Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 18, 2025 53 N otre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman knew someone was going to ask about the Irish being stopped on a fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line in a 28-7 victory over Boise State Oct. 4. Freeman came to the ensuing Monday press conference ready to explain why the direct snap run from junior running back Jeremiyah Love, which came after he and redshirt freshman quarterback CJ Carr shifted to the right before the snap, failed to get back to the line of scrim- mage, let alone reach the end zone. "On offense you have to an- ticipate what you think some- body's going to do," Freeman said after introducing the explanation as something he's learned in his time as a head coach. "We have to anticipate what we've seen on film. What we're going to show, this is what we anticipate the defense to do. "[Boise State] didn't really do what we exactly thought they were going to do. It's not that we've never seen that look. They didn't do exactly what we thought they were going to do with the play action we did with that play. "As you look at it now, looking back at it, you would say, let's try to keep it inside. But as we prepared for that, we thought it was going to hit right there in that C-D gap. There were a lot of people in that C- and D-gap that we didn't ex- pect to be there. "They got us. We've got to come back and have a better plan that ensures that we do. Like, it's not OK. I'm not justi- fying that. That's just what happened. We've got to ensure that we have a plan that no matter what they do defensively, we can score in that situation. I'm con- fident we will." The C-gap Freeman mentioned was between sophomore left tackle An- thonie Knapp and senior tight end Eli Raridon. The D-gap was between Rari- don and redshirt junior tight end Ty Washington. Those gaps were filled in part because neither Raridon nor Wash- ington sustained their blocks as Love ran behind them. What Freeman didn't answer, and perhaps unintentionally, was the sec- ond part of the question about Notre Dame identifying better answers in short-yardage situations. Variations of the Wildcat formation, in which a run- ning back takes a direct snap, have been used with varying levels of success and failures this season. But Notre Dame's inconsistency in short-yardage situa- tions expands well beyond the Wildcat formation. Through the first five games of the season, Notre Dame's first-team offense ran 18 plays, excluding ones wiped out by penalties, on third or fourth down with a distance to go of three yards or less. The Fighting Irish converted 10 of those plays (55.5 percent) into first downs. Notre Dame achieved eight of those first downs on 15 rushing at- tempts, and the other two first downs came on pass attempts. Notre Dame was far more successful in short-yardage situations on third and fourth down last season. The first-team offense converted 48 of its 67 attempts (71.6 percent) on third or fourth down with a distance to go of three yards or less. The run-pass splits were 35 of 46 on the ground and 13 of 21 through the air. The Irish success last sea- son relied a lot on the running ability of quarterback Riley Leonard. He was a much more effective version of a Wildcat quarterback. When Notre Dame has used the Wildcat this year, Carr has remained on the field. Freeman prefers to keep Carr on the field, because the defense can't com- pletely ignore him or change its personnel in anticipation of the Wildcat. But Carr brings signif- icantly less value to the offense when he's not taking the snap. Freeman described Notre Dame's usage of the formation as a growing package with po- tentially more wrinkles to come. "How do we keep growing it? At some point, if we gotta throw the ball to CJ Carr as a wideout, maybe we have to do that to get somebody to respect him," Freeman said. "But yes, it's an evolu- tion. It's not just let's try things out. It's like, do we believe this package can give us a chance in a short-yardage situation — or a non-short-yardage situation — to have success? "If we do, let's find ways to continue to enhance it. And that's what we're trying to do." Wildcat or not, Notre Dame needs to find better answers for short-yardage situations. It should be less concerned with trying to anticipate how a defense will respond to a pre-snap shift and more focused on identifying what Notre Dame can do efficiently in short yard- age, regardless of the opponent. Offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock needs a catalog of plays he knows he can rely on in clutch moments. He has too many talented players on the of- fense for gimmicks to outnumber the reliable answers. Until then, the line of questioning for Freeman may remain the same. ✦ Notre Dame's talented running backs such as junior Jeremiyah Love haven't been able to carry the Irish to success in short-yardage situations. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER Notre Dame Needs Better Short-Yardage Answers Tyler James has been covering Notre Dame athletics since 2011. He can be reached on X @ TJamesND FIRST AND LAST TYLER JAMES