UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 16, 2023

Rylie Mills

Press Conference

Q. Rylie, the change at quarterbacks, I don't know how much you prepared for the other guy. When did you find out about that and how did that alter what your approach was?

RYLIE MILLS: Yeah, we found out about that I want to say in pregame right before we went out. And, honestly, it didn't change too much. We watched film on both guys. We knew we were getting similar style play. It wasn't like they were two different players.

Q. How would you assess your run -- as a whole today, your run defense? They got -- 26 and 9 are pretty bruising running backs.

RYLIE MILLS: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is a lot of our -- a lot of the yards we got are self-inflicted. And I take that personal. My penalty, i get 15 yards. Coach Freeman said, No one's worth 15 yards. And, you know, sometimes we got caught up and trying to make a play and get at the quarterback. And that's on me to get better and be more focused. I think that's where it comes down to, working together and making sure we're living in that.

Q. Rylie, pretty clean second half defensively. The one drive that was a field goal drive, you guys stepped in for the goal to go stop. What has been the emphasis this year in goal to go situations with Coach Golden? Because that was the one thing that held the defense back last year, was the red zone D and goal to go defenses?

RYLIE MILLS: Yeah, it just comes down to trust. You know, I think the first half we come out, you know, they scored whole points. And I think last year we were freaked out and, Oh, my God, what's going on? Through the preseason and through camp, we kind of came together and were like, Look, we all trust, we all know everyone can do each other's jobs. So when we go out there, it's not -- we're just confident knowing that we can go out there and when we play our best football, no one can get by us.

Q. Hey, Rylie. There's been times this year where you guys have kind of made it look easy the first couple weeks. It felt a little more like a challenge today. I'm curious: In general, what is your contentment with today's result?

RYLIE MILLS: Yeah, in terms of today, I think no one's going to be happy letting up points, especially how we did in the first half. For us, it's one day at a time. We got to keep executing every day. Go back, watch the film tomorrow, see what we can improve on. And then we just got to keep winning every day of the week.

Q. And now you get a day to enjoy this. This is a big one around the corner here. Your initial thoughts on what's ahead next Saturday?

RYLIE MILLS: Yeah, I'm just looking forward to watching the film on this. And then for me, it's just big on that we got to win every day. I'm not -- I can't travel. Like, Saturday's not going to come any quicker. The biggest thing we can do, as a team, is just to make sure every day when we're practicing, we're just dominating each day.

Q. Rylie, with JD out and DJ out, do you think that had any -- that played any factor on maybe the tackling not be as crisp as it was just because guys were in different rotations or maybe even in different positions?

RYLIE MILLS: No, I think it just comes down to, you know, we got to execute our fundamentals. No matter who's in there, we got to make sure we're going out there and doing what we're taught. And when plays like that happen, not much we can do after. But just keep practicing. And like I said, tomorrow, go forward. Make an emphasis of it this week and keep going.

Q. Acknowledging that you can't time travel, how easy or difficult was it to not think about Ohio State, you know, whether that -- I'm not saying, like, in practice or in a meeting, you know, walking around campus or just day-to-day?

RYLIE MILLS: Yeah, honestly, it's -- I can't lie, I can't time travel. But there are times when I'm -- you know, you start to drift. And Coach Freeman's message all week was, Every time you feel yourself drift, that's when you got to bring yourself back and think about Central Michigan.

So I think for a lot of guys, we just treated it like a trigger. So any time I was thinking about, you know, what periods in practice, what's Ohio State doing, watching that game, I just reminded me to keep -- I got to bring myself down and focus on Central Michigan.

Q. Rylie, what was the mindset of the defensive line at halftime?

RYLIE MILLS: Yeah, we knew if we just played our biggest football and did exactly what we did in preseason these past three games, we could dominate. If we stick to what we're doing, reading our keys, doing exactly what we need to do, coming off the ball, playing well -- you can see, like, they didn't score any points. So it's really -- it's just on us and making sure we can execute.

Q. What is your take on the Central Michigan offensive line? Did you see anything, like, in their eyes, anything that could tell you that they were prepared to run the ball this game?

RYLIE MILLS: Yeah, like, when their hands are in the dirt and they're breathing heavy and looking right at you, yeah, he's probably coming at me. But I don't know, it's -- every team is different. Some teams, the back will be somewhere and and, you know, will sometimes will try to cheat it and go one way.

But I think that's the fun of football, you don't really know what you're going to get all the time, so you just got to go out there and hit the guy in front of you, at least for D-line.