Notre Dame came 12 points short of covering the spread on Saturday against Central Michigan in a game that was frustratingly close but ultimately powered down into a comfortable win. The plucky Chippewas, playing with their backup quarterback, showed a lot of fight and resilience on offense and did just enough to prevent an ugly blowout loss. This was a deceiving game in many respects. The numbers below signal an easy win with little trouble for the Irish. However, as it played out too many mistakes and missed plays brought us an uneasy 21-14 halftime lead and a bit of a fight into the 2nd half.
Let’s review Notre Dame’s effort to 4-0 on the season.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | CMU |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 41 | 17 |
| Plays | 65 | 54 |
| Total Yards | 578 | 268 |
| Yards Per Play | 8.9 | 5.0 |
| Conversions | 8/14 | 4/14 |
| Completions | 17 | 10 |
| Yards/Attempt | 12.2 | 6.8 |
| Rushes | 37 | 34 |
| Rushing Success | 61.1% | 50.0% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 10 | 4 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 4 | 3 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 27.7% | 17.1% |
Offense
QB: B+
RB: A
TE: B
OL: B+
WR: B
This was a fine performance from the offense, certainly not great or terrible. There were no turnovers, only 2 punts, and Notre Dame scored touchdowns on all but 1 of their red zone attempts. For the 5th straight game the offense scored over 40 points (going back to the Gator Bowl last year) and it was a season-high in total yardage.
Once again, the big plays ruled the day. Hartman connected on 4 passes for 232 yards and the Irish ran the ball 10 times for 172 yards for the most explosive snaps of the day. Averaging 28.8 yards per play on that few of snaps is devastating for a MAC defense to deal with on the road. Hartman did miss a couple passes, threw a couple more away, and the non-Estime running backs had average days, but the overall picture looked good on Saturday.
Rushing Success
Estime – 13 of 20 (65%)
Hartman – 2 of 3 (66%)
Price – 1 of 3 (33%)
Love – 1 of 3 (33%)
Payne – 2 of 3 (66%)
Thomas – 1 of 1 (100%)
Ketterer – 0 of 1 (0%)
Velotta – 1 of 1 (100%)
Assaf – 1 of 1 (100%)
No doubt, Estime was absolutely cooking against Central Michigan. After a career-high in rushing yards he’s now sitting at 521 yards on the ground this season. That’s a pretty gaudy number which currently leads the nation and he’s also averaging 8.2 yards per rush. For now, that is just slightly better than the legendary George Gipp for the highest average in a single season at Notre Dame.
They spread the ball around again with 9 player catching at least 1 pass. Jayden Thomas (39), Rico Flores (42), Tobias Merriweather (75), and Chris Tyree (76) all put up huge plays for explosiveness. Maybe Thomas (or anyone else yet) isn’t developing into an alpha dog however this has the looks of a season where a lot of players are going to be over 300 or 400 receiving yards.
With Mitchell Evans a late scratch in the concussion protocol I thought this would be a big game for Holden Staes. Yet, he only caught 1 pass (a nice touchdown catch though) on 2 targets. This didn’t seem like a game where Notre Dame cared to show a ton on offense with Ohio State coming up on Saturday night. Beyond the few beautiful deep completions it was a pretty basic day for the passing game.
The offensive line were called for 2 holding penalties (Fisher & Coogan specifically) and had a few shaky moments, like a lineman diving at Hartman’s knee. Overall, they didn’t give up a sack, the Chips only had 2 tackles for loss, and they opened some enormous holes for Estime.
Defense
DL: D
LB: D
DB: B-
What was this defensive performance? At times, it felt like CMU were running all over the Irish and yet they ended with “only” 137 yards on the ground. Backup quarterback Jase Bauer never looked comfortable or smooth throwing the ball but connected on passes of 16, 22, 31, and 37 yards. In total, just 268 yards for Central Michigan (this would’ve been the fewest yards given up in all of 2022 for Notre Dame) and somehow it felt like a real head scratching performance. Should we chalk it up to playing down to competition and backups not really excelling very well?
