Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 27, 2025 7 UNDER THE DOME BY TYLER JAMES N otre Dame football made too many mistakes in the first two games of the season to easily define a fix to solve all the Irish issues from back-to-back losses. Every player and coach could find something to improve upon from those two games. That's where accountability comes into play. Junior running back Jeremiyah Love, who rushed 23 times for 94 yards and 1 touchdown and caught 4 passes for 53 yards and 1 touchdown in the 41-40 loss to Texas A&M Sept. 13, already knew shortly after the game how the team needed to respond. "I would say just keep your head up," Love said during the Texas A&M post- game press conference. "I believe that anybody can win on any given day. Today we didn't come out as the victors. But despite that, we're gonna keep our heads up, stay together. That's really the key. Stay as a family unit. "Don't point fin- gers at anybody else. Point fingers at yourself. See what you could have done to help this team have a better chance at success." Despite some of the individual success Love had against the Aggies, he quickly identified a failed fourth-down attempt as an area he could have done better. "I didn't convert, so I could point a finger at myself and say, 'Hey, what if I would have done this?' Maybe I would have changed the outcome. "So, really just evaluating yourself. But also keeping your head up and staying to- gether and being brothers. We're all broth- ers in there. We love each other. So don't point no fingers and just keep it going." The public message from Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman empha- sized a need for better consistency from everyone involved. "It's probably easy to sit here and tell you the things we did well or how hard our guys tried, but that doesn't matter," Freeman said. "We have to become a more consistent team, and that starts with being consistent individuals. Con- sistency, I believe, is what wins or loses games when you have two good oppo- nents competing against each other. "The only way to become more con- sistent is we have to refuse to tolerate habits in our performance that aren't to the standard of what we've set for our program. It's always going to start with me in making sure that I have to always evaluate the things that I tolerate as the head coach and what we all tolerate from each other in terms of our habits, the way we practice, the way we prepare and the way we go about things." Freeman applied that need for con- sistency to an offense that needed to be better in short-yardage situations and score more touchdowns when it reaches the red zone. The Irish finished 4 of 8 on third and fourth downs of three yards or less and settled for field goals on two red-zone trips against Texas A&M. Freeman applied that need for consis- tency to a defense that allowed Texas A&M six plays of at least 20 yards for a total of 241 yards combined on those six plays. Freeman applied that need for consistency to a special teams unit that failed to con- vert an extra point when the snap bounced off holder Tyler Buchner's hands. Given that Notre Dame's offense and special teams found more success else- where to start the season, the biggest concern for Freeman has to be defensive coordinator Chris Ash's defense. "We've had to figure out why those explosive plays occurred," Freeman said. "I could get up here and say it's execu- tion, and it is, but what does a lack of execution come down to? It could be a lack of focus, a lack of proper technique, a lack of understanding what's expected, a personnel issue where you're asking someone to do something that they can't do consistently. "All those things are the responsibility of us as coaches. It falls on us as coaches to make sure that our guys can execute what we're asking them to execute on a consistent basis." Freeman doesn't have to throw indi- vidual players or coaches under the bus to demand better execution. He can demand more consistency, which can be a catch- all for a lot of problems. But consistency can't be corrected without accountability. Every problem won't be solved in a week or two. But every player and coach can work toward providing a solution. "Great coaches don't pass blame," Freeman said. "They don't say it's the player's fault. They look at themselves and say, 'How can I find a way to fix this?' "I think great players do the same thing. … They say, 'What can I do to make this thing better? What can I do to help this team improve?' "And great teams do that. They look at themselves, especially when you don't get the results you want. … When you have failure, great coaches, great players, great teams look at themselves and hold themselves accountable." ✦ UNDER THE DOME Following the loss to Texas A&M Sept. 13, junior running back Jeremiyah Love preached the need for the team to stay together and look within in an attempt to improve and become more consistent. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER ACCOUNTABILITY FIRST Notre Dame needs individual consistency for improved team success