Defense was the main storyline during the Notre Dame 23-13 victory over the Texas A&M Aggies on Saturday night. It was a dominant performance, only allowing the Aggies to accumulate 246 total yards offensively. There were a lot of key contributors to that victory.

As you can imagine, picking “studs” from this game was pretty easy. There were a lot of names that continued. It was also almost impossible to select a true “dud”, a player who didn’t offer much. But we did it anyway.

STUDS

Here are the players who impressed the most for the Irish on Saturday night.

EDGE Jordan Botelho

Notre Dame fans aren’t overly fond of Botelho all the time, who has been very inconsistent over the course of his career in South Bend. When he’s been good, he’s been very. The problem is we haven’t seen the best version of him every week. While the stats won’t jump out at you, we got the good version of Botelho last night.

LB Jaylen Sneed

Insert the same beginning as Botelho here. Sneed is an incredible talent, boasting insane short area explosiveness and range. We just want to see it every game. That talent was evident last night. If Sneed is playing consistently, good luck to anyone who is trying to block him.

The safeties

This group was one of the better ones on the roster during the contest. Both Adon Shuler and Xavier Watts had interceptions, which were big momentum swings in the football game. Even Rod Heard made a fantastic run stop in the second half. This group was stellar seemingly all night, even with a couple of mistakes accounted for.

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DUDS

Here are the players who didn’t stand out amongst their peers for the Irish on Saturday night.

DT Rylie Mills

It’s tough to call anyone a dud in a game like this, but Mills was pretty underwhelming. After hearing so many great things this offseason, he was invisible for most of the game. Mills did some of the little things well but for a guy as physically gifted as he is, we wanted more.

EDGE RJ Oben

It was a very quiet debut for Oben. He did set the edge pretty well at times, but overall, his impact just wasn’t felt. Notre Dame will need him to take a massive step forward if they are going to reach their potential. Oben is the best bet to be an impact outside pass rusher this season.