Sep. 11—SOUTH BEND — The offensive concerns are not going away anytime soon for Notre Dame.
After offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock, quarterback Riley Leonard and a handful of receivers joined the Irish in the offseason, the belief that Notre Dame’s past offensive struggles would take a sharp dive in September became to be more realistic through fall camp.
A win on the road at Texas A&M wasn’t perfect from the offense’s perspective, but a win does a good job of covering up concerns.
A week later, in the wake of a shocking upset in their home opener, it’d be difficult to name one offensive positional group that didn’t receive some time under the microscope.
The passing game and Leonard have taken the brunt of the impact.
“There’s a lot of different things that go into the passing game that we have to improve on, but what we gotta do is make sure that we’re doing things that we feel like our guys can execute on game day,” Freeman said.
Leonard finished 20-32 with two interceptions, one on a 2nd-and-1 at midfield with six minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and the Irish up a point. That underthrown ball to a double-teamed receiver downfield led to the Northern Illinois game-winning field goal.
Freeman says that there was “no consideration” to ever switch to backup quarterback Steve Angeli at any point last Saturday. But the trust in Leonard seems to be at least limited as the Irish opted for a 62-yard field goal instead of one last throw to the endzone. Kicker Mitch Jeter had already seen one of his kicks blocked that day, and predictably so, this one was too.
Reports on Tuesday indicated that Leonard injured his posterior labrum on his non-throwing shoulder and had an MRI taken. The Notre Dame depth chart still lists him as the Week 3 starter.
Both of Notre Dame’s scoring drives last Saturday were on their first drive of the half. Down 13-7 at halftime, the Irish marched down in six plays to score a touchdown for a 14-13 lead following the 64-yard, nearly three-minute-long drive.
Like the first half, the issues lie after the offense was able to enter the endzone. In the Fighting Irish‘s remaining four drives once they took the lead, Denbrock’s offense went three-and-out twice and threw the fatal interception before its final drive resulted in a head-scratching field goal attempt. Denbrock’s group had snapped the ball just 17 times in the final 23 minutes of the second half Saturday.
“I evaluate that too,” Freeman said about his offense scoring on their first drives in each half but putting zero points up the rest of the way.
“The first drive wasn’t perfect, but we overcame some of the mistakes to make sure we scored a touchdown,” Freeman said. “That’s what we gotta do consistently throughout the game. We can’t make consistent mistakes that get us the third-and-long situations. We weren’t even great on third-and-medium situations on Saturday. I think every play within itself is its own evaluation. We gotta be able to really stack plays. Keep the chains moving. We can’t go three-and-out. We can’t do that.”
No. 18 Notre Dame (1-1) will wrap up just one of its two remaining true-road games this Saturday at Purdue (1-0). The Boilermakers were picked last in the 18-team Big Ten but were treated to a 49-0 win over FCS Indiana State in Week 1.
The Boilermakers were idle last week, getting an extra week to prepare for the rivalry.
Purdue’s struggles defensively last season included the Boilermakers finishing with conference-worst marks at 30 points per game allowed and nearly 400 yards of offense per game given up.
Those struggles, however, were not centered on the defensive line, which finished third in the conference in sacks at 35. Ten of those were attributed to Nic Scourton, now at Texas A&M. Third in the conference was Kydran Jenkins who made seven solo sacks and returns to headline that group.
“Defensively, it’s a unique defense that you don’t see every week, in terms of their scheme,” Freeman said. “They’re gonna stack the box, and they’re gonna make you have to try to throw it on them. They take pride in stopping the run. Played a lot of man coverage, so to have success, we’re gonna have to beat man coverage.”
Noticeably, the Irish offense featured limited snaps for its running back room against Northern Illinois. Take away Leonard’s 11 rush attempts, and Notre Dame ran the ball just 17 times last weekend. That theme is likely to continue against the Purdue defensive line, which means Leonard has to get past the hiccups he’s suffered in the throwing department if the Irish are to properly recover.
“To me, the biggest thing I’ve been reflecting on in the past 48 hours is we have to learn how to handle success.,” Freeman said. “And that, to me, is really what spoke to me watching the film but really thinking about it. This is the first time in my three years as a head coach that we have won the big game early in the season. Two losses to Ohio State, and then all of a sudden, we win and everybody says, ‘Hey, you’re going to the playoffs. You got an easy schedule.’ We all hear it, and I think we started to believe that.”
INJURY REPORT
Receiver Jordan Faison is expected back this week after missing last Saturday’s game. Offensive tackle Tosh Baker will be out this week and was also against the Huskies. Freeman added that defensive end Joshua Burnham is questionable after suffering an ankle sprain last week.
Reach Matt Lucas at 574-533-2151, ext. 240325, or at matt.lucas@goshennews.com.
