Notre Dame recruiting pipeline quickly transforming the fortunes of an improving position group for the Fighting Irish defense
Notre Dame has upgraded their recruiting impact at linebacker the last couple of years. Two players from similar backgrounds are making a major impact.
Notre Dame football and head coach Marcus Freeman finally got back into the win column this weekend after defeating the Purdue Boilermakers by a score of 56 to 30. As you can imagine by that final score, there were some great moments for the Fighting Irish, and some very frustrating ones. The latter is especially true for Chris Ash’s defense.
While the defense has been a major letdown for the Fighting Irish so far, there have been a couple of bright spots. Two of them came during the team’s victory over the Boilermakers, and they come from very similar backgrounds. Notre Dame’s impact in the California Trinity League pipeline recently can not be understated, and we saw that impact this weekend.
Through three games, sophomore Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa has been the best linebacker for Notre Dame, and you can argue there has been a considerable gap between KVA and the next best linebacker on the list. The 6-3, 230-pound defender managed to collect five total tackles during the blowout, including a couple of nice stops near the line of scrimmage. While the volume of snaps have been inconsistent so far, KVA has very much made the most of them.
Viliamu-Asa was a borderline five-star player coming out of St. John Bosco in the 2024 recruiting class. He made an impact immediately, and should be earning even more opportunities with his quality of play. This very well could be the next star linebacker for the Fighting Irish when all is said and done.
New kid on the block
During the game against Purdue, former JSerra Catholic standout Madden Faraimo also was given some opportunities to showcase his skills. The true freshman actually played in 22 snaps on Saturday, which was more reps than what Jaylen Sneed was given. While the raw numbers in the box score won’t pop off the screen, Faraimo’s athleticism certainly did.
The 6-2, 235-pound linebacker was a part of one of the biggest plays of the day for the Irish defense. During the second quarter of the game, Faraimo was to mirror the running back in pass coverage exceptionally well, and getting his hand on the football. Off of the deflection, junior cornerback Christian Gray was able to reel in the interception. It was one of the few outstanding plays from Ash’s underwhelming group.
With Drayk Bowen and Jaiden Ausberry also being standout players in the middle of the Irish defense, this promises to be a position of strength for Notre Dame for the foreseeable future, as long as the defensive coordinator allows for it. The linebacker position was a position of weakness in the not too distant past.
With the Notre Dame recruiting efforts in recent years, that is not going to be the case. We just got a very small flash of what Faraimo can become. With him and KVA roaming on the middle of the defense for the next couple of seasons together, there should be a lot of excitement for the future. Irish fans owe it all to the Trinity League.
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