Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 23, 2023 31 N otre Dame can't do what it did against Central Michigan and ex- pect to beat Ohio State. You just cannot commit 8 penalties for 72 yards against the best teams in college foot- ball and end up having those numbers be nothing more than a minor sore spot in an otherwise dominant victory. It doesn't work that way. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Free- man knows that. His assistants know it. The players definitely do, too. Senior defensive tackle Rylie Mills was slapped with a roughing the passer penalty in the second quarter versus CMU. It pushed the Chippewas into the red zone. They ultimately missed a 36-yard field goal. With the way Ohio State looked offensively against West- ern Kentucky, you cannot expect the Buckeyes to take a gift like the Mills in- fraction and do nothing with it. "In a tight game, those are going to matter," Notre Dame graduate student linebacker Jack Kiser said. It's about more than just hypothesiz- ing what OSU could do with a free 72 yards on eight Notre Dame penalties, though. It's about the Fighting Irish getting to a point where yellow laundry on the field isn't an issue at all. Against anybody. Right now, it is. The Irish had 10 flags thrown against them a week prior at North Carolina State. "Coach Freeman said, 'No one's worth 15 yards,'" Mills said referencing his personal foul. "Sometimes we got caught up trying to make a play and get at the quarterback. And that's on me to get better and be more focused. "I think that's where it comes down to, working together and making sure we're living in that." Freeman was straight-up asked if he thinks his team disciplined. He said yes. "Absolutely," in fact. He actually attrib- uted some of the penalties to aggres- siveness. In those instances, technically it would have been over-aggressiveness. Mills didn't need to do what he did. And neither did sophomore defensive end Joshua Burnham on a roughing the passer penalty of his own. He was out of the play behind the quarterback, and then he got up and shoved the signal- caller after the ball had already been delivered. Central Michigan did end up scoring at the end of that drive. Just like, say, Ohio State probably would have. Here's the thing, though; aggressive- ness is one necessary ingredient in a Notre Dame victory over the Buckeyes. Without it, you might as well quote a line from Donnie Brasco. Forget about it. "What I won't do is keep them on a leash," Freeman said. "You got to let these guys be aggressive. When I tell them to come out of the locker room, it's not, 'Don't make a mistake, don't get a penalty.' It's, 'You go attack.' We're try- ing to win the interval in five seconds. You go as hard as you can." Messaging like that resonates with 18- to 21-year-olds who wake up every Saturday in the fall with one thing on their minds: destroying the dudes lined up across from them. "It's tough trying to toe that line be- tween do I take that extra step and get the extra hit on the quarterback or am I going to be a half second too late?" Kiser said. "Some of those, it's tough. At the end of the day, you don't want to pull that out of a game. You don't want to tell him to stop, slow down, don't play hard." Elite teams find a way to toe that line. And Kiser brought up a good point; just because Notre Dame has racked up an average of nine penalties per game in the last two weeks does not mean the Irish are destined to keep on that way. Notre Dame only had one penalty in the season opener versus Navy and four in the home opener against Tennessee State. You can live with numbers like those. You can beat Ohio State when you can count on one hand how many times the referees had to toss a yellow hankie on the turf. Freeman is obviously aware the pen- alty problem has become a threatening trend. It's going to be a focal point in practices leading up to the South Bend showdown against the Buckeyes. But he said it himself; whatever Notre Dame has to do to cut down on the fouls, letting off the gas even a little won't be a part of it. Notre Dame's identity is built on flying to the football. That is here to stay. "Do I like to see penalties? Absolutely not," Freeman said. "But it's not a dis- cipline issue. It's an execution, funda- mental issue that we have to continue to improve." ✦ GOLDEN GAMUT TYLER HORKA Tyler Horka has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2021. He can be reached at thorka@blueandgold.com Senior defensive tackle Rylie Mills had a roughing the passer penalty versus Central Michigan, one of two such infractions on the Irish committed. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Notre Dame Needs To Cut Down On Penalties