Brian, let's talk about the other side of the ball here on the Irish Breakdown podcast brought to by our friends over at Van Duel.

We just got done talking about Notre Dame's offensive line and the role that they're starting to play

and the growth that they're starting to show for this team to become a line-driven program,

something that Marcus Freeman has been really striving for since he first got to campus.

Now, we mentioned that the D-line was closer overall than what the offensive line was.

You and I have talked before about how we believe that Notre Dame's defensive line last year

was one of the most underrated units in the country.

They finished the entire regular season leading the country in pressures.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the defending national champs or the team fresh off

of winning the national championship went out to get one of Notre Dame's rotational

defensive ends because they knew the type of impact that he could have on the field.

This is the type of unit that we're talking about.

But we saw a lot of

things over spring that make us very confident that this group took another step, even though

we thought they were closer than the offensive line, they took another step in the right

direction to becoming an elite unit and being part of a line-driven program.

Yeah, you know, you mentioned we've talked about it.

This is the side of the ball that was closest to this.

But we've also seen a lot of turnover at the position the last couple of years.

You know, you think of we saw what this line is capable of when they dominated Georgia. I mean, I thought the big key to the beating George in Sugar Bowl is Notre Dame outplayed George in the trenches on both sides of the ball. Now, one side was a much tighter battle, but the Notre Dame offensive line made all the blocks when the game was on the line. Like they won it when the game's on the line, you know, those first downplay runs and just being able to grind the clock and all that.

The Notre Dame defensive line after the first series pretty much just kind of said,

okay, you have no chance in this game.

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