Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman has evolved in his three seasons running the program, but one aspect of his philosophy has remained steadfast. Freeman has been adamant and consistent that his teams will be built around strong line play.
Notre Dame has certainly had its moments on both sides of the ball, but consistent dominance has not quite been there. Both lines have plenty to prove but the potential is sky high for both lines.
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Both the offensive and defensive lines return plenty of talent and depth for 2025, and Freeman is confident in his offensive line coach Joe Rudolph and defensive line coach Al Washington to put together two championship caliber groups.
Freeman spent plenty of time this spring talking about his lines.
"With the exception of RJ Oben, 90 percent of your production is back," Freeman stated when talking about the defensive ends. "Again, you have two guys with Boubacar Traore and Jordan Botelho that haven’t practiced in the spring but we understand, that’s production right there. I’m really confident in that room in terms of the end position.
They’re practicing at a high level, those guys that are practicing right now. Those guys that aren’t practicing right now, have had a lot of production. So, we have to figure out a way to play them all and give them the opportunity to have success on the football field. It’s a great challenge for us because we have a deep defensive end room."
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Freeman is also high on the interior of the defensive line despite losing two veterans on the inside.
"I’ve said this previously, you don’t replace Rylie Mills and Howard Cross with just two guys," Freeman explained. "We can’t just replace them with just two guys but right now, I believe we have five or six guys that can go in there and perform at a high level where we can replace their production with multiple guys. It’s about replacing production and not the person.
"I think about guys like Donovan Hinish and how he’s continued to improve. Gabriel Rubio, Jason Onye, Jared Dawson, Elijah Hughes, Armel Mukam and Sean Sevillano, it’s a really deep room," continued Freeman. "You’re not replacing Rylie and Howard with two guys right now, you have to do it with multiple guys. We do have the guys and the depth of guys to hopefully get the job done that we need.”
On the opposite side of the ball, the offensive line returns a good amount of experience in comparison to the start of the 2024 season. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see that experience much throughout the spring due to players coming back from minor injuries and being held on pitch counts throughout their 14 practices, but Freeman remains high on this group as well.
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“You [have] guys like Billy Schrauth and Aamil Wagner who have started multiple games in multiple years that are really good players," Freeman stated. "Then you have guys like Ashton Craig who is coming off an injury, but was playing at a really high level before he got injured. Charles Jagusah, a guy coming into the season as a starter, tears his pec but then comes back and plays in two of the biggest games of our season.
"Then Anthonie Knapp, a guy that started as a true freshman then gets hurt at the end of the season," Freeman continued. "They all have big game and big moment experience. They’re all really talented football players, high ceiling guys. But there's still some guys who have maybe played two games or three games so they have to continue to develop too."
Wagner led the charge last season starting and playing in all 16 games tallying a team leading 973 snaps last year. Next to him is Knapp, who was a true freshman that started 15 consecutive games until he was injured against Penn State in the first half of the Orange Bowl. Nonetheless, this remains a young and talented group.
"I really am excited because they’re high ceiling guys," Freeman stated. "Billy and Aamil are probably as close to the ceiling as you can be but they still have room to grow. Then you have three guys that really have room to continue to grow that have all started for us. Then the depth of the room, the depth of the offensive line room is really impressive. Credit to Coach Rudolph for the job he’s done in recruiting.
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"We’ve got some really good young guys that haven’t really played that had a great spring," continued the Irish head coach. "I think of guys like Joe Otting that took a lot of reps with the ones, Sullivan Absher and Guerby Lambert before he got hurt. The depth in that room is really impressive.”
Notre Dame will have to raise their level of play across the board on both the offensive and defensive line to make it back to the College Football Playoff semifinals and get over the hump and win a National Championship. Freeman sees it the same way we do; these are loaded groups with a lot of talent and high upside, now they just have to put it all together.
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