SOUTH BEND — Leadership, Rylie Mills has learned on his way to a captain’s role for Notre Dame football, does not require angry yelling.

Nor, the fifth-year defensive tackle has found, does it mean seizing on the failures of others. There is plenty of room for positive reinforcement in the way Mills prefers to lead.

“It’s picking up your teammates and going, ‘Hey, we got this. Reload. Get back to what we’re doing,’ “ Mills said recently. “I think that’s the biggest thing. If you can just keep helping others get better, that’s going to do way more of a service to the team than anything else.”

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Set to make his 18^th consecutive start for fifth-ranked Notre Dame in Saturday’s home opener against Northern Illinois, Mills’ 25th career start will represent the highest total among non-transfers on the current Irish roster.

This will be the 51^st career game for Mills, who already owns two Notre Dame degrees: a bachelor’s in marketing and a master’s in nonprofit management.

At nearly 6-foot-6 and 295 pounds, Mills cuts a hulking figure on the field, one capable of wrecking the stoutest opposing line and leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Yet, it took an anecdote about another gentle giant of similar dimensions, 6-foot-7, 282-pound New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, for Mills to unlock his full leadership potential.

The anecdote came from Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman after an offseason visit to the home clubhouse at Yankee Stadium.

“Coach Freeman had a great story where he saw Aaron Judge before the game, and Aaron Judge was looking at highlights of himself before he goes out there to play,” Mills said. “That just kind of sparked something in me: Why would I waste time thinking about plays when I’m not at my best?”

Already north of 50 home runs for the third time in his nine big-league seasons, Judge was watching replays of some of his 308 career homers when he crossed paths with Freeman.

For a six-time All-Star with nearly four times that total in strikeouts, Judge was spending the precious moments before taking the field refilling his memory banks with some of his best moments, not his worst.

“That’s something I’ve really been preaching to Jason (Onye) and Armel (Mukam) and some of the young guys,” Mills said of his fellow defensive linemen. “It’s easy when you’re young to be like, ‘Oh, I missed up a play. I’m not going to play. They’re all (ticked) at me.’

“You have to wipe that from your brain and think about, ‘What are my best moments? Who am I at my best and how can I be that each time I’m out there?' ”

For Mills, credited with a pair of tackles and a pair of quarterback pressures in the 23-13 win at Texas A&M, the reminder has taken hold.

“My confidence now,” he said, “is at an all-time high.”

When Rylie Mills was a budding Eddie Van Halen

As former college athletes themselves, Troy and Kristina Mills fully understand the anguish that so often accompanies excellence.

At 5-foot-10, Troy is a former linebacker at the University of Connecticut, where Kristina played volleyball for the Huskies. Their older son Jaxon is a 2020 graduate of the University of Dayton, where he played defensive tackle at 6-1.

“Sometimes people forget these are such elite athletes,” Troy Mills said. “You don’t just show up and you’re an elite athlete. It’s all of the work behind it. It’s the mental, it’s all of that, that makes these kids so special. They’re not easygoing. They’re not, ‘Oh, it will be fine.’ They are driven. And Rylie is driven.”

Growing up in Lake Bluff, Ill., north of Chicago, the Mills boys filled the family home with music. Jaxon, 4 years older, took up guitar, and by the time Rylie was in the third grade he was taking lessons on guitar, keyboard and drums.

Soon, Rylie was teaching himself the ukelele and the bass guitar.

“And then it just kept flourishing from there,” his mother said.

There’s a YouTube video of Mills at a fifth-grade talent show, rocking out like a young Eddie Van Halen.

“He was playing the guitar behind his back,” Troy Mills said. “I think the rest of the parents were like, ‘Wow. OK.’ “

Football eventually won out, but Rylie Mills continued his musical studies all the way through high school. He still keeps a couple of guitars, acoustic and electric, at his place in South Bend, and will play them during his rare moments of downtime.

“That’s just something that’s always been relaxing for him,” his father said. “He’s just really enjoyed it. He’s actually pretty good. He’s a really good musician. He has a great ear.”

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Over time, Mills has learned to tune out the crashing sounds of criticism, so much of it coming from within. He makes a point of staying off social media once fall camp starts; there is no room in the mind of a leader for such toxicity.

“Rylie has goals,” his father said. “He writes them down. He says, ‘I want to be that person,’ and that’s wonderful. The leadership of their team, Marcus Freeman and his coaches, have been really helpful for him because he absorbs that so much.”

Predawn carpools showed Rylie Mills' commitment

Al Washington, Notre Dame’s defensive line coach and defensive run-game coordinator, gave Mills a book on confidence over the summer. It included a foreword by Eli Manning, two-time Super Bowl champion quarterback of the New York Giants.

Mills kept the book on his nightstand and read from it daily before starting his COVID-bonus season.

“Coming back, there were things I wanted to work on,” Mills said. “One of those was my mental confidence. The biggest change for me has been my mental aspect — just living in the moment and then taking the coaching point from that play and forgetting about anything (else) and just thinking about positive plays.”

Mills’ parents thanked Washington for the gesture the next time they saw him. They also heard the Judge story from their son and could tell how much it resonated with him.

“Very impactful, very inspirational,” Kristina Mills said. “Sometimes as an athlete you focus on what did I do wrong, what can I do to improve? It was making that slight switch in his mentality, and Rylie said that was another helpful piece.”

His father agreed.

“That’s really a great message,” Troy Mills said. “There’s no shortage in this world of people that want to say, ‘Hey, this is what you did wrong.’ He’s also learning that form of positivity in terms of being a leader: How do you raise people up? You can’t beat them down. How do you raise them up? I think they’ve done a nice job here at Notre Dame.”

Sometimes picking up your teammates literally means that. During winter conditioning, Mills took it upon himself to drive a younger defensive lineman or two to those grueling predawn workouts.

“For a couple practices, he had to make sure kids showed up, and he had to go pick them up at 5 in the morning,” his mother said. “They’re like, ‘Well, I didn’t have time to get there,’ and he’s like, ‘No, you’re showing up. Come on. You need to be there.’ “

Holding teammates accountable is a vital part of leadership as well. Mills’ growth in that area hasn’t gone unnoticed by his coaches.

“I sense more confidence, more of a vocal element to him,” defensive coordinator Al Golden said. “Just comfortable in who he is. That’s the biggest thing about leadership. Rylie is comfortable in his own skin and knows who he is, and the guys respect that.”

When 16 Notre Dame players stepped to the front of the room a few weeks ago, Mills was one of five to be voted team captain by his peers. No doubt those early-morning carpools for winter conditioning were part of the reason for his selection.

“We were proud that Notre Dame was allowing that opportunity for him because that’s a lot of maturity,” Kristina Mills said. “He wasn’t captain at that time, but they looked to the leaders and said, ‘Hey, you guys need to bring them into the fold’ and make sure they’re understanding the expectations of the program, just like folks did for him.”

Some of Mills’ mentors on the defensive line included former team captains Kurt Hinish, Isaiah Foskey, Daelin Hayes, Ade Ogundeji and Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa as well as the Ademilola Twins, Jayson and Justin.

Mills’ parents encouraged him to think about the leadership qualities of previous teammates and then incorporate the best aspects of those examples into his own style.

“We wanted that for Rylie,” Kristina Mills said. “When you’re a leader, you’re taking care of everybody else. … I just think it’s great because it’s preparing him for the next level. It’s preparing him for adulthood.”

Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for NDInsider.com and the South Bend Tribune. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football empowers a leader in defensive tackle Rylie Mills