Notre Dame Notebook | Travel Issues, Jarrett Patterson and Tobias Merriweather
Notre Dame’s offensive line was up and down on Saturday night in Columbus. The Fighting Irish flashed the ability to run the ball, but Notre Dame wasn’t able to consistently find success on the ground against a stout Buckeyes front.
Head coach Marcus Freeman will be the last to make an excuse, but he’s also very aware his best offensive lineman wasn’t able to be on the field as All-American Jarrett Patterson tried to test his foot in warmups and couldn’t go.
"The communication we had with the medical staff and Jarrett was let's go through warmups and see how you feel,” Freeman explained. “You talk about when you get to that environment, sometimes just the excitement and what that environment will do for you will kind of numb the pain sometimes, but he wasn't able to go after warmups.”
The 6-foot-4, 310-pounder talent wasn’t the only hole the Irish struggled to overcome as Patterson has played in 37 games. Patterson has seen it all, including some of the late movements the Buckeyes presented.
Will Patterson be back this week? Freeman hopes so, but it’s still a wait-and-see approach as Notre Dame prepares for Marshall.
“We made a decision, okay he won't go,” said Freeman. “We'll reevaluate him today and this week and I would still think he's questionable, but let's see. If he's ready to go, we're gonna play him this week."
Notre Dame’s offense as a whole also struggled to find consistent play at Ohio State. Quarterback Tyler Buchner was efficient in his first start, but he completed passes to just three receivers and no receiver has more than one catch.
The receivers will need to raise the bar moving forward and Freeman hopes freshman receiver Tobias Merriweather can make his debut in the rotation sooner than later.
"He's continued to progress,” explained Freeman. “I know that through camp, it could have been a hamstring or a knee or little injury, the typical camp injuries that prevented him from progressing at a faster rate. He's got to continue to gain confidence. The coaches got to continue to gain confidence in him in terms of him being able to help our offense.”
Merriweather’s next step will be to find consistent execution in practice as there is a role for him once he gets the nuances of Tommy Rees’ offense down.
“He's got a lot of talent,” stated Freeman. “He's going to help us. Between Tobias Merriweather to both of those freshmen tight ends, at some point, that talent will catch up with the execution of what they have to do within our offense. They're going to help us. How fast that happens will be determined on the execution in practice."
If the loss wasn’t tough enough, Notre Dame had a significant delay in travel following the game and didn’t return to campus until around 8:30am on Sunday morning.
It started with a plane mechanical issue, which led to a host of issues as bus drivers didn’t have any more time. Notre Dame ended up going back to the hotel they stayed Friday night at and killing time in meeting rooms until the plane got fixed.
Then there was an issue of no buses to take the team back to the airport. Only two buses could be found, so multiple trips had to be made to get the entire travel party to the airport.
Sunday is the normal day off for the team, but fewer players flowed through The Gug than normal, so Monday will be the first time Freeman gets to meet with the entire team.
“There was a plane issue so we didn't get back until early in the morning on Sunday,” Freeman explained. “So usually, we're a team that meets on Sundays to put the game behind us, recap the game, learn from it and move forward. We didn't meet yesterday intentionally just because of the late arrival back. So we'll meet today. We didn't get a chance to spend much time around them yesterday. They came in to get some dinner.”
Freeman did meet with a few players and the mood was what he expected. Notre Dame will now look to move on from Ohio State and start preparing for Marshall as the Irish look to get the first win of the 2022 campaign.
“The mood was like the coaches,” said Freeman. “Anytime you lose a game, it's not going to be really good, especially for 24 hours. Now that we're past the 24 hours, we got to be ready to move forward. It's tough because you got to revisit the game and learn from it. You got to learn from the things that happened in the game that you can improve.
“They will be motivated. They will be ready to go. Coaches will be ready to go. After we get through this team meeting and evaluation of the game, it's all Marshall from now."
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