Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 12, 2024 23 NOTRE DAME PASSING OFFENSE: B+ What if we said before the game Riley Leonard would complete 73.9 percent of his passes and throw 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions? You'd probably ask how many yards he had through the air, and we can only tell you 163, but who cares? Leonard had his best game as a passer in a Notre Dame uniform and the Fighting Irish got a win over a top-15 opponent to go with it. Leonard was nearly perfect — 5 of 6, includ- ing a crucial fourth-down conversion — on the Irish's first offensive possession of the game, which turned out to be a necessary touchdown drive in retaliation to Louisville's quick score. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock finally got sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love involved in the passing game; he had what stood up as the game-winning touchdown on a 32-yard sideline catch-and-run. Sophomore Jaden Greathouse had his best game of the season with 4 catches for 61 yards and a score. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even prolific. But it was enough. And it was a decent for this team's standard in this areas. NOTRE DAME RUSHING OFFENSE: C Speaking of standards. The Notre Dame rushing offense has a really lofty one. It was not met. By a long shot. Notre Dame finished with 31 carries for 117 yards as a team. That's 3.8 yards per carry. Love's average was even worse, 3.1. He went into the game a shade under 8.0. Junior Jadarian Price, meanwhile, was benched for fumbling inside his own 10-yard line. Can't have that. His lack of playing time thereafter is evidence enough. Leonard followed up back-to-back 100-yard games with 13 carries for 52 yards. He was Notre Dame's most effective runner in the game, and that was in large part because the blocking up front wasn't exactly stout. Notre Dame's patch- work offensive line, which featured sophomore Sullivan Absher at left guard in place of an appar- ently injured Sam Pendleton, had trouble taking care of a really good Louisville defensive front. It happens. But the Irish will get graded accord- ingly when it does. NOTRE DAME PASSING DEFENSE: B- Louisville quarterback Tyler Shough diced the Irish up at times. He finished 24-of-41 passing for 264 yards with 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. The book-end scores were better offense beating good defense, so you can't knock the shorthanded Irish much — playing without sophomore starting corner Christian Gray and, for a while in the sec- ond half, junior starter Benjamin Morrison — for just getting beat by solid playmaking. But you can knock them at least a little for it happening routinely. That's not normally the case for one of the better pass defenses in the country over the last two seasons. Louisville wideouts Ja'Corey Brooks and Caullin Lacy both had 5 catches for 71 yards. The former had 2 touchdowns. Even freshman running back Isaac Brown caught a touchdown pass. You gotta wonder how different it would have been in this phase if Gray was playing instead of true freshman Leonard Moore, but it's important to note it wasn't an utter failure. Notre Dame had 9 passes broken up as a team. Louisville did not have even 1. That's a winning disparity. NOTRE DAME RUSHING DEFENSE: C College football is silly. The 42-yard loss Louisville had on a botched snap on what would have been a punt was counted against the team's rushing led- ger. If it wasn't, the Cardinals would have rushed 34 times for 173 yards. That'd have been an aver- age of 5.0 yards per carry. For the second time in as many years, the Notre Dame defense did not hold up its end of the bar- gain against the Louisville running game. Three players, including Shough, had rushing gains of at least 20 yards. Shough went for 46 one of his attempts, which happened to be the same one on which he lost a fumble. Brown carried 13 times for 72 yards and junior Donald Chaney Jr. went 9 times for 38 yards. There was some bend, don't break to that for the Irish, but way too much bending — again. SPECIAL TEAMS: B The Devyn Ford fumble on the opening kickoff is inexcusable, but Notre Dame was all over the snapping miscue on a would-be Louisville punt with freshman safety Kennedy Urlacher falling on it at the 4-yard line to set up an Irish touchdown. Mitch Jeter made a 48-yard field goal. James Ren- dell had a 48-yard punt and averaged 41.5 on four kicks, three of which were downed inside the 20. It's an "A" day for the Irish in this phase without the Ford fumble. COACHING: B Gotta give credit to the guys in charge for leading Notre Dame to a win over the No. 15 team in the nation, but gotta knock the offensive side of the operation down a letter grade for it letting it get to a point in the second half where the head coach says, "What we're doing right now is not working. Let's try something else" in his postgame press conference. The Irish could have won the game by bleeding out the clock on offense but did not in part because of questionable play calling. The rationale of leaving 2:44 on the clock for Louisville to tie or win the game with a two-point conversa- tion was suspect, too. REPORT CARD BY TYLER HORKA Junior running back Jadarian Price lost a fumble inside the Irish's 10-yard line that cost the team seven points. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER