Frankus

Although this bowl game has little meaning in the broader context landscape, I’m looking forward to watching players who played little in the season get playing time.

I agree that we didn’t have a great receiving corps and had Audric, but as I wrote in another thread, no matter how great a running back you have, if there are unblocked linebackers or linemen due to number disparity’s, you’re going to get stopped by the better teams. There were many times where a quick slant would have been a better option, and I think Tyree was way underutilized, but ND stubbornly ran into walls of defenders. I would be pleasantly surprised if we get better receivers through the portal, but as I also wrote previously, great grad year receivers are rare. Skowrenek was a good get. We’ll see. Tyree was a big loss as he was the only guy with true game breaking speed. Lou Holtz would have found a way to get him many more touches and I hope for his sake he finds a program that utilizes his talent. Not many guys can break kickoff, punt returns, rushes and catches for long TD’s.

Notre Dame was ranked # 110 out of 130 in team Pass Attempts in 2022 and ranked #100 -with Sam Hartman who threw an average of 167 more pass attempts the previous two years at Wake- in 2023. I think the WR’s are concluding that Freeman’s offensive philosophy is a heavy run based, ball control offense and they are going elsewhere accordingly to catch more passes. I can’t say I blame them. Perhaps they’re wrong and Freeman intends to open up his offense more in 2024 to more passing attempts. We’ll see.

If we bring in a portal QB, I hope it’s not to develop him as a pro style QB, which I feel like ND did-to its detriment-with Hartman. This is another reason why we need an experience OC, who can assess his QB’s strengths and weaknesses and call plays-and demand performance- accordingly. Hartman never had the arm strength to throw downfield without being able to stride into the throw, but he was throwing off his back foot all the way including the Stanford game. Maybe Joe Burrow, Matthew Stanford and Josh Allen can make that throw, but Sam Hartman-even if he thought it was necessary to get him NFL ready, surely can’t

He doesn’t have the arm strength to make that back foot throw, and the offensive coaching staff never taught him not to do it. A failure on both counts. The entire “ he’s coming to ND to learn how to be a true pro-style QB”, if true, was a mistake. He-and the entire offense- would have been much better off using him both as a running threat on bootlegs, and as a guy who spent less time in the pocket. He hung on to the ball in the pocket way too long all year and nobody apparently corrected this problem

Hopefully, ND will run the ball, stop throwing any fade and tell Hartman if he doesn’t release the ball within three seconds he should run.

After a history of failure with 1st time head coaches-Terry Brennan-Gerry Faust, Bob Davie and Charlie Wies- Notre Dame hired another one. That says a lot, but that’s another discussion. What does Marcus Freeman have to do to not be in the failure category? Let’s focus on his offensive philosophy, particularly 1st down Freeman came in with a simplistic, dogmatic offensive philosophy. We’ve got to run the football no matter what. That sounds great on paper, but what are the consequences? When you run Audric Estime on 1st down time and time again, defensive coordinators are going to adapt. When you mostly run on running downs and pass on passing downs, you’re tipping your hand. Freeman must develop an offense where the QB can check out of runs with easy to complete passes on 1st down when the numbers aren’t favorable. You see this all the time in the NFL, where time and time again the best QB’s in the world, who can complete the most difficult passes, check out of 1st down plays and throw simple to complete 2-7 yard passes designed to be “catch and run” plays. This accomplishes a few things. Defensive Coordinators have to start adjusting to stacking the box and having the front 7 thinking run first. The QB gets into a rhythm of completing passes, and 2nd and short gives an offense a lot more options than second and 10. These passes aren’t wide throws to the far side of the field, like the pick six Hartman threw on 1st down Saturday. They are often very short inside throws to running backs, or quick slants and quick TE routes. The pass travels 2-7 yards from the QB to the target. This approach also takes into account personnel, which mean you aren’t throwing to a TE on Clemson’s Jeremiah Trotter’s side. You throw it to the other side. You attack the defense’s weakest personnel, not their strongest. I don’t expect any changes this season, but if Freeman doesn’t change his approach on 1st down, it doesn’t matter who he brings in as an OC. As we saw this year, an inflexible smash mouth offensive philosophy only works when you have far superior talent. When the talent is similar, or better it is a recipe for failure. I don’t know how flexible, or willing to take a risk, Marcus Freeman is. In his post Clemson Press Conference, he talked about being spooked after Hartman threw his pick. Football isn’t a game of superstition. When a QB throws a pick on a difficult far sideline route, you don’t stop throwing the football. You give him easy to complete passes to regain confidence and move the chains. It’s pretty easy to see why Marcus Freeman’s offense doesn’t move the chains. It is dogmatic and predictable. It’s not going to be fixed by harder work and more repititions. It’s only going to be fixed if Marcus Freeman changes his philosophy and adapts to being more flexible and multi dimensional in his offense’s philosophy. Will he change? We’ll see. The one similarity I see between Freeman and Faust is that he answer’s schematic questions with platitudes. If Freeman is going to succeed, he’s going to have to do a deep dive into schematic offensive football. I hope he can do it. He seems lost right now on the offensive side of the ball, but that doesn’t mean, despite his inexperience, that he can’t use the off season to get better at articulating and designing a better offense. And that starts on 1st down.

The offense rarely has any sense of momentum and precision. I don’t think we have a talented receiver corps, but Parker doesn’t appear to know his personnel - strengths and weaknesses- to design an offense that keeps the chains moving and gets the ball in the end zone. Either Freeman brings in a couple of ready to start playmaking WR’s in this recruiting class, or I don’t expect a lot of improvement next year. I doubt ND will allow him to bring in sophomore or junior NIL talent and grad transfer receivers aren’t elite NFL potential types. After watching our lack of WR speed live against USC, I didn’t expect a down field passing game, but I expected that Hartman would protect the ball. I was wrong. I doubt this will happen, but I’d rather bench Hartman and play for next year to get a good assessment of both Angelli and Minchey. Clemson front 4 beat up our overrated offensive line in the 4th quarter. Talent doesn’t mean toughness and if I’m Marcus Freeman I’m evaluating why the OL is so soft. Clemson’s offense was well prepared for our blitz heavy scheme and attacked its weaknesses. Once we stopped blitzing we stopped them cold. Golden took too long to stop, but they gave the offense many opportunities to make up for the 8 point deficit. The offense simply stunk. The biggest hope I have for Freeman leading us to the promised land is a string of Top 5-7 recruiting classes and a home run hire Offensive Coordinator. ND took a big risk hoping his passion would lead to recruits wanting to play for him, but kids look at wins and losses too. I hope he can persuade them that Notre Dame wants to be elite again and that he’s an elite Head Coach. It’s going to be a challenge for him like no other as he’s digging a hole for himself with his team playing like an average ACC team

This was my first game in the stadium this season after watching the Marshall loss last year. I know they say home field advantage is 3 points, but in the modern era I think it’s 7 easily. I’m probably the oldest poster here (1st game 1965!) and there are a lot of people who don’t like the energy of the music and multimedia, but it pushes the crowd ALL GAME LONG. The energy in the stadium was incredible. ND is once again a very tough place to play, particularly at night. Kudos to Golden. The D has been solid all year long , but his game plan to contain Williams in the pocket was really executed well and proof that he learned and adjusted from last year. Lots of pressure on Williams, which led to the interceptions. I was happy to see the offense running game going to it’s strength, which is Joe Alt. Early in the game they ran inside and our right guard(Spindler I think) was totally blown up by the USC D lineman. I thought “here we go again “, but from then on they ran a lot of successfully using off tackle plays behind Alt. It’s hard to see speed watching TV, but watching it live Tyree is the only receiver who would have a chance to play at USC. He should get at least 10 touches every game. Everyone else, including Flores, are possession receivers relative to USC speed. Freeman has got to upgrade the speed in his receiving corps. I saw Holtz do it throughout the team from 1986-88. If Freeman can do it with his receiving corps and keep recruiting Morrison type speed in the secondary he has a chance to do something special. Kudos to Price, who isn’t getting a lot of carries, but showed how much lateral quickness and breakaway speed he has on that kickoff return. Totally brought the momentum back in ND’s favor. That’s a guy who could play right now at a lot of places. I haven’t witnessed and participated in that kind of collective joy at ND stadium in a long time. Let’s hope Freeman can keep it going. He really showed a lot of the strength and resolve of his character in his post game press conference, and I think the team and coaches fed off of it this week. He still has a lot to learn, but he’s a rock solid motivator.

