Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1529781
16 NOV. 30, 2024 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED BY JACK SOBLE F or the first time all season, Riley Leonard knew the fake was com- ing. All he could think about was doing his part. Just sell it, Leonard thought, walk- ing as nonchalantly as he could toward the sideline when he heard the call on his helmet headset during the second quarter of Notre Dame's 35-14 win over Virginia in Week 12. Keep walking. "I saw it earlier in the week, they were practicing it in practice," Leonard said. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, that's gonna hit.' And then it did. Kind of." The Irish ran quickly to the line of scrimmage, and graduate student line- backer Jack Kiser took the snap from two yards behind center. As sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love motioned to the right, Kiser wheeled and handed the ball to sophomore wide receiver Jor- dan Faison, running left. Faison got the edge and hit his stride in the open field. Only one man to beat: The punt returner. Faison faked left and cut right, forcing his would-be tackler to take a seat. Next stop: end zone, as nearly every player on the Irish sideline jumped up and down in unison. The play, of course, didn't count. Notre Dame believed its for- mation was legal. The officials disagreed. But despite the con- troversial call, special tea m s c o o rd i n a to r Marty Biagi flexed his creative might, and not for the first time. Four weeks prior, against Georgia Tech in Week 8, the Irish lined up in punt for- mation and snapped the ball to senior tight end Davis Sherwood. He tossed it to graduate student wide receiver Jayden Harrison, who flipped it on the reverse to Love, who picked up the first down. Later in that game, Notre Dame lined up for a field goal but swapped its typical holder, senior Chris Salerno, with speedy walk-on wide receiver/ex-quarterback Tyler Buchner. Buchner, who shares Salerno's No. 26, darted toward the right sideline and picked up the first down. "I didn't even know they wear the same number," Biagi said later that week, with a smile. Back in 2023, Notre Dame beat Duke with help from a fake punt. On their first offensive possession, the Irish snapped the ball to the up man, Love, and he sprinted to the right for 34 yards. Notre Dame went on to score two plays later. "Marty is a creative mind," head coach Marcus Freeman said. "Some- times I have to reel him back and say, 'Hold on, Marty. We can't do that.' But when Marty has conviction on some- thing and he's able to make me have conviction, OK, let's do it." A DEEP BAG OF TRICKS Biagi became famous for elaborate, almost Looney Tunes-level, trick plays in 2018, when he was the special teams coordinator at North Texas. Holding a 7-0 lead on the road against Arkansas, Biagi had everyone on the punt return unit jam the Razorback across from them at the line of scrim- mage. That way, they couldn't see the punt returner, Keegan Brewer, not call for a fair catch. Brewer caught the ball at the Mean Green 10-yard line and stood still until the nearby punt coverage players walked away from him. When the coast was clear, Brewer took off for a 90-yard touchdown. Biagi explained at the time that he installed the fake fair catch in fall camp, more than a month prior to the mid- September game in which North Texas trounced Arkansas 44-17. That tracks with his methods at Notre Dame. "We're just constantly looking," Bi- agi said. "We want to be patient, but we want to still be aggressive in know- ing when we want to use and execute those plays. It can vary, but we're constantly, al- ways having a plan." Biagi put the fake p u n t t h e I r i s h ra n against Virginia in the game plan for last season's Sun Bowl, but the opportunity to run it never popped up. The second-year Notre Dame special teams coordinator is constantly think- ing about and drawing up trick plays. He doesn't think of them as trick plays, though. He just thinks of them as plays to execute. BIAGI BALL Notre Dame's aggressiveness in calling fake kicks has a ripple effect through the entire team "Marty is a creative mind. Sometimes I got to reel him back and say, 'Hold on, Marty. We can't do that.' But when Marty has conviction on something and he's able to make me have conviction, OK, let's do it." HEAD COACH MARCUS FREEMAN ON SPECIAL TEAMS COORDINATOR MARTY BIAGI