It was a very quick first half and a bit of a slow start for both Notre Dame and North Carolina on Saturday evening in South Bend before the offenses finally started piling up the points later in the game. That, and both defenses struggled mightily to contain their opponents. The over/under was 62.5 and that over felt like an absolute lock with the way these teams matched up with each other.
Once again, the Irish beat the Tar Heels–now moving to 20-2-0 in the series. This was a dangerous North Carolina team led by a very good college quarterback but they just can’t find victories. They are the best worst team in the country, or in the running for the award once again.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | HEELS |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 44 | 34 |
| Plays | 68 | 73 |
| Total Yards | 528 | 564 |
| Yards Per Play | 7.76 | 7.72 |
| Conversions | 5/11 | 6/11 |
| Completions | 18 | 24 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 8.8 | 10.3 |
| Rushes | 42 | 40 |
| Rushing Success | 65.0% | 63.8% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 8 | 7 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 5 | 4 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 20.8% | 17.9% |
The good news is that Notre Dame put together a terrific performance on offense with a few blips covered up by perhaps the best game of Kyren Williams’ career in the blue and gold. The Irish now sit at 7-1 with Navy coming to town next weekend. But first, a review of this 10-point win over UNC.
Offense
QB: B+
RB: A+
TE: B
OL: A
WR: B-
You can always nitpick (we will, of course!) but this was a fantastic performance from the Irish offense featuring season-high marks in total yards, rushing yards, yards per play, and points.
The biggest complaint could be settling for field goals 3 times in the red zone, including each of the last 2 possessions of the game from the 2-yard line. It would’ve been a lot cooler to score 56 points.
We saw a few inaccurate throws from Coan and otherwise he put together another strong performance throwing for 213 and scoring on a big run from 21 yards out. Tyler Buchner threw a nice screen pass touchdown and added a 14-yard run from a pretty quiet day on the ground for the freshman. The juggling is working for now.
Notre Dame hasn’t faced very good defenses lately and isn’t likely to be challenged a lot to finish the regular season, either. However, the progress on the offensive line looks real and encouraging. Allowing just one sack (Coan had plenty of time to throw too) while piling up almost 300 yards on the ground with a 65% success rate is statistically one of the best performances of the Kelly era. Sure, the Tar Heels aren’t great on defense but this isn’t a Sun Belt team, either.
Now, we talk about Kyren Williams.
Rushing Success
Williams – 13 of 22 (59.0%)
Buchner – 1 of 4 (25.0%)
Coan – 2 of 2 (100%)
Diggs – 9 of 11 (81.8%)
Davis – 1 of 1 (100%)
What can you say? He was having a great game and that was before his 91-yard spectacular touchdown run that should immediately go into the vault as one of the plays of the season across the nation. This was a transcendent performance from Williams totaling 214 yards from scrimmage. He’s just so, so, so special.
Even Logan Diggs–with a more modest 42 yards on the ground–ran hard and was successful on 9 of his carries. Interestingly, Chris Tyree returned from injury and saw the field on kickoff return duty (no attempts) but was not a factor out of the backfield.
Braden Lenzy exited the game early with an upper body injury and looks to be on his way to being passed by true freshman Lorenzo Styles who, for the second straight game, led the offense in receiving with 74 yards. That’s 131 yards over the last 2 games for Styles which isn’t too shabby.
There were a couple bad drops for Notre Dame but those were balanced out by North Carolin’s mistakes, too. The group as a whole is looking much more efficient these days. For example, Avery Davis and Kevin Austin totaled 8 catches for 87 yards and 2 touchdowns on 10 targets. The 2 incompletions were drops.
Defense
DL: B
LB: D
DB: D-
I predicted North Carolina would score 37 points and they fell 3 short of that mark so I can’t be too upset about what we witnessed from this defense. In my mind, there are a few things going on that made it tough on Saturday night.
1) The back 7 are really struggling. Outside of Drew White there aren’t a ton of experienced players and the group as as a whole isn’t especially talented enough where their skills are going to mask a lot of matchup problems with a tricky and difficult to defend North Carolina offense.
2) The tackling leaves a lot to be desired. Is it related to coaching? I’m not so sure yet because of point 1 above, although there were too many misses on Saturday night from the defensive line. More to the point, it’s not so much missed tackles for me as the lack of driving tacklers back when making contact. There’s still tons of extra yards being gained by opponents when they should be wrapped up and stopped. There’s also a few players, like Houston Griffith, who in my opinion just are not good enough at other aspects of the game to make up for their very poor tackling. We have too many liabilities on the field and it’s being manifested in situations like North Carolina’s wide open touchdown on a coverage bust but mostly in poor tackling.
Trying to tackle Howell. pic.twitter.com/QEEQFSheoq
— 18 Stripes (@18stripes) October 31, 2021
3) There’s only so much the defensive line can do when there’s not much help behind them. This felt like a game where Notre Dame would terrorize North Carolina’s underachieving offensive line while 3 sacks and 7 tackles for loss overall is just okay.
However, look at the stuff from the game against the Heels:
Stuffs vs. UNC
MTA – 3
Foskey – 2.5
Ademilola, Jay – 2.5
Cross – 2
Botelho – 2
NaNa – 1.5
White – 1.5
That’s right, 90% of the stuffs came from defensive linemen. Freeman blitzes the 2 inside linebackers so much on running and passing downs that it’s difficult to understand how there’s not more havoc rate being produced. We miss you, Marist Liufau.
JD Bertrand especially has been in a big funk while continuing to play major minutes. Over the last 5 games he only has 0.5 tackles for loss and prevented a crucial 3rd & 10 from becoming a reality following a roughing the passer penalty leading to a North Carolina touchdown.
There may be some minor schematic tweaks to make in the coming weeks but it definitely seems like the Irish offense and defense are currently moving in different directions.
Final Thoughts
Credit to Sam Howell for playing a superb game outside of one bad interception. He threw for 341 yards and ran for 101 yards. I can’t imagine the 300-100 club against Notre Dame is very large. Per our own Michael Bryan, the last QB to do that was Marqise Williams on North Carolina’s last trip to South Bend back in 2014. Everett Golson almost did it that day, too.
Howell isn’t very tall but he reminds me a lot of the Bills’ Josh Allen in that when he gets hit he’s never too bothered and just stays on his feet. He must have the heaviest bones in football. He’ll just leave his body as a target, let you hit him, and bounce off for a few more yards.
Settling for that field goal following the Howell interception kind of sucked. It could’ve been 45-27 with 12 minutes remaining and effectively game over. I wish we could replay those first 2 downs after Davis’ 10 yard run and give the ball to Kyren Williams again instead of Diggs.
The holding call bringing UNC’s touchdown run back where they’d eventually settle for a field goal felt like an enormous change of events. It was followed up by Notre Dame getting a personal foul call in their favor on the next drive leading to a 17-10 halftime lead.
I was absolutely shocked that an offense as aggressive and explosive as North Carolina punted on 4th & 1 after the long review while losing 24-20. They were at their own 27-yard line but Notre Dame scored on the very next possession with a back-breaking 11-play drive to take a 31-20 lead. The momentum from there always seemed in Notre Dame’s favor.
The post-3rd quarter light show improved in its second week:
You thought it couldn’t get any better?
You must have forgotten there’s a magic in the sound of our name.#GoIrish #BeatHeels pic.twitter.com/D6OkOdOFk9
— The Fighting Irish (@FightingIrish) October 31, 2021
Every defensive coordinator at Notre Dame needs to be initiated into the Navy offense and Marcus Freeman gets his chance this upcoming weekend. The bar is set very low as Navy is averaging well under 4 yards per carry and averages only 18.1 points per game. Consider this an anti-jinx, this is not the time to have Navy score 2 touchdowns in the 1st quarter to set in a bunch of panic.
The 293 rushing yards for Notre Dame were the most in a game since the 3rd game of last year versus Florida State and the 2nd most in the last 27 games.
This was the most yards given up by Notre Dame since allowing 587 in an 11-point over Wake Forest on 11/4/17. Go ACC!
Isaiah Foskey needs 5.5 sacks over the final 5 games to surpass Justin Tuck’s single-season school record.
It’s still crazy to look at what a menace Howell was running the ball. He was successful on 12 out of his 14 carries!
I think it’s more than fair to start ringing the alarm bell (again) about this defense. I know Hamilton is out. I know our LBs are very average in terms of talent. But.
We have seen this before, against this exact same team, in this exact same stadium, in the exact same way.
Freeman has seen the Navy offense twice, I believe. So he gets no reprieve if the D struggles Saturday.
