Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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4 OCT. 11, 2025 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED F or obvious reasons, the overwhelm- ing storyline during the first four Irish games this season focused on what was wrong with Notre Dame's defense, and whether first-year defen- sive coordinator Chris Ash was up to the challenge of turning things around. While the Irish defense was steal- ing all the headlines for all the wrong reasons, Notre Dame's offense under second-year offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock was emerging as one of the best in the country, even with a first- year starting quarterback in redshirt freshman CJ Carr. Following the 56-13 hog roast of Ar- kansas Sept. 27, Notre Dame was av- eraging 44.0 points a game and statis- tically featured one of the best aerial attacks in the country. The breakdown was impressive. Carr was averaging 272.8 passing yards a game with 9 touchdowns and 2 interceptions, and he was ranked No. 10 nationally and first among freshmen in quarterback passing efficiency. Carr was also completing 68.3 percent of his passes and averaging 15.4 yards per completion. Six different Irish receivers had al- ready tallied a touchdown catch, and four pass catchers were averaging more than 35 receiving yards a game. "To be where he's at, it's rare," said Irish head coach Marcus Freeman, when asked about Carr's quick progression. "It's rare to be a second-year college football player, playing in your fifth career game, and performing at a level he's performing at. It's rare, but CJ Carr is rare." What's also rare is having an offen- sive coordinator who is willing to stay flexible and highlight his personnel strengths, rather than staying glued to a specific coaching philosophy, or strate- gies that may have worked in the past, but don't fit the present. With Carr averaging 10.5 yards per passing attempt — the fifth-best mark in the country — during a 2-2 start, Den- brock embraced his explosive aerial at- tack and entered his game last weekend against Boise State with a big-play offense that was averaging 7.3 yards per play, the seventh-best mark in the country. At this time last season, with aerially challenged quarterback Riley Leonard under center, the Notre Dame passing offense was averaging just 5.7 yards per attempt and had only 1 touchdown toss through four games. Showing his versatility as a tactician, Denbrock recognized those deficien- cies in the passing game last season and leaned on his running game more than almost any other Irish play-caller had in 23 years. Out of necessity, Denbrock's offense finished 2024-25 with 3,215 rushing yards and 3,170 passing yards, marking only the second time since 2001 that a Notre Dame offense tallied more rush- ing yards than passing yards in a season. Now, make no mistake, with tailbacks Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price mak- ing up arguably the best rushing duo in the country, Denbrock has no intention of having this year's offense become overly pass-reliant, not hardly. Even with Carr's terrific early sea- son passing numbers, the Irish were still running the ball on 57 percent of their offensive plays through four games. "That needs to be our No. 1 iden- tity," Denbrock said of a run game that already had 13 rushing touchdowns through four games. But the difference between Denbrock as a play-caller this year and last year is having a deeper pool of plays to pick from with Carr under center compared to Leonard. "I believe we can throw the ball over people's heads. I believe we're really good in the intermediate passing game as well," Denbrock explained. "And I think at some point you're going to need a little bit of all of it depending on who you're playing against from a [defen- sive] scheme standpoint." Denbrock warned early last season that there would be some growing pains while he tried to implement a new of- fense as a first-year coordinator with the team. And there were. There was also popular belief that the Irish offensive improvement under Den- brock between Year 1 and Year 2 would be dramatic. And so far, it has been, with still plenty of room for more. ✦ Denbrock has played to the strengths of his personnel to great success during his two years on the job. His 2025 unit was 11th in the nation in scoring after four games, averaging 44.0 points per outing. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER Todd D. Burlage has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since July 2005. He can be reached at tburlage@blueandgold.com. UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE Mike Denbrock Deserves Credit For His Approach