For the second straight home game, Notre Dame looked like a tire fire for much of the first half against a MAC opponent Saturday, but this time, at least, the Irish managed to pull itself together and post a workmanlike 28-3 victory over Miami (OH). That should at least calm the frustrated masses who, in the first half, booed ND off the field a time or two.
Next week, the Irish will face possibly their best opponent yet in Louisville, for which ND will be its best opponent too. But for now, let’s go over some of the key storylines from today’s win.
Signs of life from Riley Leonard
After a half of yips-level throwing from Leonard ended with him dropping a deep-ball TD dime to Beaux Collins, Leonard looked (closer to) in rhythm the rest of the game as a thrower. At least, he no longer looked like Drew Pyne in the first half against Cal and was able to make competent throws beyond 10 yards, which he wasn’t really asked to do against Purdue.
Now I’m starting to wonder if we could have avoided an awful lot of stupidity had Jaden Greathouse caught Leonard’s very good throw two weeks ago. Maybe all Leonard needed was to see a completion on one of those throws to look like he had thrown a football before? Who knows. The point is, from there Leonard looked pretty good. He put up another 100-plus yard rushing performance, capping it with a long scoring run on 4th and 1 when I was calling for a punt. Shows what I know, I guess.
RILEY LEONARD 5️⃣0️⃣ YARD TOUCHDOWN#GoIrish☘️ pic.twitter.com/ZNLEaTyDfx
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) September 21, 2024
I’m still not sure if the Irish can play more or less in a phone booth on offense and beat anybody good, but for today it (eventually) worked.
An improved effort on defense
It wasn’t quite the dominant performance it had against Purdue, but the Notre Dame defense at least looked like it was interested in playing football today, an improvement from the previous home game. There were solid contributions from many, but none more impressive than Boubacar Traore, the hidden gem recruit this staff uncovered in Massachusetts who looks like he will be a cornerstone of the line going forward. Traore didn’t make any highlight reel plays by himself, but he was around the ball an awful lot.
In his first career start today vs. Miami OH, freshman DE Boubacar Traore has a career-high four tackles, two sacks, a forced fumble and a QBH – all in the first half.
— Notre Dame Football PR Team (@NDFootballPR) September 21, 2024
Christian Gray made a pick, Jaylen Sneed had a nice stuff on a 3rd and short, Jaiden Ausberry forced an incompletion, Karson Hobbs nearly had a pick, Leonard Moore got a ton of snaps, and even Howard Cross made his presence felt with a nice tackle of Brett Gabbert. Miami had much more success than you’d like in the running game for a team that entered with 64 yards in that department in two games, but there’s no such thing as giving up 3 points and not playing well defensively.
It seems pretty obvious by now that the D will have to carry these Irish sometimes, and this time it did its job. Junior Tuihalamaka’s diving interception off a tipped ball in the red zone after the ND muffed punt was a huge dodged bullet that kept a bad situation from getting worse. Gray’s pick helped keep the Irish semi-comfortable in the 3rd quarter.
Still want Jeremiyah Love to touch the ball more
Jeremiyah Love literally cannot touch the football enough for me. Today he had 12 touches and got 69 yards out of them, so not exactly lighting it up, but it was the first game this season where he didn’t look like the best player on the field. On his one reception for nine yards, it looked like he had about three yards and somehow slithered through about 5 defenders at once for six more.
Every year I seem to pick a pet cause that I never let go of (last year it was Marist Liufau, sorry, buddy), and this year it’s pretty clear the all-Love offense is going to be mine.
The running game actually did not do a whole lot outside of Leonard, though I suppose that’s the beauty of a running QB; sometimes it doesn’t have to. Still, with the new starting offensive line configuration, you would have liked to see a little bit more success in that department.