Could part of the tackling issue be that teams don’t get to practice it as much?
I predicted UNC to score 31. Even so I’m disappointed in the defense.
Freeman was DC of Cincy from 2017-20, but they didn’t play Navy every year because the AAC conference is pretty wacky.
2017: 42-32 loss for Cincy (ouch, there’s the baptism)
2018: 42-0 win (quick learner)
2019, 2020: DNP
So he hasn’t seen it in a while but there should also be some DNA (and by that I guess I mean Elston) in the program still around from Clark Lea’s success against it, so hopefully they can also lean on that too.
IIRC Kelly got Elston involved in gameplanning for GT in 2015 after Van Gorder’s poor showing against the option in 2014. Maybe that needs to happen again.
I think we’ll be OK next week because I don’t really see how Navy is going to stop our offense, but the defense could be painful to watch.
I hope Kelly is not making a big mistake here.
What “mistake” ?
Running away from what we know works — fundamentally unimpeachable bend-but-don’t-break defense that focuses on tackling — and into the arms of what we know doesn’t work — “havoc” defense that neither produces turnovers nor prevents scores and features poor tackling.
I do not know why Kelly is so insistent on this.
Isn’t this team creating more turnovers, especially INTs, than previous years? We knew Freeman’s MO. Are you saying it was a bad hire ? I think injuries to some of the best D players is having an impact. It’s not just Hamilton out.
Turnovers per game:
2021: 2.1
2020: 1.4
2019: 2.2
2018: 1.6
2017: 1.5
So like half a turnover per game more, except for 2019. So I would say, no, not really.
I’m not saying it was a bad hire — yet — but I am saying I do not trust Freeman’s philosophy and that he’s showing a lot of red flags we’ve seen before.
2.1 is a 25% increase from the 17-20 average of 1.675. So that is a decent increase.
Yep, I would say so. At those rates it is going from 20 -> 25 in a 12 game season. I don’t really see what philosophical is so bad or troubling about what Freeman is trying to do on the field. Aggressive is good and the defense he helped build in Cincy is some proof of concept that it will work with the right players (albeit, a lot of credit to Fickell obviously as well, not trying to say their success is all Freeman, but he clearly grasps and understands how to create a top NCAA defense).
Bad and troubling is Notre Dame’s the lack of depth and quality players at LB, CB and S. Which can be largely, if not exclusively, be traced back to soft recruiting from 2017-20 under Lea, considering the immediate turnaround and progress Freeman is making on his own.
Not that you would anticipate 3 season-ending injuries in the same unit, but Lea’s failure to recruit more LB in a couple of those seasons is really hurting us now. As are the apparent misses at safety on guys like Ajavon and Derrik Allen. Griffith has been a disappointment, too. I’d like to see Walters or maybe Watts get a shot back there, hopefully this coming week with the potential for some garbage minutes.
Ex-Hamilton, do we have even one guy playing in the back 7 who appears a good bet to ultimately be a day 1 or 2 draft pick? I don’t think we do. Could see if for Hart if he continues to improve but that requires some degree of favorable extrapolation. At the same time, sound tackling shouldn’t require NFL kids all over the field either.
The inability to tackle is also bad and troubling.
We’ve lost our best LB, on a weak unit and maybe the country’s best DB on another otherwise weak unit. I can cut the D some slack for their results lately.
Crazy thought, but true. Who woulda guessed 4-5 weeks ago the offense has basically figured it out and is rolling with more yards and points every week….While now the defense is just barely holding it together with scotch tape and the pass rush.
This review was kind to Howell, and I think I would chalk a lot of the ND defense looking bad to Howell doing things that not too many college QB’s are going to do. In crunch time Ridder basically did the same, but no one else remaining on the schedule has that, especially if UVA’s Brennan Armstrong (maybe a broken rib last night) can’t play in 2 weeks. So there’s that.
I actually think this is a good time for Navy, since it’s another down year for them and it’s not like they’re going to stretch Notre Dame vertically. This should be a good game for the LB’s, assuming White’s shoulder is good. But it’s a game that plays to the strengths for Bertrand, Kiser, Bauer, etc.
