After the final whistle blew in Miami last Sunday it’s safe to say that many in the Irish locker room were chomping at the bit to get back on the field.
Marcus Freeman and his team believe they are good enough to compete with anyone, but following the 27-24 loss to the Hurricanes, they had to shift their focus towards themselves instead of the next opponent.
“The first thing you want to do after you lose is go play again,” Freeman said. “You want to show everybody that we're good. We've got a good team, but we didn't get that opportunity this week. But that shouldn't be where our focus is.
“Our focus must continue to be on improving, elevating and doing the things it takes to get our program closer to its full potential.”
While the bye week may have not allowed the Irish to turn the page as quickly as they maybe would have liked, it should pay dividends as another top 25 opponent rolls into South Bend on Saturday in Texas A&M.
“This past week, we had a really good week of practice and worked on the things we didn't do so well, and worked on enhancing the things we did do well,” Freeman said.
Maybe there were more sleepless nights for every member of the Notre Dame football program than after a normal loss without a chance to bounce back the next weekend. But it did allow Freeman to give his team another look at the bigger perspective.
“Inside the building, we must continue to be mature enough to understand that the momentarily success or failure is not what the goal is,” Freeman said. “Our focus has to be to reach our full potential.
“I think very similar to their head coach, they're disappointed, frustrated. When you invest a lot into achieving a certain outcome, and the work they put in and you don't get the outcome that you desire, it hurts. There's sleepless nights. There's loss of appetite. But what we have to do is we had to turn that frustration into work and we did.”
While the loss combined with an early Week 2 bye week may have left some uncomfortable with the fact they couldn’t wash away the taste of the Miami loss, it did let the Irish have a rare chance to get in some hard practices.
That’s something teams with later byes don’t get to do as they prioritize rest and recovery.
“I look at every situation as a positive,” Freeman said. “And so how could we get a couple guys healthy, but also have some good on good periods where we're not just game planning or doing scout work, and have some competitive opportunities where your ones are going against ones or twos and we can play it. It wasn't your typical game week practice where you're doing a lot of scouted work. It was a lot of good on good practice reps.”
So instead of meetings filled with prep for the next week’s opponent, Freeman and his staff honed in on the biggest areas of improvement from the Miami game.
“There was a lot,” Freeman said. “Takeaways, ball security, tackling, third down on both sides, short yardage, two-minute. Those are things that we didn't really execute well in last week's game - really starting fast out of each half. Right? The first half, starting fast, we didn't start fast and then the second half, coming out of the locker room, we didn't start fast.
“Starting fast is, I think, a general term. How do you change that as you are the focus and intention is where it needs to be on that play at that given moment and the execution will follow.”
A big point of emphasis for the Irish last week was on creating turnovers defensively. In 2024, Notre Dame led the nation with 33 forced turnovers. Against the Hurricanes the Irish defense forced zero.
That doesn’t mean they didn’t have their chances though.
Safety Adon Shuler was in prime position to intercept a Carson Beck pass but instead waited for the ball to come to him. The result was a CJ Daniels one-handed touchdown.
“I think part is being intentional about trying to disrupt the ball, take the ball away,” Freeman said. “That was something they did a good job of having ball security. The other part is we've got to go make plays. If the ball's in the air, that ball's not coming to you. You've got to go get it. We've really worked on trying to high point the ball, going to get it, not letting it come down to you, right, being aggressive at getting the ball at its highest point.
“Again, turnovers usually come in high numbers, right? But we've just got to keep working it and working it and working it. I'm sure before we know it, we'll get some.”
Now a full week removed from the loss — and still ranked No. 8 — the Irish aren’t in a terrible spot. They’ll have the perfect opportunity to prove themselves and finally get the loss to Miami off their minds against No. 16 Texas A&M, putting themselves on the right path back to the CFP.
And if one thing became clear to Freeman in the last seven days — he believes he’s got the right guys for the job.
“I think I said it to the team after the game. There were plays in that game where Notre Dame beat Notre Dame, which is inexcusable,” Freeman said. “We can't beat ourselves. But there were plays that Miami out-executed us at a higher level.
“That's why practice is so important. You've got to evaluate those things that you're doing schematically in practice. That's why good on good is really important. I think sometimes when you go against a scout team, it can be a little bit of fitball instead of football.
“At the end of the day I'm as confident in our personnel as I've ever been.”
