Chris Wilson's Write-up
1) In the wake of the Northern Illinois loss, Notre Dame fans spent the following two games hyperanalyzing every aspect of the efforts against overmatched opponents. This is not the most fun way to approach football (even if the final scores of those games reached a combined 94-10) so it was nice to be back to a big game where all that mattered was winning. It was wild early and stressful late but Notre Dame got revenge on Louisville for last year and managed to get to the bye week with some positive feelings, a little bit of momentum and plenty of lingering questions.
2) Cannot say enough about the defensive performance. 17 of the Cardinals’ points came on drives that totaled 50 yards and required the longest field goal in the history of Louisville football. The other touchdown needed a perfect throw and catch, one of many on the day from Tyler Shough and his receiving threats. When Shough is healthy, he’s a good quarterback, and he got some help from the rest of the Cardinals on offense along the way with some incredible displays of skill in tight spots. (All three touchdowns were absurd plays.) Al Golden’s crew countered that with a number of big-time stops on fourth downs.
This effort is even more commendable when you think about what Notre Dame was missing: No Jordan Botelho and Joshua Burnham, then no Boubacar Traore at defensive end. At one point Benjamin Morrison had to go to the locker room, and with Christian Gray sidelined with a shoulder and Jaden Mickey shutting it down for the season it meant the Irish were down to corners four, five and six. Jordan Clark kicked outside from nickel (he’s been awesome), freshman Leonard Moore stepped up (led the team in tackles and had the forced fumble on the long Shough run) and Rod Heard held on at the nickel and they survived the storm. Xavier Watts is so good and we’re so lucky he came back this season, and Morrison continues to live up to all the offseason hype.
Interesting things afoot at linebacker and we’ll find out if it was a one-game thing or the new normal after the bye but Jack Kiser and Jaylen Sneed snaps were way down and most of the reps went to Drayk Bowen, Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa and Jaiden Ausberry (all made some big plays -- the KVA sack was gorgeous). Sneed might need to kick in some more snaps along the line rushing the passer because despite a yeoman’s effort from Junior Tuihalamaka there simply aren’t enough bodies. I’m wondering if after the bye we potentially see the blitzing cranked up, putting more pressure on the secondary to hold up to get more pressure on the opposing quarterback.
3) The offense was a tale of two halves and four quarters. Among the good: Ultra efficient in the red zone again, easily converting two appearances into two touchdowns. Mike Denbrock scheming up big plays to Jaden Greathouse and Jayden Harrison, as well as a ridiculous screen to Jeremiyah Love. Riley Leonard showing a lot of toughness after taking a series of hits (including a ridiculous cheapshot that went unflagged) and powering through. The bad: Long stretches in the middle of the game where the offensive line could get no push, the outside blocking was miserable and things were stuck in the mud. (This might be tied to the aforementioned hit on Leonard.) Sam Pendleton and Jordan Faison going down, not good. Jadarian Price fumbling deep deep deep in Irish territory that resulted in a benching, also not good.
Leonard completed 17 of his 23 passes (74%), and of those six misses there were two drops from Beaux Collins and at least one throwaway where the play was blown up from the start and the options were incompletion or sack. He was lights out on the first drive, rolling out to hit Harrison and Jayden Thomas along the sideline. He is not a perfect passing quarterback but a lot to like, particularly coming through on the big plays to Greathouse and Harrison. Also how many times have we seen perfectly designed screens fail because of a bad throw? That’s not going to do much for your air yards but it still counts as six points.
Broken record: In the second half, Notre Dame had major third- and fourth-down conversion attempts at midfield that failed. Love was not on the field for either play. I really like how hard Aneyas Williams runs and don’t mind him getting touches but on critical snaps I continue to think it would be helpful to have the best offensive player on the team involved.
Goal for after the bye: Unlocking Mitchell Evans.
4) Didn’t mind Marcus Freeman going for it with the ten-point lead late at midfield, just would have preferred different play calls and personnel. Didn’t like how conservative they were at the very end of the game. Yes, Louisville was out of timeouts but Notre Dame approached that situation like they got the ball with a couple minutes left, not five. Louisville got the ball back with nearly three minutes on the clock, which is an eternity in college football at the end of the game with stoppages on first down. Thankfully Jeff Brohm got infected with whatever virus Mario Cristobal passed onto Brent Pry and bumbled so much of the second half, from casually using timeouts to burning time to taking a delay of game on a crucial fourth and short. Considering the topic of the Notre Dame crowd comes up sometimes,
this is what Brohm said following the game:
“Give the crowd credit. We wanted to make sure we get the first down, so we did switch the personnel. It got loud. You couldn’t hear the call in from me. He finally got it and got up there and unfortunately the clock was winding down and he didn’t see it. So that can’t happen. We have to have a better way in situations with no timeouts that we got to get the first down to figure out a way to get a first down in that personnel. So that’s on me.”
