SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Marcus Freeman watched a little bit of football during his weekend off. If he wanted to find a cautionary tale, there were plenty staring back at him. The sport produced drama in No. 1 Alabama going down to Vanderbilt, plus No. 4 Tennessee, No. 9 Missouri, No. 10 Michigan and No. 11 USC all losing, with No. 8 Miami needing another act of divine intervention to remain undefeated.
Maybe Freeman has moved past the motivational tricks that prompted him to put last year’s Louisville game on loop around the football facility. After all, Notre Dame was its warning last month when it bombed at home against Northern Illinois. Freeman tried to learn a little from the sport’s chaos, but he probably already knew the answers.
“I’ve really tried to research, ‘Hey, what are the coaches saying are the reasons that they didn’t succeed on that Saturday?’” Freeman said. “As you look, there’s a common thread of not starting fast, right? Getting behind early in the game. Third down, right? They struggle, maybe third down, (missed assignments), penalties, turnover margin. As you go back and you look at what happened with us versus Northern Illinois, there was a very similar reasonings behind the outcome.”
It was all true two years ago, too, when Notre Dame inexplicably lost 16-14 at home to Stanford as a two-touchdown favorite, the same final score as the Northern Illinois loss. Against a Cardinal team so bad that coach David Shaw resigned at the season’s end, the Irish went 3 of 12 on third down, lost two turnovers while failing to create one and trailed 10-0 by halftime.
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So yeah, Freeman doesn’t need to research how heavy favorites lose games they shouldn’t. He has done it … more than once. Now he’ll get another chance to apply that knowledge as No. 11 Notre Dame hosts Stanford (3:30 p.m. ET, NBC) as the Irish look for a fourth straight win. Beat the Cardinal this weekend with off-site games against Georgia Tech (Mercedes-Benz Stadium) and Navy (MetLife Stadium) to follow, and Freeman could notch his first six-game winning streak as Notre Dame’s head coach. … just in time for the first College Football Playoff rankings to come out Nov. 5.
Of course, looking that far ahead is another one of those lessons learned, both from college football’s schedule last weekend and Notre Dame’s experience under Freeman. In other words, the future can wait.
“So we have to understand, as a program, as a head coach, our players like, ‘Hey, these are the areas that really factor into the result of a loss,’” Freeman said. “Use that to attack practice, use that to prepare the right way so that on Saturday, we don’t let one of those things happen.”
Here are three questions and a prediction for the Irish heading toward the Cardinal:
Has Irish pass rush taken too many hits?
Notre Dame’s sack leader won’t play the rest of this season. The player he replaced won’t either, knocking out Al Golden’s two best edge rushers until next September now that Boubacar Traore and Jordan Botelho are officially lost to torn ACL injuries. Pass rush was supposed to be a potential tripwire for this defense, one Traore and Botelho helped Notre Dame clear.
Now the Irish are back to wondering if there will be enough on the edge of the defense to make quarterbacks uncomfortable.
“If there’s injuries that could happen, you have to have a Plan B and Plan C,” Freeman said. “And we do have that ready to go if something unforeseen happens.”
Notre Dame is already there.
Junior Tuihalamaka and Loghan Thomas are the new tandem at Vyper, replacing Botelho and Traore. Tuihalamaka is a converted linebacker who didn’t get a defensive snap against Texas A&M or Northern Illinois. Thomas is a freshman who enrolled last winter weighing fewer than 200 pounds. He made his college debut at Purdue (seven snaps) before being pushed into action after Traore’s injury against Louisville.
There’s a chance Notre Dame will get Josh Burnham back this week after suffering an ankle sprain at the end of the Northern Illinois loss. He’s the only potential cross-training defensive end between Vyper, more of a pass rushing position, and Field End, usually a bigger body. RJ Oben remains in play there, with freshman Bryce Young on the rise.
