Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 19, 2024 25 DEFENSE SLAMS THE DOOR AFTER STANFORD'S OPENING- DRIVE TOUCHDOWN Notre Dame junior defensive end Joshua Burnham was a two-way star at Traverse City (Mich.) Central. Against Stanford, his offensive instincts kicked in. Playing his old vyper position dur- ing the third quarter of Notre Dame's 49-7 win over Stanford, Burnham found himself defending a speed option to the boundary side. He parked his 6-foot-4 frame in Cardinal quarterback Ashton Daniels' path, forcing him to pitch to his running back. Only one problem for Daniels: Burn- ham got his left hand in the way of that, too. He tipped the ball to himself, creat- ing a turnover at the Stanford 32-yard line and returning it to the 17. "It just so happened I was in the right place at the right time," Burnham said. Burnham's takeaway was one of nine consecutive defensive stops for the Irish following the Cardinal's opening-drive touchdown. Stanford crossed midfield only four times after taking a 7-0 lead, never moving past the Notre Dame 33- yard line. During that opening drive, the Irish noticed Daniels and company were at- tacking the edges of their defense. They adjusted, like they do so often after tak- ing an early punch. That's how plays like Burnham's happen. "Hey, right now, they're trying to get us on the edges," Freeman said he and Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden told the team. "Let's make sure we keep edges to our defense but also stop letting 14 [Daniels] scramble." Freeman called Daniels' scrambles, which happened twice for a combined 32 yards and 2 first downs, "unaccept- able." From that point on, he carried 12 times for 10 yards (including sacks). "We had to make sure that we made corrections there," Freeman said. "Our guys did a good job." That's who this defense, led by Golden, has been. The Irish allowed points on their first defensive posses- sion in each of the past three games. Miami (Ohio), Louisville and Stanford combined to score 17 points the rest of the way. Notre Dame will often bend early if the opposing offense shows a look it hasn't seen before or does something unexpected. For example, Freeman ad- mitted the Irish did not know whether Daniels, who missed Week 6 with an injury, would play — or how Stanford head coach Troy Taylor would attack them with him. However, there's no panic if and when that happens. Golden and his staff put their heads together, decipher what they're up against and adjust. "They gash us, they scheme it up or something, that's great," graduate stu- dent defensive tackle Howard Cross III said. "But next drive, it won't hap- pen again. That's the mentality for ev- erything, until eventually, there's just nothing else they can do." If the opposition puts together a scripted drive for a touchdown, the Irish know they can slam the door from that point on. They've done it over and over again. FOURTH-DOWN SUCCESS AIDS IRISH IN THEIR BLOWOUT OF STANFORD Ben Minich and Loghan Thomas combined for a sack on fourth down in Notre Dame's evisceration of Stanford. It didn't mean much. The Irish were al- ready up by the same score by which they went on to win, 49-7, and there was only 4:46 on the clock. It embodied so much of what made Notre Dame so superior to Stanford in the biggest moments of the matchup, though. The Notre Dame defense stopped Stanford three out of four times on fourth down. The Fighting Irish of- fense, meanwhile, was successful on all three of its fourth-down tries. Notre Dame scored touchdowns on the ensuing possessions following the first two fourth-down stops. As for the three fourth-down successes offensively? They all came on Irish touchdown drives. STANFORD GAME NOTES BY JACK SOBLE AND TYLER HORKA Junior defensive end Joshua Burnham picked of an option pitch to stop a third-quarter Stanford drive — one of nine consecutive defensive stops for the Irish following the Cardinal's opening-drive touchdown. PHOTO BY MIKE MILLER