Notre Dame Notebook | Post-Army Blowout
BRONX, N.Y. - How did the Notre Dame defense handle the Army offense at Yankee Stadium here on Saturday night?
As Lou Holtz might say, perfectly, well almost perfectly…at least when it mattered.
Army came into the contest averaging over 35 points and 420 yards per game.
Aside from one drive in the first half, Al Golden’s unit completely shut down Army’s offense; forcing four three-and-outs and a fumble.
By the time Jeremiyah Love raced 68 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the second half, the game was essentially decided.
While the performance may not have been as dominant from a statistical performance in the second half, nothing ever came easy for Army. Even when the Black Knights appeared to create the openings their offense is designed to create, those gaps were quickly erased and Army was held to limited gains.
And those plays were the exceptions.
For the most part, the Black Knights were completely smothered.
By the time the fourth quarter came around, the run-heavy, ball-control squad had to resort to chucking the ball deep and running trick plays. The results were predictably bad.
Until the game’s final drive, Army’s biggest gainer of the game came up on a 19-yard run by quarterback Bryson Daily in the second quarter. Of course, the Irish forced and recovered a fumble on that play.
The Black Knights’ next longest gain before their final drive came courtesy of a questionable roughing the passer penalty in the fourth quarter, which saved it from another turnover on downs.
Of course, Army would go on to turn the ball over on downs four plays later anyway.
Daily finished with 139 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 39 carries, but 54 of those yards and one of those scores came in the final minutes against the Irish’s backups.
“We knew we had to stop him,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said afterward. “That was the main priority. He's the person that makes that offense go. He's a tough, downhill, just a gritty football player. We had to match that type of mentality. We wanted to attack their offensive line and we wanted to attack him and put more people where they were trying to run than they could block.
“That was something we saw and a game plan that we wanted to do and try to attack him. The defense did a really good job at doing that.”
NO NEED TO SELL: Coaches will be politicking for their teams to land a postseason bid more than ever under the new system. Some will do so matter-of-factly. It’ll come across as whiny when others do it and some may be downright hostile about it.
Freeman isn’t in a position where he needs to consider a specific approach, at least not yet. With the Irish ranked 6th, prior to #5 Indiana’s loss on Saturday along with #7 Alabama’s loss, the Irish seem certain to move up one spot in the next set of rankings, leaving Freeman without much of a need to sell a message on what the dominating win meant.
“I've always said that's for you all and everybody else to interpret the message that's sent,” he told reporters afterward. “There's one goal on Saturdays and that's to achieve team glory and the way you prepare gives you the best opportunity to do that. That's the message that I want our players to understand, is that we prepare the right way, we continue to find ways to elevate and improve and you're going to get hopefully a result that we got tonight.
“I don't worry about the message it sends to everybody else as much as I worry about the message that it sends to our players and this program.”
Win against USC on Saturday and Freeman can worry about selling his players instead of anybody else.
But if the Irish fall short against the Trojans, Freeman may want to memorize some of his team’s achievements the last 11 weeks to read off the top of his head.
JETER STRUGGLES IN YANKEE STADIUM: If there was one blemish on the performance, it was the Irish kicking game. Kicker Mitch Jeter, who has been working his way back from injury, missed a 47-yard field goal as the first half expired. It wasn’t all that close and may have missed from five yards closer had there not been an Irish false start beforehand.
He then had a 30-yarder blocked in the third quarter.
After the game, Freeman didn’t think his previous injury was a factor.
“I don't think it's as much health-wise,” Freeman said. “I think we will see what happened on the 48-yarder before the half. I'm most upset about the penalty right before that moved the back five yards.
“But the blocked field goal, we've got to figure out schematically, what's going on. That can't happen if you're going to be a great football team, so we've got some work to do on our field goal unit.”
INJURY “CONCERNS”: After the game, Freeman said defensive tackle Howard Cross was “close” to playing on Saturday before deciding he wasn’t quite ready.
“Howard was close,” Freeman said. “He practiced some and he just didn't feel like he could give it a go.”
Meanwhile, Freeman didn’t have a complete understanding of what happened to freshman linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, who left the game.
“I was just told that he's got a knee sprain. He's going to be out for the game, so we'll evaluate it (Sunday), when we get back.”
ANGELI GETS MEANINGFUL MINUTES: Backup quarterback entered the game in the third quarter with the Irish leading 35-7, allowing for additional experience.
The New Jersey native came out completing his first four passes for 43 yards. His fifth pass sailed incomplete and while he remained in for the rest of the game, that was his final pass attempt of the night.
The early insertion was a bit of a surprise, but it said a lot about Freeman’s comfort with the way his team was playing, his trust in Angeli, but perhaps most importantly an understanding that even though he hasn’t needed to be counted on all season, Angeli could be thrust into the most important role in an instant.
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