Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1509252
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 14, 2023 23 NOTRE DAME PASSING OFFENSE: D Eleven different Notre Dame players caught a pass. Freshman walk-on Jordan Faison was one of those, and he even caught a touchdown. That was the extent of the positives from the Fighting Irish passing game. Graduate student quarterback Sam Hartman completed 22 of 38 throws for 254 yards with 2 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Yep. Three. His first three of the season. He was over-reliant on junior tight end Mitchell Evans again. Evans had eight targets, which led the team. The Irish's wide receiver corps just can't seem to get involved for what is probably a myriad of reasons; speed, health, scheme, etc. On top of it all, the Notre Dame offensive line allowed Hartman to get sacked five times. The big guys up front were poor in pass protection — as poor as they've been all year. It was just a dud all around when Notre Dame tried to go to the air. NOTRE DAME RUSHING OFFENSE: D Junior Audric Estimé and Hartman have some- thing in common; a few weeks ago they were being talked about among the best players at their respective positions. Not anymore. Estimé had 10 carries for 20 yards. As a team, Notre Dame rushed for 81 yards without accounting for the 37 yards Hartman lost in sack yardage. Freshman Jeremiyah Love had 37 yards on just five carries. He was the saving grace of the Irish rushing attack, which was nearly nonexistent otherwise. Hartman ran 5 times for 25 yards without including sack yardage, another somewhat bright spot. Jadarian Price and Gi'Bran Payne both had 1 carry. Those 2 rushing attempts netted 0 yards. As poorly as the Notre Dame offensive line pass protected, that unit was equally as bad at paving paths for the Irish's ball carriers. NOTRE DAME PASSING DEFENSE: B+ Louisville quarterback Jack Plummer connected on 17 of 24 passes for only 145 yards with 1 touch- down. That was the lowest passing yards total Plummer has posted in his three games against the Irish. Ironically, this was the first time he beat them. Cardinals wide receiver Jamari Thrash caught the 1 touchdown, and he led the Cards with eight 8 catches for 75 yards. No other Louisville pass catcher had more than 2 receptions. Thrash had a good game, yes, but he did not thrash the Irish to the full extent of his capabilities. And the Notre Dame defense shut everybody else down. All in all, it was a pretty solid effort from the Irish passing defense — especially consider- ing the pass rush actually got home for a couple sacks. Those were made miniscule by Louisville's 5 sacks, though. NOTRE DAME RUSHING DEFENSE: D Louisville running back Jawhar Jordan was the player of the game. He ran 21 times for 143 yards and 2 touchdowns. He made the Notre Dame de- fense, particularly the linebackers but even the safe- ties at times, seem very, very slow. Put simply, he was just better. Faster. Perhaps even playing harder. Louisville ran for 200 yards on the dot excluding sack yards lost. Backup Isaac Guerendo ran 8 times for 27 yards. Wide receiver Ahmari Huggins-Bruce got one carry for 19 yards. He was far more effec- tive out of the backfield than when Notre Dame tried to get the ball in Chris Tyree's hands in a similar manner. The Irish ended up losing a fumble on that play. The Cardinals' running game was just a much cleaner operation than that of Notre Dame. It showed up on the stat sheet and subsequently the scoreboard. SPECIAL TEAMS: B The Notre Dame return game was so bad Devyn Ford and Jadarian Price just started calling fair catches instead of taking the ball out. Price did somewhat salvage that with a 37-yard return in the second half. The biggest special teams story of the night was graduate student kicker Spencer Shrader nailing field goal attempts of 53 and 54 yards. The latter tied his own program record. Notre Dame just wishes it didn't have to settle for those lengthy attempts. Touchdowns were the preferred result both times, obviously. Sophomore punter Bryce McFerson didn't have the ball bounce off his foot very smoothly all night, but he still ended up averaging 42.5 yards per punt on four boots. COACHING: F If Marcus Freeman is going to wear the loss as much as he did in the postgame press conference, saying multiple times it all comes back to him when Notre Dame plays poorly, then he's going to wear this F in the report card. There isn't a whole lot more to it than that, outside of offensive co- ordinator Gerad Parker not having a banner night calling plays. Notre Dame going 3 of 13 on third down was partly his doing. Rotating the offensive guards and center in the first half was also not a very smart move. It seemed to mess with offensive cohesion, and it's not like there was very much of that to begin with. Somebody has to take an F for the Irish falling flat. We'll put it on the coaches. REPORT CARD BY TYLER HORKA Junior running back Audric Estimé only had 10 carries for 20 yards in Notre Dame's 33-20 loss to Louisville. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER