Marcus Freeman began his weekly press conference by looking back at the Georgia Tech win. He announced that the players of the week were Jeremiyah Love on Offense, Drayk Bowen on defense and Davis Sherwood on special teams. On the injury front, Mitch Jeter still remains questionable for Saturday while Billy Schrauth is available, though his role is yet to be determined. From there, Freeman transitioned into looking at this week’s upcoming Navy matchup.
Asked about Navy’s unique offensive scheme, Freeman pointed to changes that were made from last season.
“It’s not your traditional, just every play quarterback under center triple option. It’s some type of option but they can do it out of gun (a few steps behind center), out of center, they have some good playmakers and the thing I notice is that they play with clarity. They play fast, they do what they do and that’s something that we have to make sure that we truly prepare for.”
Freeman then explained how Notre Dame’s young defense can prepare for Navy, given their limited experience against that offense.
“You gotta be disciplined. It’s really hard to simulate in practice the speed in which they run their offense. So, it can take a little time, especially for guys that have not faced that type of offense … then, when all of sudden you’re trying to adjust to the speed, you can lose your eyes, keeping your eyes on your assignment.”
Notre Dame’s success on fourth down, specifically on the execution of the fake punt on Saturday, was discussed by Freeman.
“At that moment, I felt like that was the right decision. Really, regardless of the score at that point … we still want possession, we’re in a position where we can’t go for the field goal, I really don’t want to punt in this situation. If we can fake it here and they give us the look, let’s do it.”
Freeman noted Billy Schrauth’s continuing progress in coming back from injury.
“He was able to get some scouted periods last week. That was his first time he was able to do actual football practice … but it was limited in terms of what he was able to do.”
The challenge of making in-game adjustments, especially against a team like Navy, was discussed by Freeman.
“They’re gonna have adjustments. We just have to feel like we have more than one defense to try to defend them, They’ve done a great job of not getting behind the sticks, staying in the flow of what they want their offense to do. So we’ve gotta continue to try and create some negative plays. There’s an aggressiveness that we have to play with in terms of tactically. I’m not just saying mentality but how we call it and some of our designed defenses.”
Freeman hailed the Irish’s improving offense.
“From week one until now, the growth of our offense, the growth of our staff with the players has been really, really good and they’re performing really well. There’s still so much out there to continue to improve. The big thing for offense is consistency. We gotta continue to be consistent on every single play.”
The need to fix the struggles on opening drives for both offense and defense was assessed by Freeman.
“Offensively, we’ve actually done a good job on our opening drives … we’re 57 percent score rate on the first drive, which is like 20th in college football. Offensively, we’ve done a really good job and the three punts that we’ve had on the opening drive has resulted in the (opposing) offense starts in the minus 37 or even farther back. What we gott do is be better defensively. I think we’re 57 percent in terms of the opposing offense scoring, which is bottom quarter of college football. So, we really gotta be better on that first drive.”
With Notre Dame students now on Fall break, Freeman indicated that the extra time players will have will be geared away from simply having longer practices
“You can utilize some of that off-time for maybe non-physical preparation. So the ability to have our guys watching extra film, the ability to get some walk-throughs in are gonna be crucial … the ability to have them in for more meetings, to have player-led meetings sometimes is something that we have to take advantage of and we will.”
An update on Jordan Faison’s limited production because of a slow recovery from an ankle injury was noted by Freeman.
“He’s healing, he’s getting back to the guy he was before getting injured … we’ll continue to try and find ways to get him the ball, but again, sometimes those outcomes are a reflection of what the defense is doing and what decision is made at quarterback.”
