Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman met with the media shortly after his 15th-ranked Irish fell to Clemson, 31-23, at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, S.C. Here's everything he had to say. Answers are largely verbatim. Questions are edited for brevity and clarity.
OPENING STATEMENT
“Obviously a disappointing outcome. As I told the team in the locker room, that’s a really good team, and we knew that all week. They had four losses, and as you watched the film, it’s a good football team. It’s a Clemson football team that their record doesn’t reflect how good of a team that is. But when you play a good team like that, there are three or four plays in the game that — if you turn the ball over, if you muff a punt. If you turn the ball over to their offense, they end up creating an outcome that’s an eight-point loss. And so, that’s the reality of it. Two good teams, and there are plays in the game that we didn’t finish the way we needed to, finish those plays that resulted in the outcome.
“We’ve got to be better on third down, I think, on both sides of the ball. The first half defensively, but on offense, we’ve got to be better on third down and, again, we’ve got to get some things fixed. With that, I’ll open it up for questions.”
Q: Did you think you could just grind it out offensively like you did in the Ohio State game?
MF: “I thought there were some schematic things we could do to create some things on the ground. We didn’t want to approach this thing and say, ‘We’re just going to run the ball and huddle and keep the ball away from them.’ We wanted to be able to throw some balls and throw some shots, but they did a good job of defending the throws that we, obviously, put up. And then the pick-6 kind of spooks you. It spooks you. It spooks the quarterback a little bit. And It makes you say, ‘OK, let’s go back to the run game a little bit.’ But, no, it was a Clemson approach. It’s not an Ohio State approach.”
Q: Did you think they wouldn’t be able to run the ball that well and not scheme up for it?
MF: “No, he [Phil Mafah] ran the ball extremely hard and we did not do a good job of tackling him on first contact. And that’s something that surprised me. I thought our defense, on first contact, would be able to make those tackles, but he did a good job of breaking some tackles and running the ball extremely hard.”
Q: They kept pinning you down near the goal line with their punts, but other than that, what was Clemson doing to keep you on your side of the 50 in the second half so much?
MF: “They’ve got a good defense. It’s a top 10 defense that’s extremely talented. They’re getting pressure on the quarterback. They’re covering well. They stopped the run when we were trying to commit to the run game. They made adjustments. It's a good defense. And I wish I could say it was just one or two things. But on third down, we weren’t able to convert. A lot of it had to do with the pressure they were getting, but also we weren’t able to get open. We’ve got to be able to continue to improve on our throws. And we’ve got to put the ball exactly where it was supposed to be. And so there’s a whole bunch of people that are included with us not having success that we were looking for in the second half.”
Q: You always talk about this team chasing its full potential. If it’s going to do that the rest of the way, what does it need to do?
MF: “As I challenged the team, each individual has to look at themselves and say, ‘Why am I in this position I’m in?’ And, ‘What do I have to do to find a way to improve?’ That's the message. Every individual — every coach and every player in that locker room — has to own where we’re at and what we need to do to improve. So, that’s schematically. That’s as an individual. And then we’ve got to go back to work. Like, there’s no magic formula to improve. It’s hard work, and it’s the only thing we know how to do, but it starts with owning where you’re at and finding a better way to do what we do.”
Q: What do you need from Sam Hartman for him to be better?
MF: “I’ve got to look. I’ve got to watch film. Obviously, we can’t throw a pick-6. You can’t do that. I know he knows that. Now, he did some really, really good things, extending plays with his legs and running for first downs and touchdowns, but the biggest thing we can’t do is turn the ball over. We know we have to take care of the football, and one of our things going into this game was we had to beat them in the turnover margin. And we didn’t do that today.”
Q: You were down to your third-string center. How do you think Ashton Craig handled being pressed into action and what was Andrew Kristofic’s injury?
MF: “I think it was an ankle. I just knew he was out. Ashton did a great job filling in as the third center. I haven’t watched the film, and I don’t know what the result of some of the pressure was. But for him to come in and be the third center, I’m happy and pleased with him being able to do that.”
Q: What’s next?
MF: “You just have to go back to work. We’ve got to own where we’re at. Own it. We’re 7-3 right now, and we’ve got two opportunities to go out there and go compete. And so, we’ve got to improve in these next two [games]. And then we’ve got to find a way to improve as a football team, schematically and as individuals. And so, we just have to go back to practice, go back to work and figure out a way to make sure we improve as a team, so we can obviously get the outcome that we want.”
Q: Where is the football team at?
MF: “We haven’t reached our full potential. Today’s outcome is disappointing, but as I told them, we’ve got to figure out why. What happened on those three or four plays that, to me — if you look at two plays, a pick-6 and the muffed point, that’s 10 points. You never just want to point your finger and one or two individuals or certain plays, but that’s the difference between winning and losing this game.
“You talk about two plays that resulted in 10 points for them. We can’t do those things, so we’ve got to make sure that — I still believe in cause and effect. It’s not luck. We didn’t just muff the punt because we’re unlucky. We didn’t throw a pick-6 because we’re unlucky. We've got to figure out why that happened, and how do we fix it.”
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