A defensive surge continues when moving into the top-20 most impactful Notre Dame players in 2021, as predicted by a panel of 10 beat writers. In the entire top 25, the offense/defense split is as even as can be: 12 offensive players, 13 defenders. But the top 15 has only six defenders.
The reserves and time-shares fill out these 16-25 slots, including two players in this subset who should probably just be lumped together, but to do so would abandon the countdown nature intuited by the name of the series.
20: Marist Liufau, junior linebacker, 54 points
High ranking: No.