The linebacking unit was hit hard this spring with injuries. Middle linebacker and captain Drayk Bowen was out for the duration of spring working back from a hip injury. Rising junior Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa was also out during the spring working his way back from the knee injury he suffered last season against Syracuse. Rising sophomore Madden Faraimo was also limited with a wrist injury and Kahanu Kia was also limited returning from a knee injury.
Thankfully, Kia and Faraimo were back to full speed by the end of spring, Bowen will be back 100 percent in fall camp and Viliamu-Asa is trending very well in the right direction. That being said, these limitations in the linebacker room paved way for players like Jaiden Ausberry and Jaylen Sneed to dominate the first team reps and get a lot of valuable experience. Sneed is heading into his fifth and final year in South Bend and has grown a lot alongside Ausberry this spring.
"I feel like we've been best friends since we got here," Sneed said about Ausberry. "It was only going to be a matter of time until we got to play together. I think our connection off the field started to show itself on the field. I felt like we've been getting better. Like Coach Ash said, every practice, one by one we've been getting better, learning how to communicate and learning how to play both positions. We've been learning how to do different things."
Playing alongside Ausberry isn't the only new thing Sneed has experienced this spring. New linebacker's coach Brian Jean-Mary has also stepped in for Max Bullough who headed back to Michigan State, his alma mater. Sneed is fine tuning his game this offseason and is in a position where he has to because the quarterback he faces every day does an unbelievable job pre-snap.
"I feel like consistency has been a big point of emphasis for Coach BJ this spring," Sneed explained. "He just wants us to look the same every snap so there's no tells in what we're doing. CJ is so good pre-snap. If I have one foot up, he knows we're blitzing and I'm like 'dang, how did he know that?' We're getting to where we can look the same before every snap and just try to confuse the quarterback."
Sneed is a member of a five-man linebacking corps that has the opportunity to be one of, if not the best, linebacking unit in the country. Notre Dame returns both starters and all three rotational pieces from the 2025 team. No other team in college football has that level of depth and experience at linebacker. The Irish will need Sneed and the rest of that room to be at their best if they wish to bring home a title this season.
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