On an Irish Illustrated podcast this past week a question came in about the lack of pass rush from the defensive line and Tim Prister spent a lot of time talking about how the defense can bring pressure from other units. Sure, that’s not a bad thing per se but it’s just an indirect way of admitting the defensive line isn’t really getting after it.
Without JD Bertrand on the field, Jack Kiser shifted to Mike linebacker and was pretty inconsistent. A week after playing really well, I thought Marist Liufau wasn’t much of a factor against CMU. Jaylen Sneed got some significant playing time and still looks stiff and unsure of his role. I saw true freshman Drayk Bowen try to blitz, bounce off an offensive lineman, get turned around back downfield, as an easy completion was made over the middle of the field.
Stuffs vs. Central Michigan
Kiser – 2.5
Harper – 2
Mills – 2
Onye – 2
Botelho – 1
Cross – 1
JJB – 1
Carter – 1
Liufau – 1
Hinish – 1
Watts – 0.5
Right now, Thomas Harper is probably the most disruptive blitzer from the nickel position and boy did he get a lick of a lifetime on a sack fumble (which of course the Irish couldn’t recover ugh!). Through 4 games against subpar competition, the defensive ends at Notre Dame have 2 sacks. There were only 4 tackles for loss in this game against the Chips with just 1 coming from the defensive line (Jean-Baptiste, he played pretty well) as a whole.
I think things will be a lot better with Bertrand back in the lineup but the defensive line is a clear weakness on this team. If the Irish aren’t able to beat Ohio State next weekend I am sure the defensive line’s lack of disruption will be the main culprit.
The secondary still looks pretty strong, which is nice. Even just a small uptick in pass rush will help them out. CMU seemed to attack the middle of the field a lot and that is a little easier to do without Bertrand’s veteran presence. Bauer ended up finishing this game 5 of 6 for 69 yards with throws over the middle of the field. It can’t be a coincidence.
Jason Onye flashed quite a bit late in the game, although he doesn’t seem to get consistent playing time. Maybe he should play more!
Final Thoughts
Spencer Shrader has quite the leg, nearly hitting one from 59 yards and connecting from 50 and 31 yards, respectively. Will the Irish have back-to-back field goal kickers make NFL rosters after this season?
The all-gold captain’s patch looks to be a full-time thing as they were on the blue jerseys this week. The program also added shamrock decals on the back of the helmets with “32” inside of them in honor of Johnny Lujack’s passing. Why they waited until the 3rd game of the season to do this I do not understand.
I was thinking, have we seen much from Howard Cross this season? Then our writers room pointed out (via Jaime Uyeyama’s recent Thursday Thoughts at Irish Sports Daily) that Cross, coming into week 4, was the 2nd highest graded defensive tackle in the country according to PFF. That seems wild to me. That’s a lot of eating blocks to get that high of a grade with zero sacks, zero tackles for loss, 1 quarterback hurry, and 2 stuffs (none in the last 2 games) through 4 games. Although, looking it over Cross has never really been much of a numbers guy (2.5 TFL since 2022 began) when I kind of thought he was that smaller disruptive guy. Maybe there’s a problem if he’s not and we think Rylie Mills should be?
Sam Hartman now needs 25 touchdown passes over the next 9 games to break the single-season record at Notre Dame. Hartman also tied Landry Jones for 7th all-time in FBS history with 123 passing touchdowns. If this pace keeps up, Hartman will easily move up to 2nd all-time past Kellen Moore’s 142 passing touchdowns.
The FBS quarterbacks with over a 200 passer rating so far this season include: Caleb Williams (USC), Dillon Gabriel (Oklahoma), Sam Hartman, Michael Penix, Jr. (Washington), Dante Moore (UCLA), Jaxon Dart (Ole Miss), and Tyler Van Dyke (Miami). Permanently aggrieved former Notre Dame quarterback Phil Jurkovec is currently dead last in the ACC with a 109.36 passer rating.
CMU head coach Jim McElwain looked like a dad who was lost or confused during a vacation throughout this game.
Notre Dame has 8 passing plays of 40+ yards so far this season–the most in the nation right now although the Irish have played an extra game compared to most other programs. They only had 4 of these pass plays all of last season.
Would Estime still have scored without the Holden Staes holding penalty? This could’ve been a historic day for the Irish tailback.
Irish veteran safety D.J. Brown was a late scratch with a tight hamstring.
The true freshmen to see the field against CMU: RB Jeremiyah Love, WR Jaden Greathouse, WR Braylon James, WR Rico Flores, TE Cooper Flanagan, LB Jaiden Ausberry, LB Drayk Bowen, CB Christian Gray, S Ben Minich, and S Luke Talich.
Central Michigan needs a full re-brand. They have the consent of the nearby Saginaw Chippewa Tribe but should drop that nickname. Get a real logo instead of an underlined capital “C” that’s terrible. I’d ditch the maroon and yellow, too. No school should have “Fire up!” written on their pants how absurd.
Alright so no mention of the peacock broadcast. Mind you I was not 100% locked in so I missed some stretches but plenty of terribleness.
Some of my personal favorites:
1. Nepo Jac on the play by play (a shot bill simmons snuck in on a podcast this week, definitely applies) and garrett on color. always terrible.
2. ND scoring to go up 14-7 and the drive summation says 13 minute drive, the entire length of game to that point
3. the random yellow lines/dots from the marker the analyst uses. they kept showing up
4. multiple freezes to the point I missed part of the game. we have hulu live too so i stream everything
5. the coup de gras. in the 3rr quarter a preview for dumb money shows up and it’s explicit, had 4 f words and like 10 s*** mixed in. while my 7 year old watched. Was this just me? I looked around message boards and twiiter and didn’t see anything
They also showed Staes’ holding penalty as Thomas Harper. But this is all NBC stuff.
My stream was fine for the most part. Pretty normal Peacock.
Hated the peacock broadcast – somehow the commercials were even more repetitive than live TV, multiple freezes, some of the same issues. Didn’t pick up on the swearing but I generally watch sports with the TV on mute though the ‘Hell’ comedy special commercial probably would have scared my kid who thankfully wasn’t watching at the time.
The Peacock experiment is a disaster and it’s going to make me extremely angry when Swarbrick announces that we’ve reupped the NBC deal with half the home games going to streaming.
lol, yeah…
I didn’t pick up the swearing, but lost the feed totally once (had to re-enter the Peacock site), and lost several plays completely. The screen froze up a couple of times as well.
I had the freezes as well, but I thought it was from being in France.
Yeah, here in Hawaii i assumed it was Spectrum’s fault rather than NBC…it isn’t unusual for me to get a couple laggy times a day with my internet. i’m actually kinda surprised to hear everyone else talking about it. NBC really has some internal problems.
Same problem with Spectrum. My system says my connection is excellent but I get buffering early evenings and at other times on weekends.
Ours kept jumping back 5-10 seconds. Probably happened 20+ times throughout the broadcast. Had it totally freeze a bunch of times, too.
I was in a small B&B in downeast Maine during a hurricane, so assumed that was the issue. But maybe not!
I once again get the vibe that this game would have been much uglier under the old regime. If this is the type of frustrating win we have to deal with, I’ll absolutely take it. The biggest thing is that we absolutely need to clamp down on penalties. They’re giving away too many free yards and worse yet keep extending drives. Some of it is sloppiness on our part but I’m still not thrilled with the refereeing.
Somewhere, Braden Lenzy is quietly weeping into a Sam Hartman jersey and watching Merriweather and Tyree’s long touchdowns (and Thomas’ near TD) over, and over, and over. Because Lenzy came open so…many…times last year on plays just like those and never could get a clean throw to catch.