In terms of the offense and defense going in opposite direction, I think one significant factor is the teams they’re playing. Early in the season, they were playing better defenses and weaker offenses. That has switched the last couple of weeks. Further, the line has become more familiar with each other, which is huge and Rees has figured out how to use Coan. On defense, in addition to playing some very good offenses, we have really missed having one of the best college players for the last 1.75 games. Now, I think there are other issues with the defense, too (like poor tackling and questionable schemes) but those things can get corrected.
Further, reading Kelly’s post game comments, the NC bye week definitely affected the defense. He stated they only ran 1 pure RPO all night, the interception, and rpo was a massive staple coming in. Also, their go to run prior to today was a guard tackle counter trey, which kelly stated they didn’t run once. So coupled with losing your MENSA all american safety is a tough recipe.
That being said, yes tackling NEEDS to improve. Also, it feels like there were no wins in blockers vs defenders last night; you can scheme a storm, but just beat the dude across from you.
My current hunch is Freeman is a “jimmies and joes” coach, bring in big talent and let them play talented. Lea was much more big brain “x’s and o’s” almost 4D chess player in how he could scheme away damn near everything. And correct me if I’m wrong, but didnt lea not recruit at a super elite level? Outside of hamilton, isnt most of the d pretty modest with regards to how their recruiting assessments?
Gosh, I sure hope Freeman can figure it out though! I’ll take the win, but sheesh, there were some spots. I’m glad I ducked out to go see the new dune film. Go see it! Great movie!
Lea seemed to have a good eye for underrated talent. He did not grab many higher ranked defenders. IIRC
Agreed, JOK was a 3* but lea specifically recruited him as a rover, and that turned out pretty darn well.
To quote Red from the shawshank redemption: “maybe I just miss my old friend”
At least I didn’t notice Foskey drop into coverage once! I am sure it happened, but I didn’t see it. That makes me happy.
Love your reviews, Eric. I always look forward (wait) for them. This one is no exception.
I may be missing something, but doesn’t Freeman’s defense surprise (leave a lot to be desired) frequently? i.e., only 3 down linemen on other than obvious passing plays (daring the offense to run); 5 or less in the box on many plays; leaving the middle of the field open when protecting a lead. Is it a talent issue? Is he trying to maximize the talents of the players he has with these schemes?
Good write up.
Coan looks so much better in this quick release offense. Like a different player entirely, and the line seems to be gelling finally.
Styles looks to me like a Bama wide receiver. I hope we have a strong passing qb next year to take advantage of his talent.
Ive been down on Avery Davis the last couple years, but I must say he’s really improved immensely and making a difference for us.
I’d trade Freeman in for Lea in a New York minute.
“ I’d trade Freeman in for Lea in a New York minute”
Ehh, I don’t think this sentiment will remain very long. Cincy is the #3 defense in yards/play this year, and that’s a lot of what Freeman built.
Freeman’s 2022 and 2023 recruiting is way way way better than what Lea did.
Once Freeman gets the material he needs for his defense, it could be scary good with way better raw players than Lea had. Lea probably would have this 2021 ND defense doing better and may be better tactically and with adjustments, but Freeman is no slouch either.
Well, OK, but also notably Freeman is not coaching Cincy’s defense.
Agreed on recruiting, obviously. But I know who I’d rather have coaching the defense in games.
But kiwi can only speak in hypotheticals and seems to easily ignore the one data point we actually have in 2021 vis a vis Notre Dame and Cincinnati
So who would you favor if we played them now? The ND team that lost isn’t the same looking team lately. Meanwhile Cinci has looked very ordinary vs Navy and Tulane, who have 3 wins between them. They also have by far the weakest strength of schedule in the top 10 if I heard that correctly on the CFP ranking show tonight. Somewhere in the 90’s they said?
And most of what we do here is about hypotheticals. The whole CFP ranking system is mostly hypotheticals until the games are played.
Lea left a lasting positive memory, but it’s not like his defenses didn’t also get gashed and give up a ton of yards at times….Interestingly, for USC comparisons in 2019 ND gave up 426 yards (and 27 points) in 2021 it was 428 yards (and 16 points)…And Lea had a lot more to work with personnel-wise (Owusu-Koramoah, Hamilton).
I do think Lea tactically made some very good in-game adjustments at times, but Freeman is eight games into his ND stint, and now has no Kyle Hamilton. Willing to cut him a bit of slack and see how it goes. I def think Freeman is probably more boom/bust than a steady influence like Lea, but this is probably as much of a “bust” as Freeman is going to be, with boom times ahead once he gets elite players like Sneed and Ford into his defense — players that 1000% would not be coming to ND until Freeman recruited them.