They're both slot receivers, which means going over the top means they have to cross the field. Given what they have, ND needs to give Hartman the ability to audible out of plays when ND is outnumbered in the box. He's a very accurate passer, and the only way ND IS going to make defenses stop stacking the box is by driving down the field completing possession routes to single covered receivers.

Using Hartman like Pyne that is.

I'd call Buchner a tweener dual threat QB. He doesn't have the speed the guy Alabama is starting and he doesn't have the arm strength like USC's QB. The beef I have with ND is that they're using him like Drew Pyne. When you have an extremely accurate QB, you pass to set up the run. ND is doing the opposite and defenses are loading up the box to successfully stop the run.

The best thing ND has in its favor is the weather conditions. It's hard for USC to prepare for 49 degrees, windy and possibly rainy this time of year in Los Angeles. I hope Freeman is going to practice all week outside. And I hope he let's Hartman audible out of running plays when there are too many defenders to block in the box.

I watched the first half again. tl:dr Our pass protection and play calling was bad. A few thoughts: Like Duke, they mostly used a 5 man front with a man on our center. The first series was an interception, two of the three pass plays were toss ups. The first was to a Raridon who was split wide. He ran straight down the field without making a move. No separation. The second was Flores running a straight fade. No separation. Toss up interception. Apparently, going into the game Parker didn't think our passing game required any cuts by our receivers to beat their secondary. Strange. We had 7-should have been 6, but they were offsides on a punt- possessions in the first half and scored only 7 points. In two possessions, the series' ended with an offensive lineman getting bulldozed and Hartman being sacked. The first was the Kristofic at center and Schrauth at guard experient. On second down Kristofic is bulldozed back 5 yards and on 3rd down Schrauth is bulldozed 6 yards and Hartman sacked. A couple series later Alt is bulldozed on 3rd down and sacked. I remember Heistands lines getting beat, but never bulldozed like that. I don't know if it's a strength and conditioning issue or technique, but something is wrong. On the fumbled handoff on 3rd and short to Tyree, the play design included an unblocked defensive lineman. He was barreling untouched right at Hartman, who flinched and put the ball on Tyree's hip. I don't think Sam Hartman came to ND to be a sacrificial lamb. Should he have executed the play? Yes, but if I'm an elite passing Qb who's looking at ND, this would be a major red flag to me. Maybe you can get QB's to go all in on being a sacrificial lamb at WV-Parker's only stop as an OC-but elite QB's aren't gonna have it. On another lost series and a crucial 3rd down and 6, Parker called another play that was designed to exploit a barely blocked lineman. It was a tight formation with two skill position players behind both tackles. The play call was a reverse to love, who was bunched tight left. However, right after the handoff the unblocked lineman widened the play. Apparently, the right guard was supposed to disrupt the tackle momentarily and then seal a linebacker, but the D lineman was too quick and even the Rocket couldn't have made this poorly executed play work. Last year they would have thrown to Mayer, but even with a much better QB in Hartman with a potential AA in Evans, they ran this play which required a high degree of execution by first time starting guard Spindler. On another lost series on 3rd down, we have two running backs and then motion Tyree to the slot. Louisville rushes 5 and ND had all 5 lineman plus Payne. Louisville's right defensive end is unblocked! Alt blocks the guy inside him and Payne also blocks inside. The pass is a short down and out to Tyree who gets mauled as he cuts. Perhaps once again the wide playside lineman is supposed to be unblocked, but I doubt it. Probably it's a mental error by Alt or Payne. Terrible execution. On the scoring drive we got a couple of 7 yard slant 1st down completions and converted first down runs to move the chains. We got a key 3rd down completion in one of the few times they used a 4 man front and faked a blitz. We had three wide outs to the wide side and Faison ran a stop pattern at the chains. They used a four man front and blitzed a middle linebacker, but we picked it up giving Hartman time to hit a wide open Faidon who ran a right to left end zone route. TD Irish. I haven't watched the second half, but I'll be surprised if they used a 4 man front again

You'll get a kick out of this. I was told by someone who was close to the most senior position at ND that Swarbrick hung around one more year to enjoy the National Championship he thinks we're going to win in football.