When Notre Dame football head coach Marcus Freeman gave his spring practice closing press conference, a ton of different topics were covered. However, right at the top of the list was how the Fighting Irish are planning on dealing with relacing defensive talent like Rylie Mills and Howard Cross III.
It should surprise no one at all that Freeman does indeed have a plan. And he seems to understand that when talking about talents like Mills and Cross, it’s not a situation where a coach can just “plug and play” with two other men.
Notre Dame looks to depth and rotation to replace lost DL production
“Right now, we can't just replace those guys with two guys,” the Notre Dame football coach told the assembled media. “I believe we have five, six guys that can really go in there and perform at a high level, where we can replace their production with multiple guys. Not just with two guys, but it's about replacing production, not the person.”
It’s also clear that Freeman has some ideas popping through his head just as spring practice wraps up.
“I think about guys like Donnie Hinish and how he's continued to improve, and Gabriel Rubio and Jason Onye, and I go on and on. Jared Dawson's been doing a good job, and Elijah Hughes and Armel Mukam and [Sean] Sevillano.”
Freeman once again said that he doesn’t believe Mills and Cross are going to be someone that two players currently on the Irish can replace. But he does clearly think that if he can get the right rotation going, he can find a way to do something similar to what they did.
The Notre Dame football team certainly hopes that’s correct. The defense has been a strength of the team for several years now. It’s not going to go over well if that unit takes a big step back under new DC Chris Ash.