I’m not sure it’s the old regime, it’s the fact that this team has a QB that can, and will, drop dimes on deep shots. Take out the three bombs above and this is a different game. And without those deep shots keeping the D honest, does Estime have the game he does?
And yes, the old regime recruited Buchner, and Pyne, and Jurkovic, but Tommy also brought in Hartman.
Estimes bonkers YPC is definitely assisted by Hartman’s passing ability; we’re running into 2 high safety defenses wayyy more now, which as evidence against us vs OSU last year, leads to better run game in the aggregate. Coupled that with a big running back and solid o line, we’re finally reaping the complimentary football rewards so often sought out.
Competent QB is such a force multiplier, it shows up in sooo many places. It’s how other schools can have young WRs play at an elevated level: QB throws then open. It’s how the running games averages 6, 7, 8 ypc due to light boxes.
seeing the freshmen and sophomores get more involved feels great, I am loving the way Hartman spreads the ball around. I’m still trying to place him on the list of Notre Dame QBs – best since… Kizer? Clausen?
I was playing college ball at the time of Clausen I cant speak to that one, but I’ll say since quinn.
He definitely elevates everyone around him, both with playing ability AND leadership; dude seems very cool leading the offense and i think that gives him the edge over Clausen. His ability to make on time progression passes puts him above every kelly era QB.
Kizer and Clausen have him beat on pure arm ability but I think I’d comfortably take Hartman over Kizer and probably would over Clausen, though Clausen I think could have been insanely good on actually good teams
I 100% defer on the clausen assessment, as I never saw him play. And true on kizer arm ability. All that stated, Hartman’s processing ability and pocket presence are pure gold. His third down crossing route pass to tyree to get the first down, he stepped up in the pocket bumped into the guard but eyes down field the whole time. I haven’t seen that in a long time. There have been a lot of skiddish in recent years bailing on the pass plays looking to run, but sam is otherwise. I’ll take ball distribution and progression reads over arm talent. Hes a true distributor which stresses a defense much more. Obviously I’d like all that WITH a bazooka, but such is life
Hartman is a great, great college QB. I don’t think he’ll have a stellar pro career, though he can probably be in the league as a back up or spot starter for a good long while, but that is not a slight on him whatsoever. There are what, 130ish FBS programs? I bet 125+ would love to have him
Yeah, Hartman isn’t exactly shooting up the draft rankings. Not seeing him inside the top 5.
I do think he’d make an elite NFL backup QB tho.
Tommy is currently destroying alabama from within, so while I’m thankful he helped get Hartman here, Hartman also still stuck with ND and I am going to say “good riddance” over and over
Bama is currently at 81 in total offense.
Why isn’t Hartman with Tommy at Bama?
Hartman and the way we use him is unlike anything the old regime did with the brief exception of Kizer in 2015. He is a complete departure from more than a decade of QB recruiting, development, and play. Unsurprisingly, he is an enormous improvement.
Three old regime transfer QBs played yesterday, and oh boy was that a disaster on all fronts. Maybe recruiting wasn’t what had been ND back in the playoff era?
It felt like a very Weis-ian first half to me.
Yeah that’s more accurate. At half I was annoyed that it was as close as it was – last minute TD and I forgot we were getting the ball to start the second half – but I never felt a dread of “we’re going to let this slip away”
Yesterday was 100% a ref show. They wanted to be part of every big play.
Nice to see Cam Hart get a reception. Hartman really does spread the ball around!
Or else someone doing the box score forgot #5 on offense isn’t the same #5 on defense. Which then put Merriweather as the leading yardage receiver today.
ND updated the official stats late yesterday, i thought it was to fix that…but the ND website (und.com now redirects to fightingirish.com) still shows Hart with a reception.
The view from section 101:
-Classic playing with your food game. At halftime, we had about 2.5x their total yards and 2x YPP. Central players were dropping like flies in the second half. Wasn’t always pretty, but it was effective. No one will remember this game a month from now.
