What the R.J. Oben commitment to Notre Dame means for the Irish defense
Momentum from an individual player’s success absolutely, definitively, unequivocally does not carry over from one year to the next. But if it did, man, would new Notre Dame defensive end R.J. Oben be on quite a heater headed into the Fighting Irish’s 2024 season opener at Texas A&M.
Notre Dame secured a commitment Wednesday from Oben, a rising sixth-year graduate transfer from Duke. A four-year starter for the Blue Devils, Oben had 3.5 tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks in Duke’s final two regular season games against Virginia and Pittsburgh.
“I know that it is the best way to help my team by being that assassin’s bullet on the edge,” Oben said in an interview with Duke play-by-play announcer David Shumate in September. “I like being the person to beat his man on the edge and break the protection to help our team win.”
It’s in Oben’s blood. He’s the son of Roman Oben, a 12-year NFL offensive tackle veteran from 1996-07. roman Oben started for Tampa Bay in a Super Bowl XXXVII championship victory for the Buccaneers. He currently serves as the NFL Vice President of Football Development.
The younger Oben has been a productive collegiate player all along since coming out of Montclair (N.J.) St. Peters as a three-star recruit, tallying 63 total tackles, 18.5 tackles for loss and 13.5 sacks in his time in Durham. Production is just what the doctor ordered for Notre Dame at the strong-side defensive end position with Javontae-Jean Baptiste running out of eligiblity and Nana Osafo-Mensah transferring to TCU.
Jean-Baptiste and Osafo-Mensah combined for 15.0 tackles for loss and 7.0 sacks in 2023. Jean-Baptiste led Notre Dame in both categories with 9.5 and 4.0, respectively. His exit from the roster was reason enough for the Irish to pursue a proven player in the portal. Osafo-Mensah’s journey back to his home state of Texas amplified the need.
Oben had 6.0 tackles for loss and 5.0 sacks in 2023. He finished tied for the team lead with 27 quarterback pressures. Jean-Baptiste finished second among Notre Dame pass-rushers with 35, one behind defensive tackle Howard Cross III. It’s worth noting Jean-Baptiste was credited with 285 pass-rush snaps per Pro Football Focus while Oben had 243.
Still, Jean-Baptiste was marginally better than Oben at the one thing defensive ends are judged the most on — getting to the quarterback. PFF has a metric that combines sacks, hits and hurries relative to how many times a player rushes the passer. Jean-Baptiste had a score of 7.3 this past season. Oben recorded a mark of 6.8, the same number put down by Notre Dame defensive tackle Rylie Mills, for reference.
Oben might not have as successful of a 2024 season as Jean-Baptiste had in 2023. Jean-Baptiste was one of Notre Dame’s most consistent players on a defense that ended up being one of the best in the country. But it’s also possible Oben joins an incisive effort led by defensive coordinator Al Golden and has the best year of his career. That’s what happened with Jean-Baptiste coming in from Ohio State, and he was not even a starter in Columbus like Oben was in Durham. Playing in the Notre Dame defense transformed him.
Physically, Oben might as well be a carbon copy of Jean-Baptiste. Oben is 6-4 and 260 pounds. Jean-Baptiste was listed on the Notre Dame roster as half an inch taller and the same exact weight. Their skillsets are similar as a result, but despite the slightly lesser statistics, Oben might be a bit better of a pure pass rusher than Jean-Baptiste. That’s reflected in a PFF win percentage — the percentage of “wins” vs. blocking on non-penalty pass-rush snaps — of 13.6 compared to Jean-Baptiste’s 12.4.
Like Jean-Baptiste, Oben has a strong sense and ability to set the edge and disrupt timing and advancement of the opposition’s running game. When Duke needed to blow up an outside zone or stretch run, Oben was often the one to do it. Simply, that’s size and strength being put to proper use.
It’s close between the two. Really close. If Oben coming to Notre Dame means he’s going to have a year that resembles the one Jean-Baptiste just had in South Bend, the Irish coaching staff will take it every time. Notre Dame would gladly take Jean-Baptiste back for another year if he had any eligibility remaining. The Irish might just be getting the next best thing.
Now it’s up to position coach Al Washington and those helping him make such choices to figure out who’s getting which share of Osafo-Mensah’s snap count, which was not insignificant. He logged 252 defensive plays in 2023.
Notre Dame is young and inexperienced beyond Oben on the strong-side defensive end front. We’ll learn a lot about who Washington thinks is next in line there in the Sun Bowl, especially if Jean-Baptiste opts out. As of Dec. 13, he had not announced intent to do so. Still, those 21 snaps per game for Osafo-Mensah have to go to somebody in El Paso. Tyson Ford? Aiden Gobaira? Armel Mukam, the freshman? Time will tell.
The biggest thing Notre Dame had to do along the defensive line for 2024, though, was fill the rather wide void left by Jean-Baptiste. The Irish did just that with Oben.
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