What could’ve been: Notre Dame just misses out on magical season
In hindsight, Notre Dame’s championship hopes vanished the moment Ohio State running back Chip Trayanum inched across the goal line with one second remaining on Sept. 23.
College Football simply lacked the chaos required for the Irish to earn a playoff berth without going undefeated (Feel free to disagree with me, but right now, there’s a chance even a one-loss Alabama team will be left out after winning the SEC Championships.).
Notre Dame might’ve been a few plays away from making yet another magical run into the postseason.
Sure, three losses and a No. 17 spot in the most recent College Football Playoff rankings say otherwise. But the Irish ended the season as one of two teams to rank inside the top 10 in scoring offense (39.1 ppg) and defense (16.6 ppg), with the former ranking second all-time in program history.
That’s only behind the 1912 team’s 55.6 points per game, a season in which Notre Dame went 7-0, featured an end named Knute Rockne and boosted its per game figures with a 116-7 season-opening victory over St. Viator College.
It also puts coach Marcus Freeman in rare company two years into his reign in South Bend.
I’m sure y’all are itching to know who the other team that also finished inside the top-10 in scoring offense and defense?
Georgia.
Yup, THE Georgia Bulldogs, the reigning heavyweight champs that won back-to-back titles and just had its 29-game win streak snapped with a 3-point loss to No. 8 Alabama on Saturday in the SEC Championship Game (but only after the Bulldogs sent 26 players to the NFL Draft over the past two seasons).
The Irish, however, fought more like a welterweight in marquee bouts, going 1-3 against teams currently ranked in the CFP top 25. In the three losses, Notre Dame suffered a split decision defeat (Ohio State) and two late-round knockouts (Louisville and Clemson).
“Those are the type of teams that we have to find a way to beat if we want to be a championship program,” Freeman said, “but I believe that we have the coaches that will help continuously move this performance forward and enhance what we do so that we do find a way to win those big games.”
Of course, here’s where the Irish’s 39.1 points per game is a bit misleading. Notre Dame still only produced 429.3 yards in total offense (30th out of 133 FBS programs) and averaged 19 points in the three losses.
What did the Irish need to do to win those games?
(Besides the obvious answer of scoring more points because, duh.)
“There are plays in every single one of those games that you wish could take back,” Freeman said. “If you execute it, it’s a different record. That’s a part of growth. Those great programs find a way to win those games. That’s what we’re all striving to be.”
Of course, several traumatic moments come to mind for the passionate Notre Dame fan. Against Ohio State, there’s the missed interceptions and giving up the go-ahead touchdown with 10 men on the field. Then quarterback Sam Hartman turned the ball over a combined seven times at Louisville and Clemson.
Subtract those mistakes and Freeman believes — or at least says so publically — that Notre Dame possessed on-the-field components to be a legitimate contender.
“I don't ever want to make an excuse in terms of personnel,” Freeman said. “I believe we have great personnel, and we'll continue to improve our personnel as we continue to move forward. Schematically, is it something that they did differently against us that we didn't expect? The ability to create change-ups.
“I'll take a deep dive into just those three more games that we didn't perform to the level that we needed to, to look for cause and effect.”
Notre Dame finished the regular season with a +6 turnover margin (T-28th), but things took a dramatic turn for the worse in front of unfriendly road crowds.
At the same time, the Irish turned the ball just four times in Notre Dame Stadium, where they finished with a +9 turnover margin (T-1st).
In five road contests, Notre Dame coughed the ball up 13 times (including six interceptions and four fumbles from Hartman), which negated the 11 turnovers the defense forced.
Freeman and the rest of the offensive staff can toil away the offseason watching film, but maybe such lopsided ball security should’ve been expected when Notre Dame brought in Hartman.
At Wake Forest, he threw eight road interceptions in 2022 (T-6th most) and nine in 2021 (T-2nd).
Hartman’s past performance woes won’t stop people from calling for Gerad Parker to tender his resignation. Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator is often criticized for his unimaginative play-calling at times and the offense’s failure to execute basic run plays in some of Notre Dame’s biggest games.
At least for now, it’s fair to expect Parker back next year (although Freeman did let go of wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey a day after stating he wanted the entire staff to return).
Freeman seems to be taking a similar approach to one of his former mentors, Luke Fickell, who gave him his first crack as a full-time defensive coordinator in 2017.
“I think back to my first year as a coordinator, and we had a great staff,” Freeman said. “I think we finished, when I was at Cincinnati (97th) in the country. Thank God Coach Fickell didn't make a change, and that gave me and the staff the ability to work through some of the deficiencies that we had and were able to improve.”
The following season, Freeman led the Bearcats to a top-30 defense and quickly became one of the most sought-after coordinators in the country.
Of course, it wasn’t all bad in Parker’s first year as a full-time offensive coordinator. As ISD’s Matt Freeman pointed out, the Irish finished 12 in explosive plays this fall.
The biggest question going forward is if Parker stays, can he improve enough in year two for Notre Dame to produce at a championship level on both sides of the ball?
“Sometimes it takes setbacks to figure out what we need to do to improve moving forward,” Freeman said. “I think the biggest thing that I've noticed more than anything as you evaluate the first 12 games is that we have to continuously find a way to perform better when we're playing better defenses, and they understand that, and they embrace that challenge.
“We'll continuously work tirelessly to figure out a way to continue to have a better performance when we face really good defenses.”
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