Mike Denbrock Proud of Notre Dame's Fight

Notre Dame’s offense needed to be gritty on Friday night as Indiana brought one of the top defense in the country to South Bend.

In fact, the Hoosiers arrived at Notre Dame Stadium with nation’s top-ranked rush defense and Irish offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock knew there would be some tough sledding at times. Denbrock’s message to the team was to keep pushing as he knew Indiana would win their fair share of battles, especially in the trenches. 

When the dust settled, Notre Dame ran for 193 yards at 5.5 yards per tote, which included Jeremiyah Love rushing for 108 yards and one touchdown on just eight carries. 

“I thought we had our moments and I thought they had their moments,” stated Denbrock. “That's indicative of a very well-coached defense and some guys that are veterans in the scheme that they run. They're able to be really, really multiple.

“I thought they won some battles, but thank the good Lord, we won a few of ours, as well.” 

The tone-setter was Love’s 98-yard run to open the scoring on Notre Dame’s second drive of the game. It was a safe call from Denbrock as the Irish were backed up, but when you have elite players, they shine under the brightest of lights. 

And it wasn’t just Love as several players, including freshman left tackle Anthonie Knapp got crucial blocks to spring the sophomore running back to the edge. 

“You're backed up on your one-and-a-half-yard line and you call something that you hope is protected on the edges,” explained Denbrock. “The guys understand and do a nice job of executing, and here comes No. 4. Anthonie Knapp did an unbelievable job. I thought the tight ends did a nice job of wiping out the front side of it.

“We did a good job of building a wall on the backside, which is something we spent a lot of time working on over the course of the last two weeks, and if you give this guy an inch, he's going to take a mile, and God bless him for doing so.” 

Denbrock also had to be patient in the pass game as Indiana runs mostly zone and has limited shot plays for most of the year. Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard attempted just two passes over 20 yards in the game, but the one completion was a huge one as he hit Jordan Faison for 44 yards to essentially end the game. 

Outside of a tipped ball for an interception, Leonard showed patience in the pocket and with his eyes as he didn’t force the ball and took what the Indiana defense gave him, which was more than fine with Denbrock. 

“With their coverage scheme, they force you to be patient,” Denbrock said. “I thought we tried to really program in the prep time that we had the idea that we were going to have to use the backs and the tight ends and drop the ball down and take what they were allowing us to have. When it does present itself, we've got to be able to hit some shots down the field, and fortunately for us, the game really kind of played out that way.” 

One somewhat significant change Denbrock made going into the game was to run more pistol as he felt it gave Notre Dame an advantage based off some tendencies they saw from Indiana’s defense throughout the year. 

Coming out of the game, Denbrock wasn’t disappointed with the result, but he did notice the scheme and execution needed to improve. 

“Their scheme in some ways, at least from our film study, was predicated off where you put the back in relation to the tight ends and where you move the tight ends and how you shift around and different things,” said Denbrock. “We were trying to throw them off the scent a little bit by being more in pistol and not having a clear answer to what side we were running the ball to or what type of scheme we were going to use. We used pretty multiple schemes out of the pistol as well as out of the shotgun.

“I thought it gave us an opportunity to be a little bit more versatile, maybe take some of their stunting and movement out of the game, which it didn't. That was a miscalculation, obviously, because they continued to do it anyway.

“Proud of the kids on offense and proud of finding a way, making enough and doing enough with obviously the support of an unbelievable defensive unit that had our backs all day.” 

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