Notre Dame Fighting Irish College Football Pregame Quote, 12/27/2018

What was it about this season where it really seemed to come together? Yeah, I think it was our defensive line coach, Coach [Mike] Elston. He was able to put us all in positions to win. And for us to be able to like be in positions to win and, you know, exploit what we do well, I think. And that’s really worked out well for us and our team.

I was curious, I read a couple of interesting articles this week that talked about and actually Drue [Tranquill] was quoted a couple of things, talked about one of the changes he saw in you over the last year or so, a couple of years, just your approach to the game, your approach to your preparation, those kind of things. What changed or what kind of kicked in for you that made you take it a little differently than you had in the past? I think it started in the off-season, with the renewed commitment that we made in the off-season to working harder and playing together. And I think that has really shown up this season. And someone asked earlier about what was the difference between the ’16 team that won four games and this one that was undefeated. I think it was the work in the off-season that we put in. I think we’ve all worked so hard together, we’ve all done so much and we lean on that when we’re in tough situations. And I think that’s what’s helped us.

For you personally and your preparation in terms of studying film or watching opponents and offensive linemen, you know, how have you grown and improved in that respect in terms of your studying of the game? Oh, I’ve learned a lot really. I think like kind of the maturation process of a player is just first, you’re just in the system, right? You just do what it says to do on the line, on the page, without really understanding the bigger picture, right? How it all fits out. How you fit the run play, how you rush the passer and your rush lanes. So I think I’ve grown to understand, you know, the whole defense like all of the intent we’re trying to get accomplished. And I think that that’s allowed me to better execute what is there but also with the understanding of what we’re trying to do, you know, broadly, more broadly on the defensive end.

You guys ‚Äì a lot of teams do this, but you guys probably as much as anybody rotate so many guys in your defensive run, a lot of depth. How important has that been in terms of keeping guys healthy and then keeping guys fresh late in games when you need to really try to create some pressure? I think even more than that it’s just keeping guys engaged mentally because if you’re week after week not playing at all, then that weighs on your buy-in, that weighs on your work ethic, how hard you work. And I think that especially for the young guys that this happens to and they’re able to better invest time and work and practice in the film room to stay engaged. And they know they’re ‚Äì everyone can play. We rotate a lot of guys, got a lot of people stay fresh. It’s helped us win a lot of games. And so I think that that’s really been the key to our success.

Is there any sense ‚Äì and I know you guys are above petty little things ‚Äì but any sense that there’s so much talk and emphasis on Clemson’s defensive line that you guys get a little bit of chip saying hey, we’ve got a pretty good group ourselves? I think we’re pretty good, too. I think they have a talented defensive line but so do we. They have a lot of playmakers up there, but we’ve

made a lot of plays, too. But that’s always the story when Notre Dame’s playing. When we played Michigan, that’s what they were saying. Oh, Michigan’s defensive line, they’re so great. When we played Syracuse, they’ve got a lot of good players on their D-line. It was all about them. We’ve played a lot of defensive lines and it’s always them. But people aren’t really talking about us until after the game.

That’s probably better, right? Exactly. So that’s what we’ll be waiting for.