Cinci isn’t and wasn’t playing ND’s schedule, and until the recruits show it on the field we don’t really know how well he’s recruited.
there have been some tough injuries this year, to be fair, and I’m prepared to change my tune on Freeman in the future, but from what I’ve seen so far, I’ll take Lea and it ain’t close IMO.
Freeman coached up 2 All-Americans last year, one of whom (Gardner) absolutely shut down a side of the field against Notre Dame. Freeman has or is working on like eight top-150 recruits for 2022 and 2023. Talent acquisition and development has been a strong point of Freeman’s tenure as a defensive coach by any measure.
Well, what about the measure of do they come here and play winning ball at ND?
I don’t really care how his Cinci teams did. Different level of competition here at ND. I want to see him do it here. So far, I’m unconvinced we haven’t taken a backwards step from Lea.
As I said, I’m willing to recalibrate, but that where I am now.
You know who I’d take in a New York minute? Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Ade Ogundeji, Daelin Hayes, Nick McCloud, Shaun Crawford, Marist Liufau, Paul Moala, Shayne Simon. And oh yeah Kyle Hamilton, maybe the best defender in the country, whose absence tends to be felt.
Part of the reason those losses hurt so much, btw, is that defensive recruiting under Lea could’ve been better. Charitably speaking. Remember when everyone was savaging Lea for not taking a LB in Cody Simon’s class? Cody is starting for Ohio State now. I love White, Bauer, and Bertrand, but they’re not 80-snap-a-game guys and that’s how we have to use them right now due to bad injury luck and bad recruiting.
Similar situation in the secondary – everybody likes to bag on Houston Griffith, but with Hamilton out who else are you putting back there? Isaiah Pryor is probably the next best option but he’s been heavily involved in the rover rotation, so if you move him Kiser’s backup is true freshman Prince Kollie. Kollie is very talented but it’s a lot to ask of him to play a heavy recognition role this early.
Freeman is going to sign by far the top LB class in the country this year and a secondary class of guys he beat Nick Saban and Jimmy Lake for (maybe Kerry Coombs too, we’ll see). Elston has done his usual thing with DL recruiting. The 2023 class already has two 5* DL talents (Brenan Vernon, Keon Keeley) and is likely going to add a 5* LB this week (Drayk Bowen), with more 5*/top 40 defenders very much in play (S/LB Sonny Styles, DE Jason Moore, DE Jayden Wayne, S Caleb Downs).
I think Freeman is fine at the X’s and O’s and once he hits his stride here that will show. I think he’s far, far better than Lea at getting the Jimmies and Joes. Not even close to a contest.
Relevant: All four of our 2022 LB commits were just named Butkus Award finalists.
El. Oh. El.
If I recall, you guys were pretty fine with not taking Cody Simon. Maybe even leaning towards thinking it was a good idea. Looking back at the low drama signing day post, there just wasn’t enough space on the field for him in 2020.
Can we all agree right now, that we still should take a LB next year, especially if he is a top 100 player with a brother currently on campus?
Cody Simon may be starting at OSU but he hasn’t really done much to stand out to date. Their best LB right now is a kid who converted from RB during the offseason, and it’s not particularly close. Hasn’t been a strong unit for the Buckeyes.
So you wouldn’t want him on ND?
NOT ME.
You were too busy demanding more OL.
I didn’t love it but I was OK with it based on numbers – they thought they had hits in the 2018-19 classes in Lamb, Simon, Bertrand, Kiser, and Liufau. (Also had Bauer in 2018 and Ekwonu in 2019, but I don’t remember early buzz for either back then.) I thought at that point that Lamb in particular was a future star – he had supplanted White as the third-and-long Mike as a true freshman.
Fast forward two years and here we are. Lamb tore up his knee and was never the same (believe he’s a backup at Colorado now), Simon couldn’t quite take the next step and is now hurt, and of course Liufau was poised to unleash hell this year and got hurt.
All of that is a good explanation for why intentionally taking a zero at a position is super risky. I trusted Lea at the time but in hindsight he was clearly overly optimistic.
Lea had earned a lot of trust. I guess I won’t hold it against you anymore.
Were the offenses better last year vs the offenses we’ve gone against this year so far though?