James Rendell finally lives up to his billing
It took till game 4, but the Aussie import at punter finally looked like the guy Notre Dame fans were sold in the offseason. He unleashed a couple of bombs – and timely ones too, considering they came from deep in ND territory – and averaged 47.3 yards on his four attempts. Coach Marcus Freeman talked about simplifying things for Rendell this week after spending the early season trying to, in so many words, get too cute.
The coaches were consistent about Rendell being a potential weapon in special teams, and we saw the first glimpses of that today. Especially if the offense isn’t going to be a well-oiled machine – and the coaches are not, at this point, trying to obfuscate the fact that it isn’t and may not be for some time – every little bit helps, and an extra few yards on punts are worth having.
Next week is the season
Not to put too fine a point on it, but next week we’ll really find out what this team is and what hope, if any, it has. Louisville in 2024 is a mostly unknown quantity at this point, but they more or less kicked ND’s butt all over the field a year ago, so we know what they are capable of. If the Irish can win, they’ll go into an off week and then face a run of opponents they should, in theory, not have too much trouble with. If not…well, let’s hope they win.
I think this entire Riley Leonard project is wrongheaded, shortsighted, and likely to cause problems in the future.
We brought in a 1-year transfer QB who is really a RB. Thanks to, I guess, a sunk cost fallacy, we’re allowing him to take carries away from our talented RBs, passes away from our WRs and TEs, and snaps from our younger QBs who will be here in 2025 and beyond. I’m worried about an exodus of offensive skill talent after this season.
In addition, we brought in Denbrock (and paid him a fortune) to build a true downfield passing game. But now we have to design the offense around QB runs and short zone beaters (today’s one long pass aside). We’re running an offense we don’t need, don’t want, and won’t be running in 2025 or beyond.
Why are we doing this? Who is it helping?
I upvoted this because I think it makes a bunch of good points, but I’ll play devil’s advocate, or at least try to explain what I think is going on:
Basically, I think the coaches genuinely believe (and may be correct that) Leonard gives us the best chance to win games this year. They started to believe their own hype that This Is The Year, can’t bring themselves to realize that it’s not – there’s no way this team could possibly make a semifinal, much less win a title, with any of our quarterbacks playing – and the schedule is basically Charmin soft. So they are just going to ride it out with Leonard for the time being, and maybe we’ll roll into USC 10-1. Given what we lose, next year the team isn’t going to be as good (/shudders), so might as well try to maximize our chances of making the playoff this year still.
If we lose to Louisville or anybody else in the interim, though, they absolutely should tell Leonard that he’s welcome to play QB at the goal line and fullback otherwise, and that’s it.
I think you’re right, but we need Freeman to have better long-term/strategic thinking than that. Trying to brute force this team into a playoff slot to lose by 45 to Georgia at the cost of years of offensive development in the future is so myopic.
And using these MAC games as practices to “develop” Leonard as a passer — develop him for who? The Bulgarian Football League draft? The season is 1/3 over, whatever development is coming is going to be minimal at best.
Another factor is the whole Year Three thing. He probably doesn’t feel like he can play for the future when this is supposed to be the year. And if next year’s team is worse, which it likely will be, it will call into question what exactly he has done to the program given that next year’s team will be substantially comprised of “his guys.”
Yea it’s tough to play for the long-term when short-term results are always demanded (and one might get fired in the meantime). Though I do agree that he should have had a little longer view in sight, I recognize the difficulty in having such a view.
Succinct and well put!
I don’t particularly think Leonard looked all that much better as the game went on, or I guess he just didn’t convince me. It looked like they simplified the types of throws they asked of him based on his limitations. He completed more, but they were mostly short throws to relatively stationary receivers. Good enough to beat a bad MAC team, but something that’s easier for good opponents to game plan for. I don’t think he’s going to turn the corner into looking like a competent thrower consistently, I think he’s gonna float between Brandon Wimbush-bad and average at best, which is risky as hell to place your trust in.
On the plus side, apparently you don’t need a passing game to beat USC, soo…