The Cardinal already have allowed 55 quarterback pressures through five games, per Pro Football Focus, which includes eight sacks. For the point of comparison, the Irish have allowed 37 pressures and four sacks despite already losing three starters up front. The point being, even if Notre Dame’s pass rush takes a hit without Botelho and Traore, this weekend might not show it.
Can Evans get going?
It’s easy to forget that tight end Mitchell Evans is still less than a year removed from tearing his ACL in a blowout of Pittsburgh last Oct. 28. It’s also easy to forget that Evans, at his best, gives Notre Dame’s offense a get-out-of-third-and-long-free card because he can box out linebackers and defensive backs to get open. And that’s because Evans hasn’t been able to do much of that through five games.
The senior has just 13 targets this season, good for 10 receptions, 82 yards and no touchdowns. Against Ohio State and Duke last season alone, Evans got 14 targets and made 13 catches for 209 yards. The good news for Notre Dame is at least Evans’ workload is rising, going from 10 snaps at Texas A&M to 20 at Purdue to 46 against Louisville.
Evans averaged 53 snaps in his eight games played last season.
“It takes time, right? The more time that he has to get his self to his full potential is crucial. And so this bye week, I think, was crucial for him in terms of continue to develop in the recovery as he still comes back from the ACL of last year,” Freeman said. “But we have a lot of confidence in Mitch.”
Whatever the pace of Evans’ rebuild, he remains Notre Dame’s best passing game outlet on third or fourth down. He has converted four times this season, which leads the team. The entire receiver group has converted eight third or fourth downs.
“I think he’s better because of the bye week because he got a chance to kind of reassess,” offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock said. “We got a chance to kind of cut some film up, sit down, go over it and look at the areas where I thought he needed to kind of excel a little bit more. And he’s completely on board and ready to do that, so I look forward to it.”
How creative can Stanford be at QB?
Stanford expects to have starting quarterback Ashton Daniels in the lineup Saturday after he missed last weekend’s 31-7 loss to Virginia Tech. It’s hard to see how the Cardinal can function offensively without him considering backup Justin Lamson went 13-of-24 for 103 with an interception.
Daniels suffered a leg injury against Clemson a week earlier. And even though Daniels went 9-of-19 for 71 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions against the Tigers, he gives the Cardinal their best chance because of his dual-threat skills. He leads Stanford with 250 yards rushing in Troy Taylor’s offense, which relies heavily on movement and misdirection.
“I have so much respect for their staff and the way they conduct offense and the challenges that they give you,” defensive coordinator Al Golden said. “Our guys are going to have to be sharp. We’re going to have to communicate really well pre-snap, get our cleats in the ground and play hard. That’s the challenge here today on early downs.”
Stanford managed just 359 yards total offense against Notre Dame last season as the Irish pulled away for a 56-23 win. Daniels got the start, but Lamson did damage with a 49-yard quarterback run on Stanford’s first possession.
In other words, the Irish may see both quarterbacks this weekend.
“Different personnel. Constant change of personnel. Shifts, motions, challenges the perimeter, scheme runs, different empties he gets to, good screen game. The whole field is challenged,” Golden said. “Last year I spent a lot of time watching all of his stuff previously, just trying to have a good idea of his background and where he goes. I saw (Taylor) over the winter, and I told him, I just have a great deal of respect for him.”
Prediction
The fact that Notre Dame has been good coming out of bye weeks shouldn’t matter. It’s a small sample of three games and three wins, with just one of those being close. And facing Stanford at home won’t be like beating BYU in the Shamrock Series two years ago. It should be closer to blowing out Pittsburgh and Wake Forest at home last season after a week off. Notre Dame’s offense doesn’t feel quite ready to bully an overmatched opponent, at least not yet. But the Irish defense won’t let the Cardinal breathe, even with Daniels expected to return at quarterback. Notre Dame shouldn’t sweat its return after the weekend off.
Notre Dame 33, Stanford 10
(Top photo of Marcus Freeman: Matt Cashore / Imagn Images)
