This wasn’t about Sam Hartman not being able to shake ghosts from his Wake Forest past in a stadium full of recent haunting memories.

The thread that ran throughout 10th-ranked Notre Dame’s 33-20 thunderous upset loss at No. 26 Louisville Saturday night at sold-out L&N Stadium in Louisville, Ky., was the Cardinals setting up their defense and playing like they were facing one of ND’s evacuee QBs from last season instead of a sixth-year veteran and one of the most statistically impressive quarterbacks in college football in the transfer portal era, in Hartman.

And not only did they get away with it, they set a template for every other team on Notre Dame’s remaining schedule to mimic. That is, until second-year head coach Marcus Freeman and first-year offensive coordinator Gerad Parker figure out and execute a counterpunch.

Of which there was none Saturday against a Louisville team (6-0) that ended the Irish 30-game, regular-season win streak against ACC competition.

Freeman made perhaps the worst coaching decision of his 21 games as a head coach by going for it on 4-and-11 from ND’s own 35, down 24-13 with 9:42 left. And yet it likely wouldn’t have mattered if the Irish (5-2) had converted it.

Not the way Louisville dominated both lines of scrimmage.

The Cardinals outrushed the Irish 185-44, sacked Hartman five times and forced five turnovers, including three interceptions from Hartman, the first three he’s thrown since his last one in a Wake Forest uniform.

Hartman had six turnovers and Wake eight overall when the Demon Deacons came into Louisville last November and left with a 48-21 loss.

Notre Dame’s elimination from College Football Playoff consideration isn’t even close to the top concern for a team that fairly or not will have its toughness come into question. Certainly it’s X’s and O’s were lacking.

This marks the second season in a row the Irish were eliminated from consideration for the College Football playoff weeks before the first CFP rankings even came out (the first set for the final four-team playoff is due Oct. 31). The season at this point is about building toward 2024, building for recruiting and a lot of self-analysis that won’t hold until the bye week.

Nothing that advances the state of the program. There were individual standouts, like under-utilized tight end Mitchell Evans, walk-on wide receiver Jordan Faison and reigning national Defensive Player of the Week and grad senior nose guard Howard Cross III, but the Irish have questions to answer before next Saturday night’s home game with USC to keep this from turning into a lost season.

The list is long and ugly. A good starting point is why is a program that is offensive-line/defensive-line driven not even approaching a team in game 7 of the season that looks like it’s built that way and should at least hold its own, if not outright dominate in those areas.

Tough timing for the folks at FOX, who opted to make Notre Dame the site of their traveling pregame show next Saturday. The Irish get their fourth night game in a row and fourth ranked opponent, with USC coming to visit. ND then finally hits its first of two bye weeks after the USC game.

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