Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1481872
30 OCT. 22, 2022 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH MARCUS FREEMAN … On what the offensive game plan was: "It's the same thing the past couple of weeks. You want to run the ball and you want to take advantage of some play-action passes and the zones that they're giving you. And we weren't running the ball effectively. "We also weren't passing the ball. We weren't throwing the ball as effective as we wanted to. So you have a game plan. The game plan is to run the ball and try to capitalize off of the ag- gressiveness of their defense and try to take some shots. And we just weren't executing, obviously, at the level we wanted to." On the team's 1-2 record at Notre Dame Stadium: "For me to sit up here and say [we can't play well at home], that would be making an excuse for why we're losing, why we're not playing well. It's not an excuse. We're not blaming Notre Dame Stadium. "You better look at yourself. If I come up here and blame Notre Dame stadium, how foolish is that as the leader of this program. Right? I'm not blaming Notre Dame Stadium for our lack of winning." On if Stanford played differently defensively than what he saw on film: "No, no. That's the thing that is a little bit frustrating. It wasn't like, 'Oh, my gosh, we don't know — we haven't prepared for this.' We knew — I mean, the amount of times that we said, 'Man, we should have done this, should have done that.' "It's a lack of execution. And that's what we've got to elimi- nate. It's not we should have. Why didn't we? Why didn't we? Why didn't we? And so it wasn't anything we weren't prepared for. We just did not do a great job of executing and they did." On if the officiating had an impact on the game: "Re- ally? Once again, I'm not going to blame anything other than myself and us on the result today. I can get as frustrated as I want in terms of the calls, where they're from. It's us. "Take a deep look at ourselves and say, 'Why aren't we doing the job we're supposed to' because what I don't want to do is have a football program that plays the blame game. That's not the way we'll be as football players. That's not the way we're going to be as men. That's not the way we're going to be as a football program. "We're going to take ownership of our mistakes. And that's what I believe in." NOTRE DAME JUNIOR QUARTERBACK DREW PYNE … On the inability of the Notre Dame offense to move the ball: "I put a lot of that on myself. I've got to go out there and do my job and execute, deliver the ball, get us in the right protection. I've got to see the defense. And I've just got to go out there and execute. "When we talk about wins, we talk about team game. When we talk about losses, we talk about how to get better individu- ally. I've just got to go out there and execute." On if the offense is overly reliant on tight end Michael Mayer: "I think Mike is a great target. He's a great player. De- fenses have a way to try to combat that. I think when they do, I've got to go and find other guys. "I think there were times that tonight where I could have done that. I'm just going to learn from it, come back and ex- ecute every day at practice this week and just come back with head down and work." NOTRE DAME GRADUATE STUDENT SAFETY HOUSTON GRIFFITH … On the team's mindset following the loss: "We can't hold our heads down. We've got a bunch of leaders. There's a bunch of guys that came back here for a reason. We've got a bunch of guys that are ready to keep on finishing this season and just go out the right way. "We can't dwell about this game. We've got to be able to move on and be able to improve and get ready for next week." On where Notre Dame goes from here: "I've been at Notre Dame a lot of years and just knowing adversity occurs. And, you know, being around Coach [Matt] Balis, it's our cul- ture. We learn how to attack adversity. "And at the end of the day, we're going to learn how to im- prove, watch the film, get better. And we've got to just move on. We've got to just move on and just know that the rest of the season, like, we dictate it. We can't let teams come in here and dictate the game." FROM THE LOCKER ROOM Notre Dame graduate student safety Houston Griffith tallied 6 tackles against Stanford. He was one of six Fighting Irish defenders that recorded at least 6 stops. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER