What Notre Dame's Spring Tells Us About the 2026 Defense
Spring football doesn't come with a box score, but it doesn't need one. The clearest way to read what Chris Ash's defense showed this spring is to hold it up against what that same group actually produced on Saturdays in 2025 — and ask which numbers are poised to climb, and which ones still need work before September.
The Baseline: What 2025 Actually Looked Like
Notre Dame's defense finished last season as a two-speed unit. Early stumbles against Miami, Texas A&M and Purdue dragged down the overall numbers, but from late September on, the Irish were one of the more disruptive defenses in the country.
The run defense was the headline. Notre Dame allowed just 99.3 rushing yards per game (11th nationally) and 3.0 yards per carry (also 11th), a sharp jump from the 138.1 yards and 3.8 yards-per-carry marks the year before. They also ranked 8th in the country in rushing touchdowns allowed (8) and 5th in 20-yard runs surrendered (6).
The pass rush and takeaway numbers backed that up. Boubacar Traore led the team with 7.5 sacks, with Drayk Bowen (3.5), Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa (3.0) and Jaylen Sneed (3.0) rounding out a rotation that finished inside the top 25 nationally in sacks. On the back end, Leonard Moore's 5 interceptions paced a secondary that finished tied for the national lead in picks, with Tae Johnson (4), Luke Talich (3) and Christian Gray (2) all contributing. Notre Dame also ranked inside the top 25 in yards per attempt, completion percentage and passer rating allowed, and 5th in plays of 30-plus yards surrendered.
In the tackle column, Bowen (67), Adon Shuler (55), Jaiden Ausberry (51) and Johnson (47) were the four leading producers — a group that, notably, includes a linebacker who wasn't even playing his natural position by the end of spring.
Defensive Line: A Number That Should Only Go Up
The run-defense marks above were built with a defensive front that, entering this offseason, looked thin beyond the starters. That's exactly what changed this spring. A rotation now nine deep inside — Jason Onye, Elijah Hughes, Armel Mukam, Tionne Gray, Francis Brewu, Cole Mullin, Sean Sevillano Jr. and Christopher Burgess — paired with an edge group adding Alabama transfer Keon Keeley and a healthy Loghan Thomas to returners Traore and Bryce Young, is a straightforward numbers play: more high-level bodies rotating through the same run fits that already produced a top-11 rushing defense.
If 99.3 yards per game and 3.0 per carry were achieved with defensive end depth that was, by spring's own admission, "two incoming freshmen" as a fallback, the floor for 2026 should be higher than the 2025 baseline — not because the scheme changes, but because fresher legs sustain the same numbers deeper into games and seasons.
Linebackers: Replacing Snaps, Not Talent
Bowen's 67 tackles and 3.5 sacks, plus Viliamu-Asa's 3.0 sacks, were produced by two players who missed time this spring with injury. That both were absent and Jaiden Ausberry — a career Will linebacker — stepped into the Mike role and looked capable of holding it says less about a drop-off and more about depth that can absorb an injury without the production numbers cratering. The open question isn't whether the room can replicate 2025's linebacker stat line; it's how coordinator Brian Jean-Mary carves up snaps between three players (Bowen, Viliamu-Asa, Ausberry) capable of playing at a level that produced a combined 6.5 sacks and 118 tackles last fall.
Secondary: Defending a Nation-Leading Number
Leading the country in interceptions is the hardest number on this defense to simply repeat — takeaways are volatile year to year even for good units. But the 2026 secondary isn't just returning Leonard Moore (5 INT) at boundary corner; it's adding a freshman class in Joey O'Brien, Ayden Pouncey, Chaz Smith and Nick Reddish that spring reports graded as talented enough to push for early snaps, plus a full season of Christian Gray's move to nickel and Dallas Golden's continued development. More competent bodies at more spots doesn't guarantee the interception total holds at a national-leading pace, but it raises the number of possible ball-hawks on the field, which is the input that number depends on.
The stat to watch, though, isn't takeaways — it's the top-25 completion percentage and yards-per-attempt marks. Spring evaluators flagged corners and safeties allowing free releases and un-contested catches in zone, a technique issue that, if uncorrected, is exactly the kind of thing that erodes a top-25 pass-efficiency defense into a middling one regardless of how many turnovers get created elsewhere.
The Variable That Actually Determines Which Way the Numbers Move
Every projection above assumes continuity of scheme and health — and 2025 was a testament to how much those two variables can swing a stat line. The Miami/Texas A&M/Purdue version of this defense and the September 27–November 29 version of this defense were, statistically, almost two different units. Whether Ash tightens back up or lets the aggressive, attacking version of the scheme run for a full 12-to-13 games is likely to move Notre Dame's defensive numbers more than any single position group's development.
Health matters just as much. Onye, Bowen, Viliamu-Asa, Golden and Moore were all limited or missing time this spring — five players who, healthy, accounted for a significant share of last year's sack, tackle and interception production. A defense that gets a full season out of that group, rather than replacing snaps for stretches, is the single clearest path from "top-11 run defense, top-25 pass defense" in 2025 to something better in 2026.
