Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 24, 2022 19 The immediate fixes and path for- ward did not include a lineup change. Notre Dame's depth chart for the Cal- ifornia game listed the same starting five, which head coach Marcus Freeman endorsed. Maybe that changes with an- other subpar game. This is a perfor- mance-based business, after all. But for now, the Irish are riding with Alt, Pat- terson, Correll, Lugg and Fisher. "You have to look at the big picture of, 'What's the best five?'" Freeman said. "That's something we've looked at, we've talked about and we feel re- ally strongly about the five we have out there." On paper, it looks formidable. Patter- son is a four-year starter. Alt and Fisher are high-ceiling tackles with NFL po- tential. Correll is a former top-150 re- cruit who held his own in the 2021 Col- lege Football Playoff semifinal against Alabama. Lugg is a 20-game starter who has played three positions. The offense's production and the line's ups and downs have not matched that outlook, at least not in games. Notre Dame feels it has practiced well and brought urgency each day. Some- where, though, the execution and con- sistency are lost in the translation to games. Plays repped in practice and blocked correctly in practice aren't car- rying over to Saturdays. Eliminating that gap by any means necessary is priority No. 1. It's where improvement up front starts. That's on players to do their jobs more consis- tently. That's on coaches to put them in the best positions to do their jobs. Neither of the first two games have left the linemen or coaches mystified when watching film of the breakdowns. "I don't think there are any ques- tion marks," Lugg said. "It's not like we watch a play, circle it and go, 'I don't know what happened here.' A lot of the plays we watched from Saturday's game and the week before were Notre Dame beating Notre Dame. "Things we know how to execute and details we need to be better at. We know how to do our job. It's doing it on a fourth-and-1 or a third-and-9 situ- ation that's so critical for the team's success." Those are the spots where break- downs have been too frequent, whether it's up front or elsewhere on offense. Notre Dame was just 7 of 26 (26.9 per- cent) on third down in its first two games, which ranked 118th nationally heading into the matchup with Cal. In the loss to Marshall, it failed to convert two straight short-yardage runs, first on third-and-2 and then on fourth-and-1. A third-and-3 turned into a third- and-8 after a Patterson false start. Notre Dame hasn't shied away from running, though. The Irish gave their top three running backs a combined 39 carries in the first two games. One way or another, they're determined to find something on the ground. That's even more important with junior Drew Pyne taking over at quar- terback for injured sophomore starter Tyler Buchner. A steady run game takes pressure off Pyne. It also would help mitigate the loss of Buchner's run game contributions, which were one of the few steady sources of yards in the first two games. "We believe in our group and our ability to run the football," offensive coordinator Tommy Rees said. "That's not going to change. We want that to be part of our identity from the top down. We'll continue to attack that week in and week out to give our guys a chance." The offensive linemen know that pro- cess starts with attacking their prepara- tion. It's not that they didn't bring in- tensity or attention to detail before. But when it's not carrying over to game day, something has to change. "Bloody Tues- day" practices have to be fiercer than they were the first two weeks. Preparation has to rise to a new level of focus. Lessons from the film room have to be more firmly ingrained in each lineman's mind. "We had a card from the O-line room that we each wrote a couple things," Lugg said. "It was our affirmation card. I will get my hands inside from the in- side. I will protect inside out. I will get my backside leg through. Drilling that in your head, taking it out to the field and having that fierceness on the field helps us improve." Those are lessons that shouldn't re- quire much time to implement. "We know we can execute," Lugg said. "We know we prepared the right way. Now let's do it together." ✦ "There's a fierce urgency for right now to execute our fundamentals and know what we need to do, to have the right technique that's being taught by [offensive line coach Harry] Hiestand and just give undeniable effort every single play. Right now we need to start figuring it out." GRADUATE STUDENT GUARD JOSH LUGG ON THE IRISH OFFENSIVE LINE Graduate student guard Josh Lugg and Notre Dame's offensive line understand there's no time to wait around and jell over the course of the season. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER