Brian, in part three of today's show here in the Irish Breakdown podcast, brought to by our friends over at Fandul.

We're still talking about if Notre Dame's a line-driven program, but we're going to flip to the other side of the ball. And we're going to talk about the defensive side. And this is one that we kind of mentioned. We briefly mentioned when talking about the offensive line. And we were breaking down this program as a whole. But you and I, I think, both agree that the defensive line is closer to living up to that standard of essentially doing their part of being a line-driven program.

And I think that's really, really important.

For all of the discussion about the offensive line, Notre Dame is a program.

It's a lot easier to go into 2026, knowing that one side of the ball is living up to that instead of looking at this in a vacuum and saying, all right, how do we get the offensive and defensive line to play like we are a line-driven program? That doesn't mean that they're without work, though. That doesn't mean that they're without holes to fill. But if you were truly a line-driven program, you fill those holes a little bit

easier than teams that might not be. So there's a lot of different things working here for the

defensive line. But last two seasons, especially this past season, I think, kind of gave us a

little bit more of a window into how close the D-line actually is. I think they're there, honestly.

If they can continue playing like they did this season, I think they're there, honestly. If they can continue playing like they did this

season, I think they're there. And what I mean by that is, can you get the most out of your

linebackers and secondary with the way the D-line plays? And I absolutely think that we saw that for the

majority of this season. Was there a half here, a half there? Sure. I don't think they

played like an elite group against Miami. I've said this before. I don't think they were given

the chance to play like an elite group against Miami in Texas A&M. Once they were finally given

that opportunity, this defensive line played at a high level. So you could say, okay, performing well

in the bigger games is going to be important for you next season. Fair. That's fair. But I think when you look back at how the D-Line played in 2024 in the postseason, they ate Indiana's offensive line up. And I think Indiana has the best offensive line coach in college football,

like flat out.

Bob Bostad is a stud.

But look at what they did against Georgia.

They ate Georgia up.

I mean, it wasn't without Riley Mills, without your All-American, who got hurt the game before,

without Bubacartreori, without Junior, without, excuse me, Jordan Patello,

...