6 Thoughts on a Thursday

Marcus Freeman didn’t take Collin Klein to a Notre Dame hockey game, but Freeman at least flirted with the idea of hiring Klein to replace Tommy Rees in 2023. It’s one of those weird hypotheticals that could have changed a lot of things about this opening week for the Irish, but it probably ended up the way it was supposed to with Klein leaving Kansas State to join Mike Elko’s staff and Denbrock leaving Brian Kelly at LSU to team up again with Freeman.

If things went different, there’d be no Mike Denbrock back in the Bend. There also wouldn’t be Notre Dame’s staff preparing to face Klein’s offense against Texas A&M. Now, Al Golden and his defensive staff have had to prepare for a coach who led K-State’s offense to two top-20 finishes in OF+ (combined FEI and SP+ rankings).

This part of the game has been overlooked in many ways. So much of the focus has been on Notre Dame’s young offensive line that Notre Dame’s defense versus Texas A&M’s offense has largely been ignored. I think the assumption is that Notre Dame’s defense is good and A&M’s offense has too many questions, so people are just putting a check mark beside the Irish in this case. It’s not going to be that easy, though, even for a defense that has three preseason All-Americans and is fairly loaded at all three levels.

That’s because Klein’s offense is so multiple that Notre Dame has to be prepared for as much as possible. Golden certainly realizes that and had this to say earlier this week about the challenges Klein’s offense will present.

”Personnel, formationing, really challenges you pre-snap. He does a great job, if not the best, at it. Quarterback as a runner makes it difficult. Different scheme runs in addition to the mainstay runs. There’s always going to be runs of the day, and you have put those fires out. At the same time, a quarterback with the ability to block it up and get the ball down the field. There’s challenges the width and length of the field. He’s as good as I’ve seen at doing it.”

There’s going to be all of that and Klein doing it with different personnel than he had at Kansas State. While adding three tight ends in the transfer portal to what they already had would suggest we’ll see plenty of two and three tight end sets from Klein, we don’t know how much he’ll run the quarterback with Conner Weigman. He’s a good athlete who is capable as a dual-threat, but he’s also coming off a foot injury that sidelined him last season and has only run the ball 28 times in nine career games.

That’s a lot different than what Klein had in Will Howard, Adrian Martinez, and Avery Johnson at K-State. They averaged 748 yards rushing from their quarterbacks the last two seasons and they’d be running Weigman a lot to achieve that, which seems less likely at a program that has dealt with too many injuries at quarterback in recent seasons.

Klein also is going from an offense with a very good offensive line to one with plenty of questions heading into the season and though he’ll be working with several elite athletes at the skill positions, they may not have figured out who the top guys they want to feed the ball to consistently yet.

I guess these things could be seen as a positive for Notre Dame, but it also makes them more of an enigma to prepare for. Sure, it sucks knowing that a defense has to defend against someone like Marvin Harrison Jr.all game long, but at least Notre Dame came into the Ohio State game last season knowing a lot more about who they had to worry about.

There’s a real chance that A&M comes out on the first drive on Saturday night and it could look similar to that opening drive against Navy last season when they were running things on offense that were unexpected. Eventually things got settled down and Golden and the staff made adjustments. It’s something they did exceptionally well and a huge reason why their defense finished as one of the best in the country in 2023.

Here’s what Golden said when asked about making adjustments during this game:

”You can only change what they know. If you’re drawing it up in the dirt, it’s going to be a long night. There may be X coverage instead of X coverage. Y coverage, there may be X pressure instead of Y pressure. There may be a certain run fit as opposed to the next one. Those are really what we’re talking about. If you’re not making them as the game evolves, halftime is going to be too late. That’s our methodology in the opener.”

This isn’t something Notre Dame started to prepare for when the players started diving into Texas A&M film. Preparing for these kinds of scenarios is a constant for them all year and Jack Kiser explained back in the spring why the defense is so good at making them.

”In the spring and in fall camp, we’re putting in a massive amount of defenses. When we get to game week, we’re only running a handful of stuff. We’re only doing what we practice all week. “What happens a lot is in those in-game situations, it’s like, ‘Hey, remember in spring ball when we were doing this? We’re going to pull that out and that’s what we’re going to start doing.’ It’s not like a foreign concept to guys. We’ve repped it before. Maybe not that week, but it’s in our tool belt.”

Adjustments are big in every game. Adjustments could also prove to be the difference in a game that shouldn’t feature a ton of points.

Being able to adjust to in week one against a coordinator who is as multiple as Klein is going to be critical for Notre Dame’s defense. Fortunately for them, they have the volume of defense available to them to be able to make the right ones at the right time.

2. I spoke with my friend Ian Boyd from Inside Texas late last week about Klein’s offense because I don’t know anyone who covered what was happening with Big 12 offenses and defenses better than Boyd. He was writing about what Kansas State has been doing on offense since Klein was a quarterback for the program and to Boyd it’s obvious how much Klein has been influenced his his former head coach, Bill Snyder.

