3 Brutal Truths About Notre Dame’s 2025 Defense

As most Notre Dame fans have spent the early part of this season stomping their feet like spoiled children about a broken defense, it’s important to note that these things aren’t simply happening because defensive coordinator Chris Ash isn’t capable. There is a clearly defined rationale for why the 2025 Irish defense isn’t as good as last year’s but is still in line for a successful future moving forward.

Loss of High Level Experience and Production

I’m fairly certain that every Notre Dame fan looked at the Irish depth chart this offseason, saw how Marcus Freeman and his staff have finally built this roster to the point where they can seemingly replenish the lineup every season without missing a beat (from a recruiting ranking standpoint) and assumed they would be just fine.

Unfortunately, we all severely underestimated the losses the Irish defense suffered. Losing four NFL Draft picks - defensive tackle Rylie Mills, linebacker Jack Kiser, safety Xavier Watts and cornerback Benjamin Morrison - is one thing. But when you combine those four with the loss of defensive tackle Howard Cross, Notre Dame is missing 280 career games, 847 career tackles, and 78 tackles for loss. That’s an insane amount of production to replace. Kiser played the most games of any player in school history, Morrison was their top NFL cornerback prospect since Bobby Taylor in 1995, Watts was a two-time All-American, Mills was a captain and Cross was a multi-year starter. Coupling that context with the weight of expectations under the Golden Dome and envisioning young players simply stepping into the departed veterans shoes seems ridiculous.

Coaching Transition

Chris Ash has been the most maligned coach in college football through the early part of the season. Sure, some head coaches have been fired, but when a national power has close games come down to the lack of performance on the side of the ball they coach, there will absolutely be some added pressure. Replacing one of the top assistant coaches in college football coming off a National Championship game appearance is never easy, but there is more to this than Ash not being ready to handle the job.

Not being in the locker room or knowing everything that goes into the specifics behind play-calling and game-planning, there has to be a substantial learning curve. Critics will say they’ve had all offseason to figure it out, but in reality, the ebbs and flows of the regular season are a different animal and require everyone to get used to each other. How are adjustments made? How is personnel managed? What is the dynamic between Freeman and Ash or Ash and his assistant coaches? There are a number of different variables at play here that will prevent the 2025 defense from being like the 2024 version.

Youth Movement

The current Irish depth chart shows 10 of 11 starters are eligible to return next season. In fact, six of those players have eligibility for two more seasons. When you compare this squad of players who have yet to reach their collegiate apex to last year’s battle-tested group, it’s apples and oranges.

Adon Shuler, Christian Gray, Leonard Moore, Drayk Bowen, and Jaylen Sneed all played prominent roles last season, but none were looked to as the leader in their respective position group. Huge things were expected of Boubacar Traore, Bryce Young, and Tae Johnson but it's still early in their careers and the season. None of these players are truly where the Irish need them to be to be a national title contender, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get there by season’s end.

As they gain more experience the rest of this season, the 2025 defense will be better. But they can’t replicate 2024 until some of the present players have resumes resembling those of last year’s departed players. That may just happen in 2026.