Blue & Gold Illustrated: 2012 Notre Dame Football Preview
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86 ✦ BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2017 FOOTBALL PREVIEW DEFENSIVE LINEMEN Seniors Jay Hayes (above) and Andrew Trumbetti will be co-starters at strongside end. PHOTO BY RICK KIMBALL QUOTABLE: DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR MIKE ELKO ON THE PROGRESS OF THE DEFENSIVE LINE THIS SPRING, INCLUDING SENIOR ENDS JAY HAYES AND ANDREW TRUMBETTI: "Your run disruption comes from your D-line recreating the line of scrimmage. I think at the beginning of the spring, it was clearly being recreated on our side. It's gotten more even as the spring has gone on, to where maybe we had a few more on their side." Starter ★★½ Defensive line and safety might be the biggest question marks on the team, and could have the biggest im- pact on overall performance. Junior nose tackle Jerry Tillery had a good spring, and his play up the middle is vi- tal to putting together a playoff-caliber line. Unproven senior Jonathan Bonner is poised to start beside Tillery inside. Notre Dame's ends combined for just one sack last fall. Seniors Andrew Trumbetti and Jay Hayes will man the strongside position and should form a solid duo. Sophomore Daelin Hayes has a chance to be an impact player at drop end. Experience ★★ Trumbetti has logged more than 1,000 career snaps and registered 63 tackles, 8.5 stops for loss, two sacks and 14 quarterback hurries, all team highs among the returning linemen. Tillery has the most career starts (14), and his 978 snaps the last two seasons are the most from a returning lineman over that span, but he has compiled only five tackles for loss and one sack. Senior Daniel Cage has 11 career starts, but has had health issues. Bon- ner has played only 361 snaps and made just 11 tackles. Behind those four, no one else has more than 155 career snaps. Depth ★★½ Notre Dame will begin the season with 18 scholarship defensive line- men, so numbers are not a problem. Ten were graded as four-star recruits and one as a five-star (Daelin Hayes). What the unit lacks is proven produc- tion, returning merely 20 career tack- les for loss and three sacks. Instrumental to the line establish- ing quality depth is unproven sopho- mores such as Julian Okwara, Khalid Kareem and Adetokunbo Ogundeji emerging on the outside, and juniors Elijah Taylor, Micah Dew-Treadway and Brandon Tiassum doing the same inside. Overall Grade ★★½ This unit has numbers and ability, at least on paper, but until it shows up in games it remains unproven. Tillery has the tools to put together a break- out season, while Trumbetti and Jay Hayes were highly regarded recruits that have yet to live up to expecta- tions. If that changes in 2017, the Irish pass rush will improve. Daelin Hayes could be the differ- ence between being solid up front or being a playoff unit. Hayes is an elite athlete with the talent to be Notre Dame's best pass rusher since Stephon Tuitt registered 12 sacks in 2012. BY THE NUMBERS 3 Consecutive years (2014-16) Notre Dame has allowed at least 170 rushing yards per game, a first in school history. The 2-8 team in 1956 yielded a school-record 279.1 yards per game on the ground, while the 1957 outfit surrendered 185.9. Since then, allowing a minimum of 170 rushing yards per game three seasons in a row has not occurred until 2014 (171.2), 2015 (175.6) and last year (182.4). Even the 2013 de- fense allowed 168.0 to rank 70th. 11 Quarterback sacks recorded by the Notre Dame defense in this year 's Blue-Gold Game — nearly matching the 14 by the Fighting Irish during the 4-8 campaign last year. Data from a spring game can be the ultimate fool's gold in football, especially given that the quarterbacks are in non- contact red jerseys and might have eluded several "sacks" in live action. Nevertheless, some signs of upgraded team defensive play and aggression were evident. 272 Career tackles recorded by the gradu- ated tandem of Isaac Rochell (167) and Jar- ron Jones (105), with 41.5 resulting in lost yardage. The top career returning tacklers along the 2017 Notre Dame defensive line are senior Andrew Trumbetti (63 stops), junior Jerry Tillery (49) and senior Daniel Cage (32). Yet neither Trumbetti nor Cage were first team at the end of spring. 86 ✦ BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED 2017 FOOTBALL PREVIEW PRESEASON ANALYSIS ★★★★★ National Title; ★★★★ Top 10; ★★★ Top 25; ★★ Too Unproven; ★ Major Concern