“He likes to be extremely multiple. He’s basically just Snyder 2.0. It’s basically just the Bill Snyder offense with a little more updates,” Boyd explained.

Klein is constantly quizzing the defense to find out how they’re going to line up against different formations and different personnel groupings.

“You watch their offense and they have a ton of screen plays that are really good. Okay, they’ve got that,” Boyd said. “Oh, now they’re in the spread and they’re running pick plays on the goal line. Alright, so they got that. Okay, now they’re in the shotgun and they are running spread option like they’re Oregon. Now they’re just running basic spread offense stuff. It’s all there.”

He’s also not someone who will hesitate to go hard in one direction if the match up presents it and did so when he went primarily spread against Texas last season. They threw it 40 times because they thought they had a better chance against Texas’ defensive backs than those two giant defensive tackles. It led to K-State scoring 30 points nearly pulling of an upset.

Everyone should expect some cat and mouse during the game and also remember something that Boyd emphasized to me. What Klein does is a lot like what Boise State used to do under Chris Petersen. They didn’t run an offense. They ran plays and would get different personnel to learn packages so they didn’t have to master everything.

They hit Texas with this big play off of a sudden change last season where they hid the tight end behind the tackle, but he still ran a vertical route to occupy the safety.

Someone like Jaden Platt isn’t even listed on the depth chart at tight end to start the season, but he’s a freaky athlete who can really run. He would be the kind of player they sneak in as a vertical threat on a similar play for A&M, even if the plan is for him to be a decoy.

That kind of approach at K-State allowed them to feature their top guys as primary options and find specific roles for everyone else. I don’t know how that will work long term at a program like A&M because of the type of skill talent they typically recruit because I doubt many of them have any interest in being role players. In the short term it can be very tough to prepare for if they get enough buy-in from the current team.

3. K-State was in 12 personnel (one back, two tight ends) over a ⅓ of the time last season. Just because they added those tight ends in the portal doesn’t mean they’ll play like Michigan (closer to 50%), but it’s a fair bet that Notre Dame will be playing with three linebackers on the field a decent amount to match personnel.

Knowing that’s the case, Notre Dame having confidence in five of them to play is a pretty good situation to be in.

On the opposite side of things, A&M not feeling as confident about who is going to start next to Taurean York at linebacker is less ideal. Like Notre Dame, they are a nickel team because most teams won’t play heavy very often. Mike Denbrock has that option with Mitchell Evans, Cooper Flanagan, Eli Raridon, and company at tight end, which makes me think that Notre Dame looking for mismatches in 12 personnel is something worth monitoring on Saturday.

4. Something else worth monitoring is the fact that Weigman relied heavily on throwing the football in contested catch situations.

Clark Brooks (aka SECStatCat) does a fantastic job of breaking down SEC offenses and quarterbacks. Brooks highlighted how Weigman has done a nice job of getting rid of the football versus pressure to avoid negative plays, but that also means he’s gotten rid of the football earlier than he’s wanted to without great ball placement.

According to Brooks, 24.7% of attempts for Weigman were considered toss-ups (aka 50/50 balls). That was the highest percentage out of any SEC quarterback in the last two seasons and Brooks suggests that we could see a regression in his completion percentage because two of the defenses he lit up, New Mexico and Louisiana-Monroe, finished 131st and 126th in EPA (expected points added) per attempt. Against Miami and Auburn, 53rd and 66th in EPA per attempt, he wasn’t nearly as dominant as a passer.

He completed 82.7% of his passes and 11.0 yards per attempt against New Mexico and Louisiana-Monroe. That dropped to 58% and 6.1 YPA against average Miami and Auburn.

That was the drop against average pass defenses. Notre Dame’s pass defense finished first in EPA per attempt last season and teams completed only 34.9% of contested targets against them.

Weigman has been praised often heading into this game and this season, but I think people have conveniently ignored the less great part of that small sample size. That and the fact that A&M receivers like Cyrus Allen and Jahdae Walker have had issues with drops in the past make me skeptical that this is going to be a game where people are hyping up Weigman as an elite NFL prospect after it.

5. The 2021 season was Marcus Freeman’s first season at Notre Dame. In March of that year, he gave an interview talking about his philosophy on coaching defense. It was clear that the thing he valued the most was compiling as much talent as possible through recruiting.

“That’s my philosophy. Different coordinators, different coaches, have different philosophies...and that’s just mine. We’re going to recruit really well. I’m going to try and outwork you in recruiting, so that over time, we step on the field and have an advantage. That’s a belief of mine. We’re going to out-recruit the guys we are going against.

