Dave Doeren Transcript

DAVE DOEREN: First of all, I thought Notre Dame played really, really well. Obviously we didn't play good enough to win. I thought our guys were well-prepared. I thought they fought hard early. Losing Nyheim was a blow. Fortunately it's not a big injury, it's just a sprain. They did x-ray him, negative. But he couldn't get back to the way he wanted to play. Justin Jones was out. Darius was out. A lot of the guys that we count on, rotation on the D-line. Hurt us there.

We missed some tackles in the second half. Gave up some explosive plays. That hurt us. The turnover margin we talked about was going to be a big deal. Giving up a pick-six in the second half put us behind possession-wise.

You just got to give them credit. They did a good job, they really did. Thought their defensive kids played well. Were only able to score one touchdown.

But a lot to play for left in the season. Said to the guys, We're going to go home, we're going to look at what happened, why we didn't play the way we expected to. We'll have those answers as we watch the film, get ready to play Clemson at home, which I know is a game our guys are excited about.

Questions.

Q. What do you think the biggest difference was on defense?
DAVE DOEREN: Started out good. As the game wore on, we were just missing tackles. They did a good job scheming a couple plays, got to the safety. One play in particular, the long run in the second half, Morehead had to sit that play. We were keeping a linebacker out of the box into the boundary for their screen that they have, in the A gap. Jarius has to get it down. He didn't. Sometimes that's your job as a safety. Jarius missed that tackle.

Q. Could you have drawn up a better start?
DAVE DOEREN: No. We talked about two things: let's start, because they are a fast-start team, and I thought we could block punt. Thought we would have a big return today, which we weren't able to do. We were able to get one of those two things done. Great play by James.

You know, just disappointing. I really wish we were full strength in that game. I was really looking forward to that being a four-quarter game. We didn't have it.

Q. Both times you scored touchdowns, they came back right away and scored.
DAVE DOEREN: No, they answered both times, which is what a good team is supposed to do. I was disappointed in the one-, two-play drive they had for a touchdown. Neither of those plays should have happened. We practiced both of those plays multiple times.

Q. Did you see what happened on the pick-six?
DAVE DOEREN: We had a hard count called, with no play called. Just something that a lot of spread teams do. If they jump, we snap it, roll out, take a shot. Well, Garrett thought that they jumped.

I thought there were two plays in the game where they were off-sides, didn't get called. That was one of them. I thought they had a linebacker come from the field, I thought was across the line of scrimmage. They didn't call it.

Ryan thought he had a free play there.

Q. (Question regarding the pick-six.)
DAVE DOEREN: That was a huge momentum play. That, and when they stopped us on fourth down in the red zone. I thought we would get the first and score a touchdown. That was a big play against us. It's like a turnover.

Q. First half, 11 penalties. The officials...
DAVE DOEREN: I can't criticize the officials unless you want to pay the fine for me. I can't. I'd love to tell you what I thought, but I'm not going to do that.

Q. (No microphone.)
DAVE DOEREN: He's a great player. Their offensive line is playing great. You don't average 300 yards a game rushing after seven games, now eight, without being really good at what you do.

I thought we had a good scheme. I thought they did a good job adjusting. You just have to tackle, you know. That's the number one fundamental on defense. We didn't do that well enough, so... It's disappointing.

Q. How much did losing Nyheim hurt as far as the running game?
DAVE DOEREN: It hurts a lot. One of the best players in the country in all-purpose yardage. Impacted our games in every game we played. You take Josh out of the game, would they be different? Yeah. We lost one of our best players for the game, so it hurt.

Q. (Question regarding them being able to run the ball.)
DAVE DOEREN: We were disappointed that we didn't play as well as we wanted to. As I told them earlier, we had injuries on the D-line that hurt our rotation. I thought we got tired and didn't tackle well in the second half.