(Pictured are the Notre Dame captains for 2025. Top Row: Safety Adon Shuler, Defensive Lineman Donovan Hinish & Linebacker Drayk Bowen. Bottom Row: Offensive Lineman Aamil Wagner, Wide Receiver Will Pauling & Offensive Lineman Billy Schrauth)

When junior defensive tackle Donovan Hinish met with the media during training camp, he oozed leadership as he discussed the possibilities of rotations on the defensive line.

“You gotta be selfless,” Hinish said. “If you are thinking, ‘why am I not out there, why not me?’ Then you are not strengthening the group. We have a strength in numbers. We have an immensely deep d-line. That’s our strength along with our brotherhood. There are guys that are going to play in games that you may not have seen before. There are guys that will bust their butts everyday and it’s going to be good. You can’t just say, ‘oh why not me? I should play more. Why is he playing and not me? My reps are getting cut short so he can play? That’s ridiculous.’ Well it’s not ridiculous. It’s selfless. It’s team play. You gotta be selfless when you have a group as talented as our d-line.”

Hinish was one of six captains that were named by Marcus Freeman on Monday for the 2025 season. Notre Dame will have balance on both sides of the ball with three defensive players and three offensive players selected. Hinish joins linebacker Drayk Bowen, safety Adon Shuler, graduate transfer wide receiver Will Pauling and offensive linemen Billy Schrauth and Aamil Wagner.

Wagner is the only offensive lineman that played in all 16 games during Notre Dame’s run to the national championship game. As the season went on, he gained more and more confidence.

“The biggest lesson was to calm down,” Wagner said of what he learned last year. “A lot of times we make moments bigger than what they are. We have the talent here. Everyone on this team, everyone on this roster are extremely talented players in their own right. You have the ability to do it, just calm down, focus on your job and execute.”

Wagner is joined as a captain by another junior offensive lineman in Billy Schrauth. The 3^rd offensive captain is graduate transfer wide receiver Will Pauling who has quickly made a big impression on his teammates.

“Being in my 5th year, I’ve seen a lot and been through a lot,” Pauling said during camp. “Being able to relay that to younger guys in the room so they can understand kind of what to expect, know what to do or what not to do, what worked and what didn’t work for me. I think that helps the room because we have so many guys in the room, older and younger that are so versatile. I think that’s what is going is to be able to help us be a very competitive room this year.”

On the defensive side of the ball, the Irish have a captain from each group of the defense with Hinish representing the defensive line, Bowen repping the linebackers and Shuler leading the defensive backs.

While four safeties are expected to see plenty of playing time this season, Shuler is the sure fire starter after gaining tons of experience as a starter next to Xavier Watts last season.

Bowen will be the main communicator on the defense, taking over for Jack Kiser last year and JD Bertrand before him. He says he learned a lot from both. Kiser taught him how to critically break down a play as well as how to talk to younger players while Bertrand showed Bowen the importance of learning how to talk to each individual player differently.

“I like to play with emotion and I like to help others play with emotion,” Bowen says. “I think that is something our defense does well. We play with a lot of emotion. When one person gets going, it’s like a chain reaction. That’s how I like to lead. Communication is something I’ve worked a lot on this summer and I think that’s come through and shown in fall camp.”

For the captains, the way last year ended gives the team confidence heading into 2025 but also the realization that they have unfinished business.

“It’s a big motivator,” Wagner says of falling in the national title game to Ohio State. “It’s a constant reminder. Obviously we had a great season last year but we fell short. That image of that scoreboard in your head, it really makes you think about, hey I could be jogging right here, I could half a** this drill but if I do this a next rep, if I get a little better, we could have made that score a little closer. It gives us urgency to fix mistakes quickly.”

“We look at that game, we look at it as a lesson,” Hinish adds. “We don’t look at it like ‘we lost the national championship’ and beat up on ourselves, we look at it like, it’s a lesson. We learn from it. It’s going to help us reach the next level. We got to the top of the mountain peak, we got pushed off. We have to fight our way back on top of it and reach the peak. We have it in us. We’re a tough group, we’re a talented group, we’re a smart group. We have all the intangibles. Now if we can put it together, that’s what matters.”

Notre Dame opens the season on the road at Miami on August 31^st. We will preview the season Monday, August 25^th at 7pm on Pulse FM on the season premiere of Notre Dame Federal Credit Union’s Irish Football Fix.