Notre Dame Debriefing: Week 6 Louisville

The hopes of a College Football Playoff birth for Notre Dame ended Saturday night as the Irish fell to Louisville 33-20. That’s their second loss to a ranked opponent, which looks really bad on a resume. Something the committee isn’t going to look over, and will be the main thing they look at. Sure the Ohio State loss was hard-fought, but this Louisville game was a different story.

Throughout this entire game, Notre Dame has absolutely no fight in them. They looked lazy like they were just going through the motions. Now sure this Notre Dame team is probably a little tired. They’ve played three straight primetime against very hard opponents. However, if you expect to be a national championship contender, you have to get up for every game. You have to come out and be ready to play, especially when Louisville is playing like they have something to prove.

What this does is reflect badly on the coaching staff. For whatever reason the coaches aren’t inspiring this team. The messaging is getting lost and they aren’t able to get these guys excited for the games. Marcus Freeman is going to have to make some changes to re-inspire this team. He was able to do it last year after the loss to Stanford, so he should be able to do it again. Here are the other major takeaways.

Offense is a Shell of What it Once Was

During the first four weeks of the season, this looked like one of the best in Notre Dame history. They were scoring 46 points per game. Their offense was extremely talented with the likes of Sam Hartman, Audric Estime, and Mitchell Evans. It seemed like Notre Dame had the offense needed to go up against the likes of Georgia and Michigan. The one thing everyone said was holding them back from being a real contender for years.

However, over the past few weeks, the offense has gotten a lot worse. They are now only averaging about 18 points per game over the past three games. The offense that was dominating opposing defenses feels like a thing of the past. It was more of a fluke and it’s not something they are going to be able to get back. There is just no flow or rhythm on the offense anymore. It also feels like there is no game plan or backup plan if things fail.

For that, the blame has to go on offensive coordinator Gerald Parker. With someone who has the experience that Parker does, these sorts of mistakes shouldn’t happen. These are rookie, inexperienced coordinator-type mistakes, not someone who has been a signal caller for six years. It feels like the players are just not fitting the roles that Parker wants them to. With the talent on the roster and the experience, this is a problem that shouldn’t happen. If Freeman wants to solve some of the offensive problems you have to look at replacing Parker.

Notre Dame Was Extremely Undisciplined

Throughout the entire season, Notre Dame has been extremely undisciplined. They are constantly making mistakes that end up costing them big time. There have been a number of things, like them being unable to tackle. Or, having costly penalties that will either negate a big gain or give the opposing offense a second chance. It’s death by a thousand paper cuts and self-inflected mistakes. You can’t beat some of the best teams in the country if you are constantly beating yourself.

If Freeman wants to make changes, this is the first place he should start. Now is this something that can be turned around in one week? Probably not. But, this should be the number one issue they stress in practice this week. It’s worth spending a lot of time and effort trying to fix these issues because this isn’t something that’s going to go away.

If they are coming from the positions held by veterans, the recruits coming in are going to have similar problems. We praise Marcus Freeman for everything he has done in terms of recruiting. Yes, it’s great to have these high recurring classes with lots of four-star recruits. However, if you can’t develop them into legitimate talent, they mean nothing. It’s also going to hurt your ability to recruit if he can’t develop anyone. They going to want to go to a school that will help them further their career. Not a place where there will be little to no development.

Notre Dame will look to bounce back next week against hated rivals USC. The game will be at 7:30 in South Bend.

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