Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM SEPT. 26, 2026 31 I t felt more like a victory by a thou- sand paper cuts, a notion supported by both Marcus Freeman's body lan- guage and the words he chose afterward. And why that matters so much to the fifth-year Notre Dame head coach has nothing to do with fashioning style points for a College Football Playoff commit- tee that won't even release its first rank- ings until Nov. 3, four days before Notre Dame's showdown with Miami. It has everything to do with evolving into a team capable of making a deep playoff run, maybe even a historic one. The victory, Notre Dame's 50th in 80 meetings and the teams' first matchup since 2017, had a retro feel to it. Physi- cal. Competitive. Even a little chippy at times. All of which ran counter to the betting line (29.5 points) that suggested that the Irish would dunk on Michigan State (2-1). For Freeman, though, it's about im- provement and playing to a standard. With Notre Dame opening the season with six games in which it has been or likely will be favored by 20 points or more, manufacturing urgency is Free- man's formula for keeping his team from sleepwalking — even for small stretches — before a mid-October road test at No. 11 BYU finally supplies that urgency organically. But when asked after the Irish im- proved to 3-0 where that improvement had actually shown, his first reaction was telling. "It's just hard to say," Freeman said. Freeman did conjure some positives, including the 2-0 edge in the turnover column and the fact that the Irish have yet to commit any this season. There was the running game, he noted, 116th nationally in both yards per game (114.5) and yards per carry (3.6) coming into the weekend. The Irish responded with a season-high 161 rushing yards, with sophomore Nolan James Jr. break- ing through with 121 yards (and a touch- down) on 26 carries — both career highs. Freeman did not mention that the de- fense held Michigan State to 167 yards — 40 in the second half, the best sec- ond-half defensive showing during his tenure. Safeties Luke Talich and Adon Shuler recorded interceptions. Line- backer Drayk Bowen had his best game of the season with 8 tackles. And on offense, junior wide receiver Micah Gilbert flashed some big-play potential, hauling in a 61-yard bomb from CJ Carr on the first offensive play of the game and finishing with 8 catches for 170 yards. "Look, it wasn't perfect, as every- body saw," Freeman said, " but it was a good victory and a hard-fought vic- tory. Those are the types of victories that you're going to have to win and find a way to win." The play that bothered Freeman more than anything was a fake punt late in the first quarter that came up 2 yards short on fourth-and-13 from the Irish 39-yard line. The Irish actually punted on fourth- and-3 but were flagged and penal- ized 10 yards for holding. On the re- played fourth down, freshman wideout Brayden Robinson took a pitch on a re- verse. Tight end James Flanigan was out front with a block, and it appeared that if Robinson had taken the play outside, he would have made the first down. Instead, he cut inside and was tackled short of the line to gain. "I've got to let some things go my- self," Freeman said. "I probably should have said no — because we didn't make it, right? You know how it is. Now that we didn't make it, I should have said no. "But I love the play. I love the plan. I didn't love the execution. We've got to be aggressive. It's a mentality I have, that we have. I only regret it because it didn't work, but I really love the way our guys bought in and prepared for that play. We just didn't get it done, and it ended up hurting our team." That admission mattered beyond one failed fake punt. Freeman wasn't exempting himself from the standard he was imposing on everyone else. If Notre Dame was going to scrutinize a 17-point victory as something less than the finished product, its head coach's decisions belonged under the micro- scope, too. Meanwhile, Michigan State got its first points of the game on the ensuing possession, a 32-yard field goal by Liam Boyd. And then after an Irish touch- down, the Spartans blew down the field — 68 yards in 3 plays — to make the score 17-10 with 3:21 left in the first half. "That play probably started some negative plays for our team, and I put that on myself," Freeman said. "Like, be smart in that situation. Punt the ball. Your defense is playing great." It's not that the Irish don't have sche- matic, physical and other tangible areas to improve before facing Purdue, fol- lowed by North Carolina and Stanford. But the larger challenge is finding the mental and emotional sequel to the off- season "Leave No Doubt" mantra that served the Irish so well — something that can fuel the next stage of growth for a team that flashes its ceiling often enough to remind everyone what's possible. "For us, we know we're hunted ev- ery week," said Carr, one of four team captains. "People are going to give their best against Notre Dame. How do we flip that and turn into the team that's hunting others?" ✦ Following his team's 27-10 win over Michigan State, Marcus Freeman saw plenty to fix — including himself — as the Fighting Irish search for the urgency that can push a 3-0 team toward its ceiling. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER Searching For Urgency In An Imperfect Victory Eric Hansen covers Notre Dame athletics for On3, with a focus on Irish football. He can be reached on X @ EHansenND THE DEEP READ ERIC HANSEN