There is no secret formula to success.
That’s true in regards to every facet of life, especially within Notre Dame’s football program. Sure, there’s schematic reasons why the Irish’s defense performed better in Week 4 against Arkansas than it had all season. But another large factor in taking that step forward, according to Marcus Freeman, is simply time.
“As you reflect, why the improvement?” Freeman said. “I think it's a reflection of a lot of younger guys, on even offense and defense, just improving with experience, improving with time. I think it's a reflection of guys understanding what they're being asked to do, right and why they're being asked to do it and how they're going to get their job done and how it can be attacked, right, how you can be attacked.
“When you understand all those things, you play with clarity and you play with the velocity that it takes to be successful.”
The truth is defensive coordinator Chris Ash is only in his first season in South Bend. That shouldn’t excuse the massive faults that have lied within his unit through the first weeks of the season, but it also doesn’t mean his hiring is a failure.
That said, with time, the Irish defense continues to take steps forward to building a sound operation.
Take last Saturday for example. The Irish weren’t walking into Fayetteville to take on a cupcake opponent. The Razorbacks quarterback, Taylor Green, led the nation in total yards of offense prior to kickoff. Notre Dame’s defense held him to under 300 yards of offense and kept him out of the endzone.
Definitely a step towards where Freeman envisions this defense.
“The bumpy road leads to better as long as you work, attack it and own it,” Freeman said. “I haven't been in the fire with Coach Ash. I know people who have. I've learned this week who he is when he's in the fire. He's a competitor and he's a leader.”
It should be a positive sign that Notre Dame and its defense got to a bad place, and instead of digging a further hole, began the very long climb of trying to get out. It’s already been proven that Freeman’s program can handle adversity, but it’s also nice to see that Ash can handle it too.
“He's not pointing fingers at other people,” Freeman said. “He's saying, ‘I have to get this fixed.’ It's just my responsibility and we've got a lot of people who are doing that. He's done a really good job of being crystal clear on his expectations. Hey, we failed in this area. Let's attack it and fix it. Let's be crystal clear as coaches and as players on what we're expecting here. And he doesn’t waver. He goes to work. I've learned a lot about him these past two weeks.”
The Irish learned a lot about themselves in their first three games, and failing in the fashion that they did can almost make the solutions easier to find.
“Sometimes experience can mean failure at times,” Freeman said. “Failure makes you uncomfortable, but failure helps you grow. I always say this. The pain of failure is not much different than physical pain. When you have physical pain, the first thing you want to do is you want it to stop. It's the same when you have pain from failure. It's a reflection of you're uncomfortable.”
Now that they’ve seen success, and at the moment appear to be on the path to achieving it at a higher rate, it’ll be important that the Irish continue finding solutions to their faults — even if they're not as easy to fix.
“Our challenge as we move forward is to continue to be uncomfortable and continue to find ways to grow with success when it's natural to feel good, feel satisfied,” Freeman said. “We have to be uncomfortable because that's the only way you grow. We've got to get back to work.”
Whatever happens Saturday against Boise State probably won’t be the best version of this defense and this team. It doesn’t have to be. It just needs to be better than it was last week. If that trend continues over the next two months, the Irish should find themselves in a good spot.
“And so that's just the challenge, man, is to stay present, stay in the moment, improve, and hopefully we can look back and say, man, we had a lot of momentum as we move forward,” Freeman said.
