Gimme Five: Who are the last five Notre Dame sack leaders?
Notre Dame will have a new sack leader in 2023. The question is, who?
Through two games, sophomore vyper Joshua Burnham, senior defensive tackle Rylie Mills and senior vyper Jordan Botelho were tied for the team lead with 1 each. Sophomore defensive tackle Donovan Hinish joined the crew with a late sack against NC State. Matching last year’s sack leader, Isaiah Foskey, will be a difficult task for any of them.
Foskey, now looking to make an NFL career for himself with the New Orleans Saints, led the Irish with 11 sacks in 2021 and did it again in 2022. The eventual second-round pick passed Justin Tuck to become the program’s all-time sack leader against Boston College on Nov. 19, 2022, and he finished his Notre Dame career with 26.5.
Before Foskey, defensive end Adetokunbo Ogundeji finished first on the team with 7 sacks in 2020. Rover Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah compiled 8.5 sacks to lead the Irish in 2019. Defensive tackle Jerry Tillery and defensive end Julian Okwara tied for the team lead with 8 in 2018, rounding out the last five players to lead Notre Dame in sacks.
All five of those players are in NFL organizations at the moment. Ogundeji and Okwara will begin their seasons on injured reserve in Atlanta and Detroit, respectively. Foskey is listed as a third-string defensive end with the Saints, but he’ll have the opportunity to work his way up. Tillery found a home in Las Vegas, where he will start for the Raiders this season, after the Chargers cut him in 2022. Owusu-Koramoah is a breakout candidate with the Browns entering 2023.
Despite the lack of sack production through three games, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman isn’t worried. He stressed that “the sacks will come.”
“I had to talk to [defensive line] coach [Al Washington] like, ‘Don’t get frustrated with the numbers,’” Freeman said at his press conference Monday. “We can sometimes be outcome-driven. What is the number of sacks? Let’s look at how many times we hit the quarterback, we affected him with our coverages, and really look at the interceptions that are a result of the pressure we got on him.”
Notre Dame also couldn’t go all-out in trying to sack to NC State quarterback Brennan Armstrong, because the Irish knew he posed a threat if he escaped the pocket.
“We were very strategic with how we wanted to rush this quarterback,” Freeman said. “We could not be out of control and free rush this guy. We wanted to create pass-rush gangs that forced him to do different things. I’m really pleased with the execution and the outcome of what happened.”
The Last Five Players To Lead Notre Dame In Sacks
- 2022: Isaiah Foskey, 11 sacks
- 2021: Isaiah Foskey, 11 sacks
- 2020: Adetokunbo Ogundeji, 7 sacks
- 2019: Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, 8.5 sacks
- 2018: Jerry Tillery and Julian Okwara, 8 sacks
