Like the offense, the Notre Dame defense was sloppy on opening night, but the unit did what it needed to do to help secure a 35-17 road victory over Louisville.
DEFENSE
The Notre Dame defensive coaches will certainly have a great deal of teaching tape to show their players following the team’s 35-17 victory over Louisville. There was both good and bad from the win, but in the end the group was disruptive enough to play a key role in the win.
Louisville racked up 162 yards and scored two touchdowns on its first two drives of the game. Missed assignments and poor tackling were the culprit, as the defense struggled with the tempo and constant use of mis-direction that Louisville threw at the unit. There were adjustments made relatively quickly, and the defenders started executing at a bit of a higher level following those two opening game drives.
On Louisville’s next 10 non-half or game-ending drives (where it was running out the clock), the defense gave up just 163 yards on 51 plays. The final yards per play allowed was 5.1 one, which is a number that must be dramatically improved upon, but on the final ten full drives the defense gave up just 3.2 yards per play. Even then, however, there were still missed assignments or missed tackles that resulted in chunk plays that accounted for much of that yardage.
