Notre Dame football brings boom to Florida State with eight sacks

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Maybe Notre Dame defensive tackle Rylie Mills will get a shout-out from the “Costco Guys” for his three-sack performance against Florida State on Saturday night.

After the 52-3 win over the Seminoles at Notre Dame Stadium, Mills credited the viral father and son duo of AJ & Big Justice for his favorite farewell celebration. The dance, which involves a double-arm flex over the shoulders with some toe tapping, began to gain popularity in sports after it was paired with the duo’s song, “We bring the boom.“

Mills, a 6-foot-5, 295-pound graduating senior, and the Notre Dame defense had plenty of opportunities to celebrate Saturday. CFP No. 10 Irish (8-1) recorded eight sacks, intercepted two passes, one a safety Luke Talich returned a 79-yard touchdown when the backups were late in the game and limited Florida State to 208 yards of total offense.

“I think as a defense we brought the boom,” Mills said.

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Florida State’s offense felt the doom. The Seminoles (1-9) managed to kick a 23-yard field goal to cap a 16-play, 75-yard drive on their opening possession of the game, but they fell apart from there. Florida State scored on its next five possessions before halftime and finished the game with six three-and-outs.

The interceptions came in the second half as Notre Dame’s pass rush began to wear on Florida State’s two-quarterback rotation. Starter Brock Glenn threw them both, the first of which nickelback Jordan Clark snagged to end FSU’s first drive of the second half. The interception came one play after Mills’ third sack of the game.

Clark credited Notre Dame’s defensive line for pressuring Glenn into throwing a bad pass to tight end Kyle Morlock.

“I didn’t have to work too long or too hard tonight,” Clark said. “All credit to those guys. They work their tails off. (Defensive line) Coach Wash (Al Washington) does a great job just keeping them ready, keeping them dialed in. You saw that tonight. You really saw that all year long. They make our job as a secondary really, really easy.”

The job could have gotten tougher for Notre Dame’s defensive line when starting nose tackle Howard Cross III left the game with a left ankle injury early in the second quarter. Mills stepped up immediately with back-to-back sacks in the next two games after Cross’ injury.

In the postgame press conference, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman described Cross’ injury as an ankle sprain. He thought Cross might be able to get back into the game if needed. But at the moment, Mills didn’t know how badly Cross may or may not have been injured.

Earlier this week, Freeman praised the Mills-Cross duo for playing a big role in Notre Dame’s ability to generate a pass rush despite losing its top two defensive ends, Jordan Botelho and Boubacar Traore. Mills did enough for the two of them Saturday night with five tackles, three sacks and another quarterback hurry.

“When Howard went down, I was just mad for him because I know how much he’s put in this week and how much he makes everybody better,” Mills said. “For me, it gave me a little frustration. We saw our guy go down, which you never want to see. Hopefully it led to that.

“I just wanted to make sure Howard was OK. He was great after that. He was a leader on the sideline, talking to young guys, talking to me and just giving everyone words of encouragement.”

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Junior Donovan Hinish played more with Cross on the sideline. He took advantage of the opportunities with five tackles and two sacks of his own. Senior defensive tackle Gabriel Rubio recorded a tackle and knocked down a screen pass to make his presence felt.

The rest of Notre Dame’s eight sacks came from junior tight end Junior Tuihalamaka, junior linebacker Jaylen Sneed and a shared sack between freshman defensive end Bryce Young and sophomore linebacker Jaiden Ausberry. The Irish reached eight sacks in a game for the first time since tallying eight against Virginia in 2019.

“Rylie got some individual glory today,” Freeman said. “He got the sacks, but there are a lot of people who contributed to Rylie getting the sacks. You talk about coverage and you talk about some other guys up front.”

Florida State’s quarterbacks combined to complete just 10 of their 26 passes (38.5%) for 88 yards. Glenn finished 5-of-18 for 51 yards. Luke Kromenhoek was 5-of-8 for 37 yards.

Those numbers aren’t possible without good play in the secondary to complement Notre Dame’s pass rush. But Clark wanted the big guys to take the credit.

“It was really the D-line,” Clark said. “Honestly, we want to take credit for it, but when you got guys rushing like Rylie Mills rushed tonight and the rest of those guys, it makes it really easy for us.”

Florida State became the fifth team to fall short of 250 yards of offense against Notre Dame this season. Notre Dame had not limited so many teams to so few yards since the 1988 season.

While a strong performance against a weak Florida State offense was expected, the performances for this defense are starting to pile up and add to a College Football Playoff resume that will be stamped with three more wins.

“I think from the whole defense it was dominant,” Mills said. “It just shows when the front end and the back end are on the same side. When you see the back cover like they did, it’s hard to get completions on us.

“That’s one of the great things about our defense. We feed off each other. If the D-line does really well, the corners, they come up to us and say, ‘You’re killing it. This is great.’

“And then vice versa. They get picks and we’re like, ‘Dude, this is great. Make them keep the ball.’ It works both ways.”

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