Why Notre Dame DT Howard Cross III, having more fun than ever, is set for monster sixth season
Howard Cross III likes to keep it light.
He’ll show it in small ways. It could be a finger wave at heckling North Carolina State fans on the way back to the locker room before a lengthy weather delay. It could be a quick look and sly smile at a nearby camera before starting a set on the squat rack. Most often, Cross likes to dance during pregame warmups as he internally prepares to put an offensive lineman in a blender.
“I can’t really dance,” Cross said. “But the sheer fact of me doing it, it just translates on the field.”
This is all new for the graduate student defensive tackle. And the timing — when Cross started letting loose — aligned closely with his rise to consensus second-team All-America status.
He and his dad, former 13-year New York Giants tight end and Super Bowl XXV champion Howard Cross Jr., believe that’s no coincidence.
“The more fun he has, the faster he gets, the bigger he gets,” the elder Cross said. “It’s made him a different kind of player.”
Cross felt like he took a step at the beginning of his senior season, but nagging injuries prevented him from showing what he could do. He returned in 2023 as a graduate student with the same mindset: Just have fun.
Sixty-six tackles, 32 defensive stops (tackles that result in a failure for the offense) and 39 quarterback pressures later, Cross is back for his sixth and final season at Notre Dame. The ingredients are there for it to be his best yet.
“That’s my goal,” Cross said. “Every year, I want to reach a new height. I want to reach a new peak.”
‘Nobody Can Block Me’
Cross Jr. is an avid golfer, and you can tell when you talk to his son.
“[Football is] like golf, right?” Cross III said. “If you’re angry, you’re not going to do the next play. Because you’re not gonna do the next play, you’re gonna be angry again, and you’re gonna mess up the next play. It’s like a domino effect.”
When Cross Jr. talks to his son about the mental side of his game, he’ll often use that analogy. It’s something his son has needed to hear.
“He’s like, ‘Everything relates to golf to you,’” Cross Jr. said, laughing. “I’m like, ‘Pretty much.’”
Throughout high school and early in his college career, Cross would get in his own head when he lost a rep. He’d let it affect him moving forward, to the point where he wasn’t enjoying the game or playing as well as he could.
In previous interviews, Cross would often say, “The only person who was able to block me was myself.” He learned that from his dad and other mentors, like his head coach at Montvale (N.J.) St. Joseph Regional, Augie Hoffmann.
“Sometimes in the past, he’s maybe thought himself out of situations that he could have dominated if he let it fly,” Hoffmann said.
Cross believes if he had the “mental fortitude” he has now when he was a freshman at Notre Dame, he would have been an impact player much sooner. He was able to overcome it, though, with help from his dad.
Cross Jr. is Cross III’s closest confidant. Over the past few seasons, he would sit down with his son and ask him, “Are you having fun yet?”
“What do you mean? I’m playing football. I’m having a great time,” Cross would respond.
“No,” Cross Jr. asserted. “Are you having fun?”
Cross had no idea what his dad meant, but he explained it to him.
“Do you hear the music playing?” Cross Jr. said. “Do you see the crowd? Are you having fun? Or are you just playing the game?”
The tide started to turn, Cross recalls, in Week 1 of his junior season against Ohio State. Playing against his high school teammate, then-Buckeyes (and now Cleveland Browns) center Luke Wypler, he was unblockable against what was considered one of the best offensive lines in the nation.
“If the No. 1 offensive line in the country can’t stop me, nobody can stop me,” Cross thought.
To keep the momentum going, Cross likes to repeat two different affirmations to himself on the field. One is, “You can do it.” The other is, “Nobody can block you.”
If he goes into the game believing no one can block him, Cross believes, he won’t actually be blocked. In the rare times he does, he shakes it off as a fluke. A mistake. That didn’t actually happen.
Cross Jr. knew his son unlocked a new level Sept. 23, when the Irish prepared to face Ohio State again. He saw him dance before the game and high-five his teammates. It was nothing like the tense demeanor he previously knew.
“There you go,” Cross Jr. thought, satisfied. “Now he’s having fun.”
“That was also a big thing,” Cross III said. “I realized the more I had fun, the better I played.”
Fire Hydrant With Oven Mitts
Don’t mention the word “undersized” to Howard Cross III.
He remembers not being recruited as much as other stars from his area because he wasn’t tall enough, saying it out of the corner of his mouth, through gritted teeth. He never thought much of it, though. He just played ball.
“Couldn’t really care,” he said. “Obviously now, it’s more of a factor, but it’s still not really that big of a deal.”
That’s been true from the moment he found a home at defensive tackle.
Cross went out for football as a freshman after Hoffmann successfully recruited him to come to St. Joseph. Everyone tried every position, but Cross’ dad played tight end. He figured he’d do the same.
As he recalls it, Cross didn’t catch a single pass that day.
“I’m like, ‘OK, well, this is not happening,’” Cross said.
“He’s almost allergic to the offensive side of the ball,” Hoffmann said. “But we were just laughing, because this kid’s so good on the defensive line. We can’t figure out something else for him to do.”
Cross Jr. was somewhat surprised as well, but he invested his time and effort into helping his son be great. Physically, Cross III has never had a more grueling workout than the ones his dad puts him through. He once asked his dad, “What’s the biggest thing that makes you good?”
Cross Jr.’s response: “Most of the guys who play against you don’t want to play.”
“They think they want to play, but they don’t,” Cross Jr. added. “He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘You’ll see.’ You don’t have to change your attitude, just play really hard, really aggressive.”
This manifested when opponents tried to pull a guard at Cross. Instead of going around the blocker, No. 56 would blow him up. Next time, Cross Jr. chuckled, the guard would think twice.
Soon enough, Notre Dame interior offensive linemen would feel the same way. Working on scout defense as a sophomore in 2020, he made an impression on two future NFL starters.
“It’s me and Aaron Banks [now the San Francisco 49ers’ left guard], and Aaron’s a large dude,” former Notre Dame and current Houston Texans center Jarrett Patterson said. “He’s a big guy. We double-teamed him, and he kept low to the ground.”
It was like trying to move a fire hydrant, Patterson explained. That’s how stout he was. And this fire hydrant happened to be one of the fastest defensive tackles in the game.
“You just couldn’t move him,” Patterson said. “We look at each other like, ‘Damn. Where’s this coming from?’”
The second trait that stands out to Patterson — and anyone else who tries to block Cross — is his hands. First, they’re huge. They look like oven mitts, Patterson said. He wears three- or four-XL gloves.
More significantly, Cross’ hands are quick and violent. He will swim around a run blocker before they can even touch him or swat a pass-protector’s hands away and dip by him. It’s a skill he inherited from his dad, who once grabbed and held a young — and future Hall of Famer — Michael Strahan’s hands in mid-air, mid-play.
“Carl Banks [a linebacker for the Giants at the time] was like, ‘You move your hands so fast that you can probably catch somebody’s hands before they touch you,’” Cross Jr. said. “And I said, ‘Interesting.’ And I showed Strahan. Strahan’s like, ‘What the?!’”
The standard for a defensive lineman’s hands is, of course, Los Angeles Rams legend Aaron Donald. A video once went viral of Donald training his hands by swatting away fake knives, which Cross has not done.
“I haven’t graduated to knives just yet, but I’m working toward it,” Cross said.
He was joking. Maybe.
Instead, he’ll go through the motions of his pass-rush moves 200 to 300 times per day in his everyday life. When he’s sitting in his chair during class, he’ll work a rip. When he’s walking to his next one, a swim. Over and over and over again.
“I really started emphasizing it over the last couple of years,” Cross said. “Paired with the speed that I’ve been blessed with, I feel like it works pretty well.”
The Final Round For Cross
When Cross returned from winter break after beating Oregon State in the Sun Bowl, he prepared to meet Notre Dame’s six early-enrolling transfer additions. One greeting worried him a bit.
Three and a half months earlier, he accidentally derailed his new quarterback’s season on a game-sealing strip sack that caused a severe high-ankle sprain.
“I was like, ‘Hey!’” Cross said, recalling his introduction to Riley Leonard. “‘Just wanted to say, it’s great to meet you. I’m the guy that hurt you.’ Shook his parents’ hands and said, ‘Hey, sorry.’ … I didn’t really know he was going to be our quarterback.”
Much to Cross’ relief, Leonard harbored no ill will. He did request a steak dinner at Ruth’s Chris as compensation, but he accepted a steak cooked by Cross instead.
“I love Riley,” Cross said. “Riley’s a great kid. No animosity, thank God. But he’s a great kid, and he’s gonna be great for us this year.”
“He still will walk by me in the locker room and say, ‘Hey Riley, I’m really sorry, by the way,’ every day,” Leonard said in April. “I feel so bad, like, ‘You’re good, man! You didn’t do it on purpose.’ He’s a great guy. Me and Howard kind of have that bond.”
With the elephant out of the room, Cross and Leonard are catalysts for a Notre Dame team expected to make a playoff run. Many speculated the former could take advantage of his career season and go pro, but Cross saw it a different way.
“You had a great year,” Cross said. “Singular. You had a great year.”
NFL teams value year-to-year consistency, Cross explained. They wanted proof he could replicate his 2023 performance. It was one of several reasons he chose to come back.
“You can go to the league, and you’re probably going to get drafted,” Cross said. “Or, you can stay here. Get your master’s [which he recently completed]. Be a person on the team. Be well-known throughout the Notre Dame network, which is extremely important in the long run.
“And then if, God willing, you do exactly how you did or anywhere near how you did, you’ll be [drafted in] an even higher spot, guaranteed.”
Cross Jr. is overwhelmingly proud of his kids, calling them his greatest accomplishment. His daughter and Cross’ twin sister, Bella, graduated near the top of her class at Alabama (Cross Jr.’s alma mater) and works at a hedge fund in Miami. But he won’t go any easier on his son, even as he enters Year 6.
He’d like to see him develop a third or fourth move he can win with 99 percent of the time. At the moment, he’s focused on two: One power, one speed.
“That’ll be the big jump in his game, because he’s going to get double-teamed and triple-teamed all year long,” Cross Jr. said.
He’s right. Cross rose to the top of the scouting report. Luckily, he’s also at the top of his craft.
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