Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1526412
6 SEPT. 14, 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY TYLER HORKA T he more things stay the same, the more they change. Yes, we know, that's an inverted version of the com- mon cliché. But hear us out. It's fitting for Notre Dame football. Ahead of the 2022 season opener at Ohio State, first-year Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman told reporters the Irish would have an altered game plan in hopes of negating at least some of the output of Ohio State's high-powered of- fense. The Buckeyes still did enough of- fensively, particularly in the third quar- ter, to come away with a 21-10 win. After the 2024 season opener at Texas A&M, meanwhile, Freeman again told reporters that the Irish had a game plan specific to the surroundings. "Going into the game, we might have thought we were going to see some dif- ferent things defensively, that maybe tak- ing shots downfield wasn't always going to be the first thought," Freeman said. "The other part of that was the battle of field position. As the head coach, I said that's got to be the focus of this game; turnover margin and field position. "If you take a shot on first down and you decide to throw it on second down and third-and-long, three-and-out, you're not changing the field position. We have to move the chains. All of it was a part of the plan." That sounds a whole lot like how Notre Dame approached Ohio State two sea- sons ago. And yet, the Irish flipped the script and beat the Aggies, 23-13, in front of even more fans (107,315) than were at the Horseshoe to kick off the 2022 season. The emphasis back then was on not giving Ohio State quarterback CJ Stroud, who won the offensive NFL Rookie of the Year award in 2023, ad- vantageous situations with which to work with the football. Instead, Notre Dame wished to methodically move the ball itself and lean on a talented defense. That worked in Columbus for long stretches, ugly as it may have been. Notre Dame led the Buckeyes 10-7 until the 17-second mark of the third quarter. And it worked again at A&M with the Irish holding a 13-6 edge into the fourth quarter — ugly as it may have been. When it came time to win the respec- tive football games, though, Stroud put on a master class and orchestrated two touchdown drives. Notre Dame quarter- back Tyler Buchner couldn't match that. This time, however, it was Notre Dame's Riley Leonard who met the moment, not Texas A&M's Conner Weigman. Fre e m a n n a m e d L e o n a rd No t re Dame's offensive MVP. He gutted out 158 passing yards in completing 18 of 30 attempts. He also ran 12 times for 63 yards. Knowing the game plan and knowing the type of bruising, low- scoring matchup it would be, Freeman couldn't ask for much more. "He really played the quarterback position well," Freeman said. "He did what we asked him to do and that was to take care of the football. We're not asking for explosive plays. This had to be a complementary football game, and UNDER THE DOME SAME, BUT DIFFERENT Notre Dame's cautious game plan resulting in a win at Texas A&M shows how far the Irish have come Senior quarterback Riley Leonard did not have eye-popping statistics at Texas A&M in his first Fighting Irish start, but he got the job done when it mattered most. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER