Notre Dame’s 2022 Season Heading for Disaster Without Stellar Play from Defense
The Notre Dame offense justifiably received the lion’s share of the blame for the program’s embarrassing 16-14 loss to Stanford on Saturday evening.
The Irish fumbled twice and the offense scored just two touchdowns against one of the three worst Power Five defenses. Quarterback Drew Pyne played his worst game of the season, completing 13 of 27 passes for 151 yards and a touchdown.
On the other side of the ball, Notre Dame held a solid Cardinal offense to its lowest scoring output and yards per play average of the season. But to win, the Irish needed even more from its defense.
“When there are days when your offense isn't executing well, the defense, we have to play better. We have to play perfect,” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said. “The offense has been doing really well the last couple of weeks when we haven't been playing perfect defensively. But today was a day we needed the defense to play perfect and we didn't.”
While unfair, this must be the expectation going forward. After six games, the offense is just too unreliable, and without stellar play from the defense, Notre Dame could experience its worst season since going 4-8 in 2016.
Coming into the Stanford game, most assumed the Notre Dame defensive line would rack up multiple sacks. The Cardinal offensive line had allowed 4.0 sacks per game over the course of its first five contests.
Instead, the Irish only sacked Stanford quarterback Tanner McKee once and allowed him to complete 68.4 percent of his passes for 288 yards. Both are season highs for the signal-caller against a 2022 FBS opponent.
To Stanford’s credit, the coaching staff designed a game plan to project McKee.
“They didn't have the strongest line, we felt that our D-line was very dominant against them,” Notre Dame senior linebacker JD Bertrand said. “They were smart about it by [running] slow RPOs and holding us there. They also were able to move the pocket and use a lot of quick game so that we couldn't actually get back there.”
Too often, the Notre Dame defense was fooled by a delayed shovel pass to Stanford running back Casey Filkins. Irish defenders also frequently got stuck on blocks and missed multiple tackles whenever the Cardinal ran wide receiver screens.
For some reason, the defense proved slow to adjust and poor tackling has plagued this team all season.
The Irish defense also seems immune to takeaways.
Prior to the game, Notre Dame and Stanford were tied for 130th in turnovers gained, but the Cardinal won the takeaway battle, 2-0. The Irish are now in sole possession of last place with just two turnovers in six games.
Some of its bad luck. Bertrand even appeared to force McKee to fumble in the fourth quarter, only for the officiating crew to review the play and rule that the Stanford signal-caller was down prior to losing the ball.
But Notre Dame had other opportunities to come up with a turnover and failed to capitalize. Filkins fumbled twice, and Stanford recovered both.
“It's very frustrating,” Bertrand said. “The ball was on the ground [multiple] times this game. It's that pursuit of the ball and making sure that everyone's getting to the ball, so when it is on the ground, we're able to recover it. It's just missed opportunities there.”
To force more turnovers, the Irish need to create more havoc on defense. Notre Dame recorded three TFLs against Stanford, dropping their team average to 5.3 per game.
“It's just guys being out of their gaps and things like that,” Bertrand said. “It's obviously frustrating for us. We just need to look at ourselves. There are spots where we can do better.”
It hurt the defense that was without cornerback TaRiq Bracy and defensive lineman Jayson Ademilola, but it’s football. Injuries are going to occur, and Notre Dame should have more than enough young talent to still execute at a high level even after starters go down.
Three of Notre Dame’s final six games should be against ranked opponents, which includes a regular-season finale against USC. The Trojans have one of the top-scoring offenses in the FBS this season.
But given the team’s offensive woes, all six remaining opponents are capable of defeating the Fighting Irish.
“There are obviously details we need to make sure that we clean up. We need to go forward from here and take UNLV as seriously as possible,” Bertrand said. “Every opponent is good at this point and every win counts.”