, played fast and was aggressive. It wasn't a blitz heavy look and they didn't bring a ton of six or more man pressures. The aggressiveness came out of the base defense, and all three levels flew to the football all game long.
There were mistakes, which you can expect in any spring game, but the speed with which the defense went about its business was arguably the biggest standout from the game. Notre Dame's defenders look comfortable with their assignments, they reacted quickly to what was happening and then their athleticism took over.
Now, in a spring game you're facing an offense you've faced every other day for a month, so there is some familiarity, but it was good to see the defense comfortable and confident in what they were being asked to do.
I was impressed with the angles the second and third level players took to the football. It was far from perfect (see Jadarian Price's 51-yard touchdown on a screen and Jayden Thomas juking a safety in space), but it was obvious this defensive staff is putting a lot of emphasis on two things: playing fast and playing sound.
We saw Golden being aggressive with five-man pressures, but it was hard to get a read on who was coming and from where, which is key for a defense. Golden used his linebacker and safety pressures more as run stunts than as pass down blitzes, which spoke to an overall emphasis on needing to shut down the run.
Of course, that objective was achieved as the Gold offense averaged just 3.5 yards per carry and the Blue offense averaged just 3.4 yards per attempt.
Washington's defensive line was quite impressive. They played an aggressive vertical game and did a quality job from a gap awareness standpoint. Their hand play was impressive, even with the younger players, and the block destruction was effective as a result. The timing of the twists needs improvement, but overall the defensive line looked strong, and that was without one of its best players (Jayson Ademilola) and with two other standouts (Isaiah Foskey, Justin Ademilola) not playing full-time.
The linebackers were arguably the most impressive group in the game, on either side of the ball. One couldn't help but notice how long and fast this unit was, especially the Blue squad. In fact, it was hard to name a linebacker who didn't impress at least from an athleticism standpoint on Saturday in the Blue-Gold Game.
Getting Marist Liufau back made a difference, and sophomore Prince Kollie was the most productive inside linebacker on the White squad. Returning starter Jack Kiser was very active and decisive, and freshman Niuafe Tuihalamaka was extremely impressive. A defensive end recruit, rising junior Jordan Botelho is now playing rover, and he was yet another linebacker standout.
We saw plenty of positives from the secondary as well, especially All-American safety Brandon Joseph.
Turnovers were a very troubling part of the game for the offense, but forcing turnovers was clearly a major positive for the Irish defense.
I'm sure Golden, Washington and the rest of the defensive staff will tell you there is still a lot of work to do and plenty of improvements need to be made. That is true for Notre Dame and every other team in college football at this point in a team's development. But if you're a Notre Dame fan there's reason to believe that Al Golden will continue the tradition that began with Mike Elko and continued with Clark Lea and then Marcus Freeman .... build a dominant Notre Dame defense.
In fact, if this unit can build on what we saw yesterday this group could end up being the best Irish defense in quite some time.
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