No Mystery To Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame Game Plan
Notre Dame isn’t about to hand Ohio State its playbook five days before the season-opener, but first-year Irish head coach Marcus Freeman hasn’t been coy about what he wants the identity of his program to be, either.
And, he plans on putting that on display on Saturday night in Columbus.
For weeks now, Freeman has talked about the importance of Notre Dame being led by its offensive and defensive lines. He highlighted that again when speaking to reporters on Monday.
Freeman noted “differences” when asked about the two games the Buckeyes lost last season – to Oregon and Michigan – and games they struggled in – against Penn State and Nebraska.
“There’s certain games maybe they didn’t have as much success offensively, but they won or maybe they didn’t win,” Freeman said. “Then there’s games when they had a ton of success offensively and they won or maybe they didn’t win.”
Oregon went to The Shoe and beat the Buckeyes 35-28 in the second week of the 2021 season.
“Oregon, offensively, was able to run the ball and do some different things,” said Freeman.
Running back CJ Verdell led the Ducks with 161 rushing yards and two touchdowns while Oregon, as a team, rushed for 269 yards on 38 carries (7.1-yard average).
That run game helped open up the passing game for quarterback Anthony Brown to post a respectable 236 passing yards and two touchdowns.
The Buckeyes have a first-year defensive coordinator in Jim Knowles, who came from Oklahoma State.
“I know we’re facing a different defense, but it’s still the ability to establish a run game offensively,” said Freeman. “And Ohio State’s offense was really good that game.”
Michigan eliminated Ohio State from College Football Playoff consideration with a 42-27 win on the last Saturday of the regular season.
“You look at the Michigan game and again, it was the ability for Michigan to run the ball,” said Freeman.
The Wolverines rang up 297 rushing yards and six touchdowns on the ground against Ohio State.
“Again, I know we’re talking about a different defensive scheme, but the ability to run the ball, the ability to establish a run game to open up different areas in the pass game is really important,” said Freeman.
“You look at some of the games they’ve lost in the past couple years and offensively, you’ve got to be able to take control of the game in terms of holding onto the football, in terms of establishing long drives. That’s going to be something we have to do if we want a chance to win this game.”
Freeman will be relying on all three phases of his squad to implement his plan.
“You’ve got to limit their offensive possessions. How do you do that? It’s not just defensively, it’s offensively, being able to establish long drives. That will be a challenge for our offense, our defense and special teams, I think you’ve got to be superior.”
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