All offseason we heard about the potential of Notre Dame’s defense to dominate its opponents, especially at the defensive end position. Unfortunately through the first three games (Louisville, New Mexico, Georgia) the defense only had three sacks combined with none of them coming from preseason All-American candidates Julian Okwara and Khalid Kareem. Something needed to change, and oh boy did it vs. Virginia last Saturday.
Eight sacks total for the Fighting Irish defense led to a dominating 2nd half in which ND beat 18th ranked Virginia 35-20. Okwara and Kareem finally broke through with a combined 5.