Chris Ash did not leave much room for easy spring conclusions on Saturday following the Blue and Gold Game. “Well, I’m still trying to find that depth. We have some—we will, when everybody’s healthy, we’re going to have some really good depth on this team,” he said. “We still have some pieces that we have to develop to create some depth. And we just got to go get better.”
That matters more than any April highlight. Notre Dame’s defense held together through a spring loaded with injuries, but Ash’s own description was a more roster audit, not a victory lap. The Irish found functional answers under stress. They did not finish building a playoff-ready two-deep.
Linebacker reps were useful. They were also forced.
Linebacker was the clearest example of spring doing two jobs at once. With Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa out, Drayk Bowen, Madden Faraimo, and Kahanu Kia all limited, Notre Dame had to hand major communication duties to Jaylen Sneed and Jaiden Ausberry in combinations that were new to both of them.
Ash was blunt about what the staff was actually watching. “Well, it was really the first time that those two guys played together,” he said. “They really haven’t played together a lot. So, they had to work together on communication, setting the front, adjusting things,” he add.
The veteran duo was also playing out of position. “And they really haven’t played the middle, MIKE, linebacker position. Both of them did a lot of that here this spring. So, it was new for them.”
Useful reps, absolutely. Settled answers, no.
Sneed filled in the picture from the field level. “I feel like we’ve been best friends since we got here, and it’s only been a matter of time until we got to play together,” he said Saturday. “And I think just our connection off the field, like, came on on the field, I would say,” he added about playing with Ausberry
“I just felt like we’ve just been getting better, like Coach Ash said, every practice, like one by one we’ve been getting better, learning how to communicate, learning how to play both positions, learning how to slide to front and just learning how to do different things because Drayk and King are here.”
That is not a small detail. Notre Dame got live evidence that Sneed and Ausberry can function together and grow into harder jobs. It also got a reminder that spring survival at Mike and Will is still a long way from the kind of comfort level needed once the full room is back and the standard rises in camp.
The secondary found answers on the fly
The defensive backfield probably gave the strongest day-to-day proof that this defense can absorb disruption. It also gave Ash the easiest examples for why adaptability and dependable depth are not the same thing.
Start with Jayden Sanders. Injuries kept him moving around the field and Notre Dame kept asking him for more. “Jayden Sanders has done a great job for us all spring. We’ve had him at nickel a lot. He’s never played nickel. We needed him at nickel. So most of his snaps here this spring were at nickel,” Ash explained of Sanders’ spring up until Saturday. Today before kickoff, we had to make an adjustment. We put him out at corner and he went out there and did a great job.”
That is encouraging. It is also April football, with Khary Adams out, Nick Reddish recovering from shoulder surgery, and Dallas Golden unavailable late in spring and Leonard Moore a late scratch. Sanders showed he can handle being thrown into the mess. What he has not proven yet is where he fits once the room is whole and the coaches stop patching practice lineups together.
Christian Gray fits the same theme. Gray spent most of the spring at nickel after playing exclusively on the outside during his Notre Dame career.
“All the pieces that we’re going to have in training camp, both at linebacker and at DB, have not been out there this spring. So we put him in there. We wanted to test him, and he’s done a great job. It was a new position, a lot of new responsibilities,” said Ash on Saturday.
Notre Dame learned who can hold up in unfamiliar jobs. It did not learn the final answer at nickel or across the back end.
The line may be deeper, but even that needs sorting
The defensive line is the partial exception because the interior room sounds closer to a numbers strength than linebacker or defensive back. Even there, Ash did not declare anything finished.
On Christopher Burgess Jr., he gave the broader hint with the individual praise: “We have a lot of depth on the interior D-line. It’s got to all sort out when we get through training camp. But he’s made a lot of progress here throughout the spring.”
That is the right way to read this entire side of the ball. Notre Dame got through a beat-up spring without the defense falling apart. It uncovered players who can help, cross-trained pieces it may need, and forced young defenders into communication and assignment work they badly needed. Good. Necessary, too.
But Ash’s summary was the one worth keeping: “We made some improvement here this spring in a lot of areas. A lot of individuals got better. We have to continue to work and grind and stay focused and get a lot better through training camp, not only with the guys that have played a lot, but we’ve got to create some depth and bring some young guys along.”
August practices will say more than April ever could.