I would think it all about evens out, and again depends on what you’re looking at as “better”, considering UNC is 3rd in FP+ offense right now… Last year having Owusu-Koramoah and McCloud and Kyle Hamilton 100% of the time would be a big non-coaching input to consider as well on how to view both groups.
Regardless of how similar the opponents were or how finely to hold the 2020 ND defense against the 2021 group, I think it’s more just a commentary of how the perception of Freeman’s defense is “concerning” or “a mistake” compared to Lea, who is remembered as an excellent game day tactician and masterful coach.
Unrelated but Stanford lost to Washington apparently? I need to watch that game somehow. I bet Shaw had great angry gassy baby face all game.
The extended highlights are on youtube, but for my personal recommendation: watch it just before going to bed, it’s a brutal snoozer of a game, total field goal fest https://youtu.be/wilRn2nR_so
I watched a good chunk of it, it was an extreme pillow fight. And just to be clear, when I say “extreme” here I mean it was extremely pillowy, not that it was EXTREME.
Eric’s review and the ensuing discuss are examples of why 18 Stripes is such a blessing.
I do have mixed feelings on the D:
— Yes, ACS is right, that 2014 NC home game is sooo spookily like this Saturday. So, has M Freeman been exposed like in retrospect BVG was?
— Well, all your retorts about his recruiting are indeed strong points in his favor.
— However, on the evidence so far MF’s propensity for “havoc” just has not proven its merit in a convincing way, even with Kyle, and certainly not now.
— BK has started to speak to this, and it is not 100% in MF’s favor. In his presser after the game, he said pointedly three different times in response to three excellent press questions: “We have to coach them [the defenders] better.” In BK speak, this is telling, IMO.
My conclusion: the jury is still out.
And the new “Dune” is indeed terrific!
Plus (and excuse my going off topic, I am totally without sleep after a Sunday Paris Halloween special): if any of you get to Paris, come see our every Saturday performance in front of the Rocky Horror cult film. We have one of the best shadow casts in the world (though I confess, a lot of the jokes are in French!)
I don’t see Kelly’s comments as a repudiation of Freeman’s entire philosophy and scheme. They def do need to coach better when there are a couple easy touchdowns for the other team due to blown coverage or poor run fits. That alone doesn’t make this 2014.
Agree overall, at least so far. But beyond the tackling, there could be an issue bubbling up later with the overall philosophy if the ship doesn’t right itself to some extent. I say that because a couple of the questions were very much related to scheme. We’ll see and I devoutly hope you will be 100% right!
“if the ship doesn’t right itself to some extent” is what I don’t understand, relative to either expectation or performance. Overall this defense is about what I think any reasonable person would have expected, pretty good but not dominant.
Now without their best player, it becomes a big time struggle, but certainly is not a reflection of any problem the HC has with the DC’s performance or ideas. I don’t see that happening here at all. Of course Kelly wants the player…execution (still feels funny to say) to be better when they blow a play, but “rift” is a big word..
Hook,
Your posts have been absolutely spot on in the past couple of months. This issue does seem to center around a difference in perspective. I am less positive than you on how they are doing lately, and am not sure the downward trends are innocent of scheme. That is to say, I am more aligned with our colleagues who have posted preferring bending and not breaking to havoc and disruption efforts. Guess I am still tetanized by a long string of that, from Tenuta through BVG…
Which is not to say you are right, just that you may not be, and in which case BK has enough trauma that he may wind up head to head with MF, not to get rid of him but to have him relook defensive philosophy. Recruiting or not.
Thanks noise. Yeah, I can see that perspective as well. Always fun banter to spread ideas around and hear just as much
Just to be clear, I’m definitely of the opinion that the jury is still out. Recruiting matters a lot. Part of what made BVG such a disaster is that he was a bad recruiter in addition to being a terrible in-game coach.
I don’t think Freeman is a bust. I am currently very happy that he is our DC. Given his recruiting, there is a 0% change of fielding worse defenses than BVG (also given the physical impossibility of existing below 0K).
But anyone who isn’t worried at all and is passing this off as 100% failures in recruiting is burying their head in the sand, like we all did as BVG cracks started to show early. There are major concerns. The defense has not shown improvement, and seems to have gotten worse at tackling, which is was never great at. Fortunately, he has a strong track record, but plenty of track records go kaput in new places.