“Let’s out-recruit them, one, because to me, you can have a distinct advantage when you step on the field. But two, and I want to say this the right way, I’m not trying to beat you in a chess match. That’s not my philosophy. I believe that we have to be multiple, but we’re going to do what we do in terms of our kids are not going to be confused. They are going to get good at the things we ask them to do.”

That’s what he has done at Notre Dame both as a coordinator and then a head coach. He’s upgraded the talent on the roster through recruiting high school players and through the transfer portal.

When Freeman arrived at Notre Dame, Notre Dame was 12th in 247Sports’ college team talent rankings with 45 blue-chips (4 or 5-star recruits) on the roster. Entering Freeman’s third season as head coach, Notre Dame has 58 blue-chips and are 10th in the team talent rankings.

While the jump from 12th to 10th may not seem significant, they went from 12th in average player ranking (89.79) all the way up to fifth this season (91.14). The only programs above them are Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, and Texas. Those are also the only programs who have more total blue-chip recruits on their current roster.

Having 13 more blue-chips than they had three years ago makes a huge difference, especially when going up a team like Texas A&M (seventh in the overall rankings and seventh in the average rankings).

Everyone would acknowledge that there is another level to this with recruiting for Notre Dame. Everyone should also acknowledge that they already jumped up a level because of the work Freeman, general manager Chad Bowden, and the staff as a whole have done.

6. I was going back and forth on what I was going to write about here because I was thinking about Freeman’s place in The Athletic’s recent coaching tiers piece and also thinking about writing something about Riley Leonard.

I settled on writing about both because they are connected.

Bruce Feldman and Chris Vannini put together these coaching tiers and it’s a better way of ranking coaches than doing a top-25 or something similar. However, it is extremely odd (at least to me) to see Freeman grouped together in the same tier as Bret Bielema, Dave Doeren, Tom Herman, Pat Narduzzi, Kalani Sitake, and Bill O’Brien.

Some Notre Dame fans might find it infuriating, but I think it’s more of a reflection of not knowing who to place Freeman with. It makes a lot more sense to group him with Mike Elko, Jedd Fisch, and Matt Rhule in my mind because everyone has good things to point to on their resume, but none of them have done enough to prove they belong in a higher tier yet.

Elko feels like the right coach to have right there with Freeman. They also are going to be connected for a long time because they faced each last season and will do so again the next two seasons. Elko probably gets more credit for a close loss than Freeman gets for a win against Duke, at least in the eyes of casual college football fans, but these Notre Dame and Texas A&M matchups will swing the narrative.

It’s a bit ironic because it could have been much different. If Brian Kelly stays at Notre Dame, Freeman was going to be a candidate to be the coach at Duke. If he went there, then maybe they would have never been linked. They will be now because of these games and because of Leonard.

Leonard is a major reason why Elko got the A&M job. With Leonard at Notre Dame now, he could also be a catalyst for Freeman to make the jump to that next tier of coaches.

A lot of what it takes to be considered in that next tier is for Freeman to win a game like this one on Saturday. On the road, at night, in a hostile environment, against what should be a very good team. Winning these types of games is pretty much what coaching a program like Notre Dame is all about.

I don’t think Freeman can get a win without a strong performance from Leonard. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but he has to make meaningful plays with his legs and his arm. He also has to make smart decisions against a good pass rush. He needs to have a game similar to the one Ian Book had against Clemson in 2020.

Book played at a higher level that night than any other game I can recall. He knew when to improvise, which produced an extra 84 yards of offense and a touchdown to Avery Davis that he helped create outside of the framework of the play. He also knew when to live to fight another day by throwing the football away six times.

That game also featured him overcoming major adversity a couple of times after he fumbled on a play that could have been a touchdown and then later had a receiver drop a ball on a failed fourth down attempt with Notre Dame trailing late in the game. That’s the kind of thing that can happen in these big games and Leonard will have to be ready for the next opportunity no matter what the situation is.

Leading up to it, he’s saying all of the right things. I can’t think of a better message to share about his offensive line than this with all of the questions surrounding them heading into a difficult matchup.

"Notre Dame...it's the Mecca of offensive linemen in college football, so anybody who is going to block for me is going to be the best of the best. That's who we recruit here...It's Notre Dame. That's what we do. We run the ball and protect the QB."

All of the noise for weeks has been about Notre Dame’s young offensive line being overmatched against Texas A&M’s loaded defensive line. No quote will change how hard the job his offensive line has, but this is probably the exact thing they needed to hear from the guy who will be leading them this season.

Freeman went out and got Leonard as his quarterback to help Notre Dame win a game like this. It’s the kind of thing Leonard did to help his former coach get the job he currently has.

Freeman, Elko, and Leonard will be forever associated with each other in some way. How the story gets talked about going forward will work itself out late Saturday night. I can’t wait to see it all unfold.

Men's Under Armour White Notre Dame Fighting Irish 2024 Sideline Wordmark Rival Pullover Hoodie