Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 16, 2023 35 GAME PREVIEW: CENTRAL MICHIGAN finish to the 2023 campaign. Instead, he can breathe a sigh of relief. For now. Central Michigan provided him with a temporary cure-all. Sparty easily handled the Chips 31-7 despite Central Michigan holding a sec- ond quarter lead and only trailing 10-7 at halftime. Michigan State scored 21 unanswered points in the second half to handily cover a 14-point spread. The Spartans outgained the Chippe- was 406 to 219 in total yards. The Chips could only muster 96 yards through the air on 25 attempts, and they went 3 of 16 on third-down conversion attempts. They had the ball for 34:26 of game time and only scored one time. Yikes. Not a great return to East Lan- sing for Jim McElwain, Michigan State's associate head coach, wide receivers coach and special teams coordinator from 2003-05. It still wasn't enough for McElwain to say it was a forebod- ing evening for his team's 2023 season, though. "I told this football team in the locker room I've got a lot of trust in them," McElwain said in his postgame press conference. "They're a group that cares. They're a group that came out and fought hard against some really big guys. I think we will take some things, and it will be good to learn from." INTERNAL FOCUS Notre Dame has some big guys, too. Central Michigan will be overmatched in that department. The only thing that can keep the Chippewas close to the Fighting Irish on Saturday is if they play with heart bigger than the recruit- ing service scores next to their names. Some of the Chips' players might not have even had those. Redshirt freshmen quarterback Bert Emmanuel Jr. was a three-star prospect out of high school. He was the No. 83 quarterback and No. 1,352 overall player in the country in the class of 2022 ac- cording to the On3 Industry Ranking, which gave him a recruiting score of 83.30. Emmanuel's top target in the Michi- gan State game, tight end Mitchell Col- lier, was also a three-star recruit. He was the No. 133 tight end and No. 2,816 overall player coming out of high school in 2020 according to the On3 Industry Ranking. Those rankings were good for a recruiting score of 77.32. Those are numbers foreign to a pro- gram like Notre Dame. Notre Dame signed 17 players in the class of 2023 that had recruiting scores of 90 or better. Several of them are al- ready making an impact in the first month of their true freshman season; running back Jeremiyah Love, corner- back Christian Gray, and wide receiv- ers Jaden Greathouse and Rico Flores Jr. come to mind. It was an impressive haul for the Irish. None of those Notre Dame players are starters, though. Reading between the lines, that means Notre Dame's back- ups are better, on paper, than Central Michigan's starters. And it isn't par- ticularly close. A Notre Dame loss in this game would be the equivalent of Marshall shocking the Irish in their 2022 home opener. That game kept Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman up at night throughout the offseason. He doesn't want to have a repeat situation in the Facts & Figures CENTRAL MICHIGAN AT NOTRE DAME Date: Sept. 16, 2023 Site: Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend Kickoff: 2:30 p.m. ET Television: Streaming exclusively on Peacock Radio: This game can be heard on Notre Dame IMG affiliates. Series facts: This is the first ever meeting between Notre Dame and Central Michigan. Head coaches: Central Michigan — Jim McElwain (25-22, fifth season); Notre Dame — Marcus Free- man (12-5, 2nd season) Noting Central Michigan: The Chippewas' offense put up 219 total yards in Week 1, which placed them No. 124 out of 133 FBS teams in total yards per game through Week 0 and Week 1 … The pass- ing offense was the biggest letdown for the Chips; they only threw for 96 yards, which ranked 128th nationally through Week 1 in passing yards per game … CMU head coach Jim McElwain is one of the most experienced head coaches on the Notre Dame schedule; he made his college coaching debut as a graduate assistant at Eastern Washington in 1985 … McElwain's other stops include Montana State (1995-99), Louisville (2000-02), Michigan State (2003-05), the Oakland Raiders (2006), Fresno State (2007), Alabama (2008-11), Colorado State (2012-14), Florida (2015-17) and Michigan (2018) … McElwain won two national championships as the offensive coordinator at Alabama; his only two head coaching stops before CMU were Colorado State and Florida … CMU has won the West Division in the Mid-American Conference twice (2019 and 2021) under McElwain. Central Michigan quarterback Bert Emmanuel Jr. completed 11 of 17 throws for 87 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception in the season opener versus Michigan State. PHOTO BY JACK REEBER/COURTESY CENTRAL MICHIGAN