Immediate Overreactions: Notre Dame, Marcus Freeman Suffer Another Inexcuseable Loss

Just as things looked like they were turned around and trending in the right direction for first-year head coach Marcus Freeman, everything came crashing down in one of the worst losses the program has suffered since 2016. The Irish lost to a hapless Stanford team that hadn’t beaten an FBS opponent all year. The loss not only drops Notre Dame back to .500 but raises serious questions about whether Freeman can salvage his first season as a head coach.

Marcus Freeman looked helpless on the sidelines

The most concerning aspect of Notre Dame’s lousy loss last night was the image of a stoic Freeman on the sidelines with his arms crossed, looking seemingly helpless as the Irish faltered. He did not look like a coach in charge on the sideline but rather a coach alone on an island. That’s a bad sign not just for this year but beyond.

Freeman has often looked uncomfortable on the sideline this year, with the Marshall and Stanford losses as the worst examples. Forget Xs and Os for a minute. Freeman needs to find his own way of owning the sideline in these games in a hurry, or this won’t be the last close loss to an inferior opponent this season.

Unfortunately, we’re seeing almost all of the first-time head coach challenges play out in real-time. We knew it was a possibility when Notre Dame hired a coach with no head coaching experience, but all the good vides around the program had almost everyone looking past it. No one can look past them any longer.

Tommy Rees shoulders a lot of blame in this one

Notre Dame’s offense looked anemic against one of the worst defenses in all college football. Stanford’s defense had not been good all season long, and they came in banged up. And yet they still shut out Notre Dame in the first half and held the Irish to just 14 points.

Miscues cost the Irish some more points, but Rees had no feel for playcalling last night at all. All the good plays that we saw in the North Carolina and BYU games that built off each other were nowhere to be found. Instead, the offensive game plan felt extremely basic, and Rees had no answer when Stanford didn’t just let Notre Dame run in down their throats.

And can we please STOP running the ball every single 2nd and long? It’s beyond predictable at this point, and it’s madness that neither Rees nor Freeman have put an end to it yet.

Why did it take so long to see Tobias Merriweather?

We’ve heard for weeks that Tobias Merriweather wasn’t ready, but he sure looked ready on his 41-yard touchdown in the 4th quarter – the first catch of his career. Lorenzo Styles is the only other wide receiver on the roster who has shown they can make that same play. Merriweather needs to be on the field much, much more over the final six games of the season.

Merriweather played all of 10 snaps against Stanford but was the highest-rated player on offense according to PFF with a 79.0. Braden Lenzy played 52 snaps to Merriweather’s 10. Those snaps should be split up, at least, moving forward.

The defense played fine but still lacks game-changing plays

Notre Dame’s defense is not the reason why they lost this game. After the opening drive touchdown from Stanford, the Irish defense held them in check, for the most part, the rest of the game, allowing just three field goals – one of which was set up by an Irish turnover.

The defense was fine, but that’s part of the problem with the defense this year. It’s just been fine, and not the same standard we’ve been accustomed to. While the replay officials stole a turnover from them (more on this later), this was another game in which the defense did not force a turnover. The whole “when they come, they’ll come in bunches” mantra is wishful thinking at this point.

There’s no way the Tanner McKee fumble should have been overturned

Live refereeing is terrible in all levels of football these days, but replay exists to make up for how bad officials are in real time. McKee’s fumble getting overturned was one of the worst replays I’ve seen in a while. When every announcer is saying it looks like a fumble, and it’s called a fumble on the field, how do you overturn it? How was their indisputable video evidence to warrant an overturning of the call?

Credit Marcus Freeman for not acknowledging the replay as a reason for losing and not using it as an excuse because he had a right to be angry and upset about it.

Notre Dame needs to reevaluate its third-down defensive strategy

Notre Dame has been giving up entirely too many yards on third and longs the last few weeks. It almost cost them dearly against BYU when the 3rd and 17 conversions turned the game around for the Cougars, and last night the Irish played such soft third down defense that it allowed Stanford to kick more manageable field goals or go for it on fourth downs. Al Golden and Freeman need to reevaluate what they’re doing in these instances because it will keep burning them if they don’t adjust.

There are no more sure wins left on the schedule

After winning three in a row and beating BYU, it looked like the Irish would cruise to 6-2 and set up a showdown with Clemson on November 4. However, after last night’s performance, no sure wins are left on the schedule. Before last night, the Marshall loss could be chalked up to a fluke. The same can’t be said anymore. Notre Dame has lost two games this year to teams who have yet to beat a single FBS team other than Notre Dame.

Every game left could be a loss. That doesn’t mean Notre Dame will go 3-9 or that they can’t still win a bunch of them. It means that this team and coaching staff has shown that they can play with anybody (see Ohio State), and yet, they can also lose to anybody they play. If you lose to this Stanford team, you can lose to Syracuse or Navy or Boston College, or even UNLV.

This is a team and a head coach still very much in search of who they are. There could be more wild swings along the way this year. How Freeman holds – or doesn’t hold – it all together will go a long way in whether or not he will ultimately be successful as a head coach at Notre Dame.