-The defense was missing three of its top tacklers and played extremely vanilla; almost none of the blitzes we’re used to seeing. I have some worries about the DL too, but these grades are too harsh. We held them to 17.
-I think fans are struggling to adjust to an offense that can score from anywhere on the field. Just because we’re not grinding out 3.333333 yards per play with only TEs and RBs doesn’t mean the offense is stalling. Speaking of:
-Former ND QBs yesterday, dios mio.
-Ohio State is going to be very tough. I mainly worry about our slow starts and the prospect of being down 14-0 before we can get settled in.
ooooof
Buchner – 5/14, 32 yards, 0 TD 0 INT (2 runs 11 yards)
Pyne – 5/13, 52 yards, 0 TD 2 INT
Jurkovec – 8/20, 0 TD 3 INT
Combined: 18/47 104 yards 5 ints.
That’s ian book vs michigan 2019 level performance… dios mio is right
It’s worse when you add in rushing/sacks: 13 for 37 yards and 2 fumbles lost (all Pyne’s). So 60 plays for 141 yards and 7 turnovers between the three. Ooooof
How the hell did ND go 9-4 last year? Makes nd seem pretty good at positions 2-85
Mayer, punt blocks, and defense.
I think we’re learning that (1) Kelly’s evaluation of what was holding him back at ND was wrong; and (2) our previous QB situation was even worse than we realized.
Kelly’s entire run, as good as it was and as low and the lows were, can kinda be summed up in his ultimate inability to get the right QB
Brian Kelly has made so much money off of Zach Collaros being surprisingly good.
Does anyone have literature regarding: is fumble recoveries purely a luck metric? I.e. to get more you just have to make more forced fumbles? Or is there a skill aspect to recovering the ball? It feels like playing NCAA on Heisman difficulty right now; like theres some hard coding PREVENTING us from recovering the damn ball. The amount of just the right bounce and an opposing player in just the right spot truly feels cosmic
don’t have an article for you or anything but iirc fumbles, in the long run, basically work out to 50/50 as an expectation, though I’ve never seen a good breakdown on what you’d expect between a fumble say behind or near the LOS vs. a receiver fumbling downfield.
Muchas gracias. I’d love for lady luck to give the boys a big ol kiss next saturday
More specifically (and going off memory too) I think it’s that fumbles are not random but recoveries are. Egg ball bounce funny
yeah that’s right, recoveries are. Peanut Tillman is a great example of the non-randomness of fumbles, or [insert your least favorite running back who always fumbles the damn ball] for the other side
They’re supposed to average out to 50/50 in the long run. But, for example, USC had tremendous turnover luck last year that lasted through the whole season. Even if every past throw has come up heads, it’s still 50/50 that the next one will be tails.
Bill Connelly has definitely written about it. It’s so solidly random that all the advanced stats folks have a turnover expectation of .5 per fumble.
Off topic: LOL Stanford
You laugh, but Stanford is the only ACC team to beat ND in years.
So SP+ update, and up to 4th, ohio state 1, usc 5th. obviously still very volatile this early in the year.
I get all the concerns and frustrations from nd fans, especially after yesterday. Probably 2 biggest things diricnng this discrepancy is penalties, nd had a ton and sp can’t account for them and then turnover luck. already discussed but at some point we gotta recover some right?!? let’s make it saturday
Was about to post the SP+ update myself. Regardless of their poll ranking, we’re hosting the #1 team in the country in 6 days. Let’s go!!
I saw Penn State had two fumble recoveries in two games, then 5 against Illinois. Hoping for that kind of luck next week
Dropped this in the Slack, so sorry if anyone replied, but question: Marist is the most athletic, explosive LB (Butkus award winners excepted), since…???
Every week I see one or two plays where I’m sure he’s lost the edge and…he’s just there. Saw it last week on the Armstrong touchdown where he forced him into a tough throw, saw it this week on a sweep.
So, excluding manti, jaylon, and JOK?
