So in the end, much of the hemming and hawing in our writers’ room during Notre Dame’s 41-17 win over Central Michigan didn’t amount to much. The Irish won by a large margin, as expected, and moved to 4-0 in advance of the game against Ohio State.

And yet, so much today felt like a red flag for the Irish’s chances at pulling off a win in that pivotal matchup.

The front seven left much to be desired

Maybe it’s nitpicking, maybe it isn’t, but the biggest negative thing that stuck out to me today was the front seven’s inability to dominate the way you’d like to see against a mid-level (at best) MAC opponent. Too often, the Chippewas were able to break tackles in traffic and turn them into bigger gains. One especially annoying sequence saw Jaylen Sneed and Ramon Henderson both whiff on what would’ve been good stops, which eventually turned into CMU’s first touchdown.

Sneed struggling in particular is an unfortunate sight; he was the crown jewel of Marcus Freeman’s first recruiting class as DC, the guy who was purportedly proof of concept that Freeman could bring in blue-chip talent. Not that his struggles are a mark against that thought, but in a storybook way, it would be nice if he had flashed to this point. ND hasn’t seen much of what made him a blue-chipper to begin with, and it was telling that Jack Kiser saw way more of the field than he did.

Javontae Jean-Baptiste had a few nice moments, as did Marist Liufau, but this defense clearly missed JD Bertrand, and more than you’d be comfortable with given his status for next week is still unclear due to concussion protocol.

The Irish need that group to be disruptive to win the big games on their schedule. I didn’t think they showed enough today to inspire confidence it will happen next week.

Decision-making was somewhat questionable at times

This got better later in the game when ND decided to RTDB, but apart from the two long-bomb TD passes by Sam Hartman in the first half (which were beautiful), the offense struggled to get into a rhythm early on. Whether it was looking for too many killshots or just assuming CMU would roll over after hitting one early, ND seemed to be too happy to feel itself for a while there on offense and defense. The team was decidedly not sharp, hence several sloppy penalties that led to CMU points.

Maybe no decision was as clearly on that side of the ledger as when Marcus Freeman sent Spencer Shrader out for a 59-yard field goal. That’s not a decision you likely make if you’re at all worried about the outcome of the game, and perhaps Freeman should’ve at least pretended to be thinking about that at the time. (I’ll play devil’s advocate and say maybe he was testing how far he could push Shrader’s leg in a more important situation later in the season. But still.)

The Irish pushed most of the right buttons later in the game; even Al Golden cooled it with the blitzes for a little bit, putting an end to CMU’s infuriating tendency to put the ball right where those blitzers came from. (If those blitzes can’t generate pressure consistently against the teams ND has played to date, Golden needs to think hard about shelving them for the most part next week.)

Must improve: Fumble luck

Notre Dame has forced 7 fumbles and fumbled twice themselves this season. They have no recoveries. That is virtually impossible.

If the fumble luck wants to turn around next week, that would be just peachy.

Audric Estime

Just kidding – this was not questionable at all. Just wanted to shout out this dude, who ran for a career-high 172 yards. At least four different times, he leapt over Chippewa tacklers and kept on going.

Sam Hartman – who had a remarkably efficient game – is quite obviously the most valuable player on the Notre Dame team, but Estime can make a case to be squarely in the discussion as well. Give him a hole to run through and watch him go. He is fast, tough, athletic and all-around awesome, and he makes life easier for everybody.

But seriously – Ohio State is coming

Notre Dame will have the better quarterback next week when the Buckeyes visit. That alone means ND will have a chance. Can the Irish overcome the fact that Ohio State has better players at several of the remaining positions? Who knows. Since year 3 hit and the roster was mostly his, Ryan Day has been hit (Georgia last year, despite the outcome) or miss (Michigan) in big games. Freeman has been quite solid so far in big games – despite being 1-2, Notre Dame put up decent showings in both defeats despite a QB deficit it won’t have this time.

Today was not the greatest audition for Notre Dame – but none of us will care if there’s a positive instant reaction coming down the pike next week.