Kareem: 'The next opponents we have, best of luck to you because we’re coming'

Khalid Kareem doesn’t show his emotions much, but on Saturday night the senior defensive end was frustrated after the 23-17 loss to No. 3 Georgia.
 
Notre Dame battled for four quarters and came up just short in another big game, but Kareem was proud his defense held their own physically against the best offensive line in college football.
 
“What we have to do as a far as scheme is the small things,” Kareem stated. “That’s probably the biggest difference for us. It wasn’t they out-physicaled us.”
 
Physicality was a point of emphasis and Notre Dame delivered. Georgia gave massive body blows to Alabama last year, but there was never a point where the Irish got blown off the ball on Saturday night.
 
“We had to be physical up front and out toughen them,” explained Kareem. “I think we did a pretty good job of that, but we took a loss. We’ll move on and get back to the drawing board to get ready for Virginia.”
 
Kareem made the decision to come back for his senior season to lead Notre Dame back to the playoffs and while the Irish took a hit to the chances of making it back, the Michigan native still believes they can do it.
 
“This one stings a little bit,” said Kareem. “It’s only one loss and doesn’t define our season. The next opponents we have, best of luck to you because we’re coming.
 
“I would say morale is still high. The season isn’t over. We can still make it to the playoffs with one loss. We have to keep pushing and fighting. As long as we win out, we’ll see.”
 
No. 18 Virginia will come to Notre Dame Stadium this weekend and fixing the finer points of the game is what the Irish will focus on this week.
 
“We have to key in on the details,” Kareem stated. “We have to find out what we did wrong, fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” 
 
Notre Dame’s defense hasn’t recorded a sack in the last two games and while Kareem is disappointed, he knows they will come.

“It’s frustrating, but when you play within the scheme of the defense, the production will come,” said Kareem. “You can’t play soft and we have to rush as a unit. As long as we do everything we have to do and everyone is doing their job, the rush will come.
 
“We have the rest of the reason left. We expected to get the ball out fast with the defensive line they have. We have to prepare a little bit better.”