Hmmmm, he seems to be playing into a te’von coney this year maybe? In that hes always around the ball, however I think tevon had much more statistical production.
A lot of the early kelly years LBs are bigger thumper types, dan fox, Greer martini, etc.
I dont think hes quite at the drue tranquil level of productivity but is more of that vein of athletic runner; drue started out as a safety before switching positions.
Maybe like a prince shembo? Prince was more of a rush end OLB in a true 3-4, but he seemed to have a leaner build and had some disruption similar to marist.
Okay wrecking my brain here, but… Asmar Bilal? Lots of athletic hype for quite a while, and started to pan out later in his career.
Also, the stadium environment is totally different from even 4 years ago, to say nothing of 15+ years ago. DJ Dash, the hype woman/sideshow host lady, the band being pretty much silenced. It’s weird and goofy and kind of self-mockery, but it helped keep the crowd in a dull, hot game yesterday. That said, I think it would come across as too unserious for a big game, and incredibly annoying during a loss.
I am super interested in this comment. As you may have seen on this site before, I have been deeply engaged in our crowd dynamic issues for over twenty years. In fact, I have a couple of meetings set up with folks high up in the (complex) game day mgt side for the week after USC to discuss the current situation.
I have been thinking that how the video board has evolved over the past few years has been of some help there, but was less than enmored of the hype woman sideshow lady in Dublin. What’s DJ Dash?
He’s ostensibly a DJ in the stadium, near the student section, who plays the hottest jams of 2004 during breaks in play. I don’t think he’s actually playing anything; just mimicking what the sound system is playing. To be blunt, the clash with our extremely white and dorky fanbase (I include myself) is what makes it equal parts jarring and funny.
I dunno. For someone who went there in the 2000s, it’s unrecognizable. But it’s better than what a hot, mostly boring game would have been circa 2008, which is completely silent and zero energy.
are… are we taking cues on cool from Northwestern?
Interested to see what your guys thoughts on selling beer in the stadium? I think it would help some of these boring games from a vibe standpoint.
I know some people are against, but as a French-Irish Catholic University with a bar on campus, I think they should embrace it.
Basically pro, but it would probably be Guinness, which…eh.
What I’d really like to see is a Family Friendly/Adults Only split. Day games can be Family Friendly with lots of fun Jumbotron distractions and no beer sales. Night games can be Adults Only with a more traditional environment and beer sales.
Yeah I agree, especially these types of games. If they are going to continue to play the MAC schools and TSU’s, I think it’s good to experiment on those gamedays. To me there’s no downside.
To your point, the big games I think it’s good to go the other side. Embrace the moment, let the booze flow, and crank up the band.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a big time ND home game kicking off at 3:30pm again, instead of automatically at night. I like the shots of the campus/game transitioning to night time. Plus, since I feel like we’re actually going to start winning these big games, the energy in the tailgate lots after the game will be memorable.
Coming late to your question. My past two decades on this has convinced me that in their heart, the top ND administrators really truly do not want to have alcohol in the stadium. Some of this goes back to the Miami games in the late 80’s, long time ago I know, but the ND leadership is happy with our crowd as it is, basically wonderful and well-behaved folks. Happy to expand on this.
Aaalll aboard!
Definitely concerned about the D Line vs. OSU. I think by the end of this season we’re all going to collectively agree that Al Washington hasn’t gotten the job done. Absolutely hope I’m wrong there, but there’s a reason OSU let him go, and I’m not sure he’s brought much to the table so far at ND.
Off Topic.
I hope they find Sergio alive soon.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/17/us/sergio-brown-missing-mother-dead/index.html
This is sad.
Yeah 🙁 Obviously there’s no info yet so it could be something else completely…but my first thought was CTE
Deuce Knight commits.
Awesome.
In advance of his visit for the Ohio State game this weekend, too. I would guess that means he gets to be a recruiter for everyone else attending.
Haiku time
Breeze blows over the lake
Red leaves drift in candlelight until
Roar erupts in cheers