Instant Reaction | NIU 16 Notre Dame 14
It felt unthinkable that Notre Dame would lose this game to Northern Illinois.
Not in year three for Marcus Freeman. Not with this team that just went out and had a monster win on the road against Texas A&M to start the season. It just didn’t seem possible.
But it happened. Again.
Notre Dame lost to an inferior team that out coached them. At home. Immediately after everyone spent the past week praising the job Freeman and his staff did. I didn’t think a game like Marshall would happen again under Freeman, but here we are.
Thomas Hammock and NIU deserve all of the credit for the job they did. Offensive coordinator Wesley Beshorner called close to a perfect game that put his players in the best position to succeed. So did defensive coordinator Nick Benedetto.
NIU’s defense was never going to beat themselves and forced Notre Dame’s offense to beat them. We know they couldn’t.
Saying it’s back to the drawing board for the Irish isn’t sufficient. This now takes the top spot as the worst loss for Notre Dame in the past 10 years.
- I might as well just get the defense out of the way because, once again, they weren’t the reason Notre Dame lost this game. It wasn’t a great game from them by any means, but they essentially allowed 13 points because of three explosives.
The next six drives went punt, punt, missed 53-yard field goal, punt, turnover on downs, and punt. They then gave up a field goal after the offense turned the ball over and NIU started with the ball at the 50.
The first big play was a bit of a fluke and probably should have never been thrown. The next two explosives were atypical based on what we normally see from them.
There’s much to be dissected about the defense including the inability to stop numerous successful 2nd and long runs, but players like Jordan Clark, Jaiden Ausberry, and Xavier Watts made winning plays in big moments. No one is going to remember them because of the outcome, but those plays deserved to lead to something better than this result.
- On the first drive of the game, Riley Leonard had five carries on the way to a touchdown.
He ran the ball only three times after that. Jadarian Price only ran the ball four times. Jeremiyah Love, who scored what should have been remembered as an all-time spectacular touchdown, only ran the ball 11 times.
There’s no way Mike Denbrock and the staff don’t come out of this game kicking themselves looking at those numbers given what happened with the offense today.
- Leonard did everything he needed to to beat Texas A&M. He received plenty of flowers for that performance and deserved it. It’s the nature of the beast as Notre Dame’s quarterback that when he plays a game like this, he’s going to take the brunt of the blame.
He was not good. Bad is probably being kind in describing it. Both of his interceptions were bad and led to points for NIU. The second interception won’t be forgotten because it was a touchdown if he put it on the money. He left it woefully short and that led to a big return as well.
2nd and 1 in that area of the field is a spot where an offense can take a shot down the field, but given how Leonard almost threw a pick right before this play (when Beaux Collins essentially snatched away the football on the sideline) and how Leonard had thrown the ball most of the game, it seemed like the absolute wrong decision to make.
If it was the third quarter at that same score? Okay, but with a one point lead and ND is a position where they could run a four-minute offense to essentially kill the clock and end the ball game, it felt like a misguided decision to take a shot at that moment.
Unfortunately that throw and decision can now be included in the “Get used to it” category.
- Losing games like this means moments will stick out because one play here or there literally would have made a difference. It’s one thing for that to happen against Ohio State, though. It’s completely different when it’s a game against a team like NIU.
All of the goodwill from the win against Texas A&M immediately got flushed down the toilet.
That’s college football. It could have been this way for Penn State today against Bowling Green or Oregon against Idaho last week. It was ugly for them, but they still won those games. Just like it was in similar games when Notre Dame found ways to win ugly numerous times in the final years of Brian Kelly. It took a very long time for BK to shake off the perception that he was going to lose those games and for Notre Dame fans to trust that the Irish would win them.
It looks like it will take even longer for Freeman to shake that perception, if he can, because he’s now had three inexcusable losses at home during his three years in South Bend.
But that’s for him to worry about later. He has a serious problem with his offense that needs to be addressed. This offense was supposed to grow and build towards something as the line gained more experience. Through two games, I don’t know what this offense is and whether or not they’ll have answers for Purdue’s super aggressive defense or what they’ll see from Miami (OH). That’s before they get to Louisville, who will bring a real defense to South Bend.
They needed to do what was necessary to survive this game on offense and couldn’t. That doesn’t instill any confidence about what we’ll see against Purdue with the quarterback and the passing game.
Notre Dame’s defense was good enough to win this game, much like they were good enough to win every game last season as well. The fact that no one knows if the offense will be good enough to win the next game feels reasonable after watching this performance against NIU.
There’s a whole lot of season left. There’s a whole lot of uncertainty too.
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