I am unimpressed with his coaching so far (I don’t claim to know if it’s scheme or development, he has a history of being good at both). Hopefully he improves there, while continuing to bring in more talent. I think his ceiling is immensely high, but he needs to do more with what he currently has. The D next year will likely be more experienced, but less talented.
Should we really expect the defense to look better when it loses its best player and then plays the 2 best offenses it has seen all year?
I’m not 100% sold on Freeman either, but I’m a bit confused by anybody expecting us to look better against UNC after losing Hamilton. They’re arguably a top 10-15 offense. Hamilton is arguably the most valuable college football player in the country.
(Also the defense is still top 20 according to most advanced metrics despite all of the injuries and recruiting holes)
Didn’t think we would look better, in fact was sure like everyone else we would look worse. But, this was … REALLY worse 🙂
No one was expecting us to look better. But we looked awful. GT, VT and FSU all held them to fewer points. Even without Hamilton we should be better than all of those Ds.
We looked similar to Duke against UNC. We should be able to lose our 3 best players and have a better D than Duke (who forced 7 UNC punts).
Tough to compare week to week when so many variabilities pop up on a week to week basis. The UNC offense that showed up on Saturday was way different (in a positive way) than the one that took the field against Virginia Tech, for instance. Just like the VT team that played that night was way better than anything else they’ve brought to the table since.
Sorin107 had some great points below, including “(2) Scheme” where I agree that some weaknesses and trends are showing where Freeman’s defenses are crumbling at the ends of halves in troubling ways. I think that’s better aimed than worrying about holding up performance vs common opponents in uncommon situations.
I also wouldn’t say “cracks are showing” for Freeman in a BVG way, when in the last 2 weeks he’s seen 2 NFL QB’s with explosive passing offenses. Those guys are going to get theirs, especially on this team without Kyle, just as USC got theirs against Lea in 2019 and it wasn’t representative of bigger issues. At the same time, I’m not putting Freeman up for the Broyles award, but he also is going to need time to get the pieces in place to optimize his system, but has the defense playing at a fairly adequate level this year.
I don’t care about about any context when we have back to back games where we let up 6.1 ypp followed up by 7.6 ypp against the #39 and #23 teams in offensive FEI. That has to lead to some level of concern. These offenses are good, but they aren’t even ELITE.
We are currently allowing 5.6 ypp on the season. Tied for the worst mark (with last year and 2014) since the 2009 defense allowed 6.2 ypp. As great as all the advanced metrics are. Sometimes it’s just clear when you aren’t that good.
We unquestionably have the best possible DC that we could right now. But how can you not be worried about what just happened to this defense?
To be honest, I was a lot more worried about the defense after the FSU game and the Toledo game when it didn’t look like anyone really knew what they were doing, gaps weren’t being filled and big plays were being rattled off, the 3 or 4 man fronts and switches were not making sense or looking cohesive….Since then I think the ND defense has settled down and looked a lot better, pre-Hamilton injury.
USC and UNC are not consistently elite enough every week to pop a great FEI rating, but FEI alone doesn’t tell us who is good. USC and UNC have elite weapons and high-end QB’s, especially in Howell who can and did use his feet to create a lot more than most college QB’s can. Notre Dame is reeling from not having Kyle Hamilton. That’s why I’m not too worried about the defensive performance, despite not great yards/play the last two weeks. I think they will be a lot better against more average CFB offenses (GT, Stanford) and they will struggle like everyone struggles against very good offenses (USC, UNC, UVA).
FEI is also the outlier here, SP+ has the UNC offense 4th and FPI has them top 10
So, you think our defense is legitimately good? And the D does not worry you when thinking about a matchup at UVA, or some top 15 team in a bowl game?
The D still hasn’t lost us a game this year. We’re talking about a group whose only healthy star is a DE that Lea wouldn’t even play last year. We have 2 healthy LBs and 2 healthy DBs who would MAYBE get playing time at any of the other top 15 programs in the country.
Yes, I’m nervous to face a good offense in a bowl game. But we could have shut out UNC and I’d still be concerned with the players we’re running out there right now.
Until the D loses us a game, it’s going to be tough for me to get too upset with what Freeman is building.
Yeah, I mean UNC having a really great QB and dynamic offense doesn’t mean the ND defense is otherwise fantastic themselves. I’m just not as ready to invoke the names of BVG and 2014 just because the defense gave up some yards and points in recent weeks.
