Where Notre Dame football hopes to grow the most on defense this year
· Yahoo Sports
SOUTH BEND —Senior middle linebacker Drayk Bowen is a two-time co-captain who led Notre Dame football with 67 total tackles last season, but he still sees plenty of room for improvement.
That’s especially true when it comes to fitting gaps in the run game behind an athletic defensive front asked to shift more under coordinator Chris Ash than under predecessor Al Golden.
Visit afrikasportnews.co.za for more information.
“For me last year playing off movement was something that we didn’t do necessarily with (Al) Golden, so that was a learning adjustment,” Bowen said this week ahead of Thursday’s fall camp opener. “That’s going to be one area where I’m going to hopefully excel is playing off movement, shooting gaps when I see it open and playing really downhill.”
Bowen, who was limited to mental practice repetitions all spring as he recovered from hip surgery, said watching from the side helped his understanding of Ash’s scheme.
“Seeing it in the spring, being out, being able to just watch and see how the D-line moves, see how linebackers can fit, see what running backs are doing, I think that really helped me,” said Bowen, the 2022 Indiana Mr. Football who starred at Andrean High School in Merrillville.
Per Pro Football Focus, Notre Dame football graded out eighth in the country in rushing defense last season, but the Irish were just 17th in tackling efficiency.
Inside the run-fit challenge for Notre Dame
Bowen was charged with just five missed tackles and a 5.7% missed tackle rate through 16 games in the 2024 run to the College Football Playoff final. Last season, while playing 25% fewer games, his aggregate missed tackles jumped to 12 (one per game) and his missed tackle rate nearly tripled to 16.4%.
“For a linebacker, when the front is aligned, there’s open gaps,” Ash said Thursday, Aug. 6. “And most of the time they have a primary to a secondary gap. We’ll make some calls where those D-linemen are going to move. They’re going to change gaps, whether it’s one gap or two gaps.”
The challenge then for Irish linebackers?
“They have to know what the movement is up front and what that’s going to do to their gap responsibility,” Ash said. “More so it’s what it’s going to do to the ball. The ball is the issue. We’re aware of where open space may be, but we have to be able to fit off movement and know where it’s going to send the ball and make sure we have linebackers in those spots.”
Notre Dame missed 40 tackles against the run last season, including a combined eight by backup linebackers Jaiden Ausberry (five) and Madden Faraimo (three). Bowen led the team in that category with six whiffs, but Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa made it through 10-plus games with zero missed tackles against the run.
“If you’re not a big movement team in the run game, then it is a different deal,” Ash said. “If you want to try to move and get an opportunity for (tackles for loss) and things like that, then they have to learn how to fit off the ball.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Where Notre Dame football hopes to grow the most on defense this year