SOUTH BEND, Ind. — The relentless cyber-angst over how little the deep passing game figured into Notre Dame football’s otherwise boisterous 23-13 season-opening win at Texas A&M has obscured some intriguing storylines heading into game 2.
Not the least of which is the ongoing status of ND as Tight End U.
Northern Illinois, popping up on the Irish schedule for the first time ever, will be the next team to experience that litmus test. The Huskies (1-0), after opening by handing FCS’ Western Illinois its 25th-straight loss last Saturday, comes to Notre Dame Stadium this weekend for a 3:30 p.m. EDT Saturday start time (NBC/Peacock).
Senior and preseason All-American Mitchell Evans remains listed on the depth chart as No. 5 Notre Dame’s No. 1 option at tight end, but it’s a status he is still gradually and methodically moving toward, in reality.
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In his first game action since suffering an ACL tear in his left knee last Oct. 28 in a home dismantling of Pitt, Evans played 10 snaps in the Irish victory in College Station Texas. And of debuting QB Riley Leonard’s 30 pass attempts, none of them went Evans’ direction.
Sophomore Cooper Flanagan started at tight end for the Irish in that game, with junior Eli Raridon also seeing action.
“He's increased the amount of practice plays that he's been able to do [this week],” Irish third-year coach Marcus Freeman said Thursday during a Zoom call with the media. “And he's not a finished product yet. He will continue to increase the volume that we're asking him to be able to do for us on Saturdays.
“I expect to see a greater amount of plays than 10, but also, again, understanding that he's on a progression to truly becoming the best version of Mitch. And so, I'm really pleased with where he's at now, where he's progressed to. But also we have to be smart in terms of what are our expectations with a guy that missed a lot of fall camp without being able to do everything?
““He practiced in fall camp, but he wasn't able to do everything. So, I don't know how many plays he'll play. He'll play a good amount, but, at the same point of view, we have to continue to just be on a process to increase his load every single week.”
In that Pittsburgh game that Evans was injured the Irish tight end corps combined for eight catches for 98 yards, with the converted high school QB from Ohio accounting for five of those receptions for 65 yards.
In the four games combined that followed Evans’ injury to conclude the 2023 season, the remaining tight end corps had a total of eight catches for 64 yards. And including the 2024 season opener, only once in the past five games have the Irish tight ends combined for more than two catches in a game, that being five against Wake Forest last November.
Flanagan had two catches for 25 yards against the Aggies. Raridon was targeted twice, but didn’t register a reception.
The Irish certainly have the numbers at the position — six in total on scholarship. And three of them grad senior comeback story Kevin Bauman, former walk-on Davis Sherwood and freshman Jack Larsen could all make their season debuts on Saturday.
But offensive coordinator/tight ends coach Mike Denbrock isn’t inclined to be as tight end-reliant as predecessors Gerad Parker and Tommy Rees were.
He wants to be able to muscle teams with multiple-tight end formations, but he wants to out-finesse them as well when the occasion and defensive weaknesses call for it. And so, over the course of the season, the Irish are likely to be more varied and multiple on offense than they have been in years.
And yet still valuing the tight end as part of that. In fact, a strength/threat in one area theoretically opens up more options for the other, giving opposing defensive coordinators more to plan for and think about on every play.
“I'm really pleased with the tight ends group as a whole,” Freeman said. “Coach Denbrock has done a great job with really developing some of those other guys, Cooper Flanagan and Eli Raridon, and they played really well in what they were asked to do.
“Obviously, they've had some mistakes, as everybody does, but I was really pleased with how they played on Saturday and pleased with their progression as football players. Like in blocking and even in the pass game, they're really owning the technique and the part of playing a tight end that includes blocking. And I'm excited to see what they do on Saturday.”
Doubling down on intensity
A 4 a.m. arrival time Sunday back in South Bend from the Texas A&M game and a big, emotional wave gave Marcus Freeman plenty of food for thought on how to approach intensity and practices for a game in which his team would be playing at home as a four-touchdown favorite.
So, did the memory of losing to heavy underdog Marshall in his second regular-season game as head coach back in 2022.
“Sometimes … a lack of sleep at times can have a trickle effect,” Freeman said, “but we couldn't let up. And we pushed them hard, and I told the coaches we can't pull off the gas pedal. And so, they probably were wondering, ‘Hey, are we going to pull back, because we had a big win?’ They knew right away that we doubled down.”
And so Tuesday and Wednesday were tough, long, physical practices, according to Freeman.
“There's no lack of motivation, because all you’ve got to do is watch the game and evaluate the plays, and we as a group see the work we have to put in,” Freeman said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. As you look at the outcome of the Texas A&M game, that's what we want, right?
“Obviously, you want to win the game, but when you evaluate it, you evaluate every play. And there's a lot of different areas — and plays specifically — that we have to make sure we're improving at. And that's as a unit on each side of the ball, but it's also as individuals. … Now we have to fine-tune some things before we get to Saturday.”
Marking offensive improvement
It stands to reason that facing a pass rush with fewer sure-fire NFL prospects on it and with a friendlier environment in which to operate the offense this Saturday, that Marcus Freeman and Mike Denbrock would be tempted to dust off the long passing game that they largely kept under wraps against Texas A&M.
If nothing else to measure its progress.
Kind of yes and kind of not necessarily.
“I don't know if I can say it's one specific thing. It's progression,” Freeman said of the offensive measuring sticks he’ll use to gauge headway. “We’ve got to be better from week 1 to week 2 at every position. And that's the challenge I've had, as the head coach, to our coaches and to our players. Like, there has to be growth as a football program from week 1 to week 2.
“And so, you want to see mental errors decrease. You want to see pre-snap penalties decrease. You want to see all those things that that we evaluate decrease from week 1 to week 2. And that's, to me, what we'll focus on as we look at the overall play of the offensive line.”
Notre Dame’s game plan helped an inexperienced offensive line that has six combined college starts coming into the game. And the O-line in turn had some role in zero sacks allowed and a stellar 5.8 yards per rush against the Aggies.
And about the deep passing game?
“We're not going into this game saying we’ve got to take this amount of shots and we’ve got to throw this many deep balls,” Freeman said. “We have to be efficient in what we do. And so, whatever that means in terms of what the defense presents, that's what the game will dictate.”
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