Heading into his fifth season with the Notre Dame football team, Jaylen Sneed finally feels at home. He finally knows what he wished he'd known as a freshman. And he has a message he’d give his younger self if he could.
“I would tell him just let Notre Dame change you,” Sneed told the media after a Fighting Irish practice earlier this week. “That's what I would say. I would say don't fight it. Just let it change you. Let it make you become a better man. Let it make you become a better football player. Stuff like that.”
Sneed said that he would send this message because he fought things when he first got to South Bend. The college town in Indiana was a culture shock for a player coming from SEC country.
Jaylen Sneed and the Notre Dame football defense find their rhythm ahead of North Carolina
“When you first get to Notre Dame, especially coming from South Carolina, at least where I come from, it's different,” said Sneed. “It's a big change. You don't want to change, but the teammates and the coaches you have around you just make it. You have to. If you want to be here, you have to change. You have to become a Notre Dame man. You have to live up to the values that Freeman talks about all the time.”
Sneed also had to adapt to a new defensive coordinator in 2025. He and the rest of the defense had some growing pains in the first four games of last year. However, he’s starting to feel comfortable, as are his teammates, and it shows in how they’ve played so far this season.
Sneed said the biggest thing for Notre Dame’s defense this year is that so many guys are back who know how to operate best in Ash’s scheme.
Notre Dame next heads to Chapel Hill to take on a North Carolina team that is going through quite a few changes of its own. Sneed is comfortable in his own skin and he’s comfortable in South Bend. That comfort has led to a big season for him so far, as well as the other guys, and that means that the older Sneed might someday be able to get his younger self a message about winning a national title.
Add us as a preferred source on Google