I don’t want to get too deep into nerd stuff and analytics here but fumbling the opening kickoff is generally considered not good. James Rendell had another up-and-down day, was disappointed he could not flip the field on his final punt of the game, booting it only 36 yards. Mitch Jeter came through in slick conditions in his one attempt. Made the most of Louisville’s bad snap on the punt, with Faison wisely knocking the ball forward to set up the easy four-yard score. Max Hurleman looked good late against Purdue and got legit attempts at punt returning on Saturday. Freeman said it was to get Faison in on punt block which is a fun wrinkle and hopefully he can heal up and continue contributing up front.
5) Campus notes: It was really quiet in the early going, I exited the toll road around 9 a.m. and you wouldn’t have known a game was going on if you were basing it only on traffic. Louisville returned some of their visitor seat allotment which I do not understand since that’s not a bad drive, they are cheering for a good team and the last time they played a non-COVID game in South Bend was 2014. So it goes.
Despite the mild vibe outside I thought the crowd was good and the green looked awesome, both among the fans and on the uniforms. Good music selection overall and a cohesive in-game experience (a video package that included a very young reporter learning a player’s favorite Taylor Swift song was the “Bad Blood” remix led to said remix being played, for example). Very strange little two-minute warning video in the second half but perhaps in a situation where Notre Dame wasn’t clinging to a late lead and I was more at ease I would have appreciated it.
6) Winning Is Hard Round Up: Alabama blew a 33-14 home lead to Georgia in what would have been a crushing loss if not for the fact Georgia blew it right back. Kirby Smart is now 1-6 against the Tide but it helps that the win is the first of two consecutive national titles. Georgia has to go to Texas next month and the potential for missing the SEC title game is very much there.
Also in line to fall out of the SEC title game is Ole Miss, which eased their way into the season and then lost as a two-touchdown home favorite to Kentucky. The Wildcats had one of the strangest opening months (getting rocked at home by South Carolina, nearly beating Georgia, winning on the road in Oxford). They were not the only top ten team to lose at home, as Utah fell by 13 points to Arizona in a game that shakes up the race for the Big 12 and a playoff bye.
Miami nearly lost, but thanks to Virginia Tech running one of the worst two-minute drills you’ll ever see and some chicanery from the ACC command center, the Hurricanes survived. Brent Pry coaches like a guy who’s 1-10 in one-score games. How do you out-disaster Mario Cristobal? Impressive. The Hokies fly out to Palo Alto this weekend, just what the doctor ordered when you’d like to simply play a normal football game in front of a normal crowd. Central Florida was a double-digit home favorite against Colorado and got blown out. North Carolina blew a 20-0 second-half lead against Duke.
Baylor lost at home to BYU and Dave Aranda is probably going to get fired. Auburn blew a home lead to Oklahoma and while Hugh Freeze probably isn’t going to get fired after two seasons a) It is Auburn, so shouldn’t rule anything out and b) It’s nice he’s having a bad time. Wisconsin had a double-digit halftime lead at USC and ended up getting blown out. Oklahoma State got rocked by Kansas State for their second straight loss. Texas State blew a 22-0 lead against Sam Houston State.
Florida State lost at SMU by 26 and it’s not even really a headline which tells you a lot about the Seminoles. It took Texas a long time to pull away from Mississippi State, and it took Penn State nearly the entire game to get some breathing room against Illinois. Michigan barely held on at home against Minnesota. Northern Illinois lost to NC State. A week after beating Northern Illinois, Buffalo lost to UConn 47-3 so now Notre Dame has a transitive loss to the Huskies. Boston College needed a late rally to beat Western Kentucky. Washington outgained Rutgers by more than 200 yards and lost.
7) If I told you before the season Notre Dame was 4-1 going into October, that would have been a mild disappointment but also believable and relatively understandable. If I told you they were going to be 4-1 with wins over Texas A&M and Louisville, that would be disappointing and also very, very confusing. The attrition hitting the lines could definitely catch up to the Irish as this season rolls on but the hope is an elite secondary, continued improvement from the linebackers and an offense that finds its flow as the weather cools helps to make up for it. The win against Louisville is nice because they were a Top 15 team that played for the ACC title last year, it was revenge and it was a lot of fun but it was also nice because it wasn’t a loss, which would have resulted in a ton of discussions I would like to put off for as long as possible if not indefinitely.
Thankful for a peaceful bye week. I believe Louisville is a legit team, but their schedule is doing them no favors going forward, as they must go to Clemson and Kentucky in addition to hosting a hot SMU team on Saturday and Miami two weeks after that. Hopefully they can hold up their end of the bargain because this deserves to be a ranked win at the end of the season.
Enjoy the open date, choose your cheeseburgers carefully and root hard for Texas A&M over Mizzou. If you’re looking for some audio, Jess and I
recorded an episode talking about this past weekend that’s available wherever you get your podcasts by searching “Rakes Report.” I am not sure if there will be an off week edition on Monday, we’ll see what there is in the way of Notre Dame news and general chaos. Until then (or post-Stanford game), take care of yourselves and each other.