I also think in the year 2021 and modern football, sometimes you just gotta be in 45-41 or 44-34 or even 51-48 type of games, sometimes you win after both teams get in a groove of scoring a lot. Alabama seems to play in a few a year themselves, and we all know it darn sure ain’t for a lack of coaching ability or preparation or even defensive player skill level. ND also doesn’t and didn’t clamp down on lesser opponents like Bama does, so if we want to point out Freeman won’t have a great defense via the stats, I’m not saying it’s not accurate or somewhat of a disappointment, either. That’s a fine and fair point if maybe others expected more.
So maybe my expectations are just more forgiving. Like if Armstrong is well enough to play, Notre Dame is almost certainly gonna have to go into that game thinking and expecting to score 40+ points in order to win against UVA. Just kinda the cost of business these days, especially without Kyle.
Hamilton is great, and will have a great career on Sundays if he stays healthy, but “most valuable college football player in the country” is quite a stretch. No Safety is.
This post is pretty much where I am coming from, nicely phrased, juicebox.
I think it’s a recruiting problem that is now being exposed as a result of:
(1) Depth – Bertrand and White have played way too many snaps. I would say with pretty high confidence that both are banged up given the steady decline in their play over recent weeks (has White always had a shoulder brace?). This is exhibiting itself in terms of poor tackling efforts. Also, no high-end talent in the younger classes means there aren’t a lot of options to turn to and we just have to hope for better execution, which requires us to take some lumps as those guys gain experience.
(2) Scheme – Sampson called this out today, but it does feel like the defense’s greatest weakness shows in the two minute drill (end of half scenario). That’s because we have linebackers that don’t cover very well (lack athletic ability) and DBs that really need to be protected. I’m not sure the solution here or whether Freeman is playing his hand poorly, others smarter in terms of schemes will have to weigh in. But it looks to me that if the Dline doesn’t dominate or the blitzes don’t get home, well, we’re in trouble. Navy likely won’t be able to capitalize on this, so at least we get a one week reprieve.
(3) Opposing talent. The last two offenses are probably the best offenses we’ve played to date. I’d take our chances with Cincy over them, but I could see a debate there. So, outcomes are going to be worse and that’s just what it is.
The thing that Freeman and the coaching staff can do is to try and fix #2 as best they can. But to think this is or was anything other than an average defensive back 7 does not compute to me. Hamilton’s ability to clean up the shortcomings will continue to be missed immensely (obviously). And he’s good enough to be the difference between slightly above average (top 40 defense) and good (top 20-30 defense).
Really well said. I agree on almost all of that in how it was detailed.
FWIW I also think it’s worth pointing out that UNC was our fifth straight opponent coming off a bye, and all have had new wrinkles ready for us. We have to be able to handle that better, and BK said as much in his postgame comments, but it’s a heavy load to put on a staff every week.
I’m a little concerned by what I see as some hard-headedness on Freeman’s part about his three down looks in particular. On the other hand, I have no idea what I’m talking about and maybe there are defensible reasons for that. I do know that he’s made a career out of adapting to personnel strengths and weaknesses, and I’d be surprised if he can’t ultimately do the same here.
My only problem with 3 down looks is that outside of Hamilton, our next like 5 best defenders are on the DL.
The D Freeman ran at Cincy was fierce against the run with 3 down. So I don’t have any inherent problem with his schemes. We can get there in a couple years. We just don’t have the personnel right now, and it has been obvious for many games.
Oh yeah. And let Foskey rush! No more dropping him. If he isn’t rushing the passer, he should be sucking down oxygen getting ready to rush the passer some more.
This, for me, is the biggest concern about Freeman. I completely understand wanting to get more D Linemen on the field; it’s our best recruited position. But doing it by stick Foskey 5 yards off the line of scrimmage seems dumb.
But that’s down to like 5 plays per game. So even that’s trending in the right direction! (Even if it’s trended wayyyy more slowly than I would have liked).
Interesting discussion above. But, I really think almost everyone somewhat amazingly is underestimating the effect of losing Kyle Hamilton – he’s going to be a top-5 pick! As a safety!
Our defense might have two other guys playing significant minutes who will be on an NFL roster in five years. Maybe, but probably not! They should be not-good without the elite-level player on the team, particularly against a passing team like UNC. I would say they played to expectation.
Thank goodness for Kyren.