SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Kicking by committee?
Not by design.
Since Notre Dame’s No. 1 option to start the season on short field goals, long field goals, extra points and kickoffs — South Carolina grad transfer Mitch Jeter — suffered a hip injury against Stanford on Oct. 12, the number of people performing those duties has piled up.
And so have the missed field goals.
Jeter has been back the past two games, sort of, after not finishing the Stanford game and missing two games entirely, against Georgia Tech (Oct. 19) and Navy (Oct. 26). And he’s listed as AP sixth-ranked ND’s starting kicker for Saturday’s Top 25/Shamrock Series matchup against No. 18 Army (9-0) at Yankee Stadium in New York.
Four players shared kicking duties for the Irish (9-1) in Saturday’s 35-14 home victory over Virginia.
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Handling kickoffs in that game, and since the Jeter injury, was 30-year-old Citadel grad transfer and seven-year Army vet Eric Goins.
Jeter, meanwhile, went 4-for-4 on extra points against Virginia, with junior walk-on Zac Yoakam nailing the fifth, But Yoakam missed a 36-year field goal in the fourth quarter. Fellow walk-on, sophomore Marcello Diomede, got a shot at a 54-yard field goal at the end of the first half, and missed it wide.
Jeter was 5-of-7 on field goals this season before the injury, with both of the unsuccessful ones being blocked against Northern Illinois on Sept. 7. Since the injury, the Irish are a collective 3-of-8.
Jeter is 1-of-2, Yoakam 2-of-5 and Diomede 0-of-1.
And now?
Goins is likely to remain on kickoffs for the near future at least. His distance and touchback rate (62.0-yard average, 19 touchbacks on 41 kickoffs) isn’t appreciably different from Jeter’s (63.3, 18 touchbacks on 28 kickoffs).
As for field goals, it depends on the distance, it appears. Jeter’s longest make this season is 48 yards, though he attempted a 62-yarder against Northern Illinois, but his range is expanding incrementally during his comeback. Yoakam’s longest make is 42 yards.
ND head coach Marcus Freeman on Monday described the thought process when it comes to Jeter’s usage while he’s still working his way back to 100% health.
“After warmups, we thought his line was around the 42,” Freeman said of the Virginia game, meaning a 42-yarder was probably the [maximum distance] for this game. We had him kick the extra points.
“Then we didn't want to kick the 54-yarder with him, because we thought that was a little bit out of his range right now. At halftime, we just made the decision — up 28-0 — to say, ‘OK, let's rest him for the second half and get him ready hopefully for this week and extend that line a little bit longer to where he was earlier in the year.’
“He’s not full-go, as he was to start the season, but he’s going to be available to kick. We’ve just got to continue to see where that line is for Mitch Jeter.”
Howard Cross III questionable for Army game
After missing Notre Dame’s 35-14 win over Virginia with a sprained left ankle, starting nose guard Howard Cross III has been upgraded to questionable for Saturday night’s Army game.
Cross suffered the injury Nov. 9 in a 52-3 romp over Florida State.
The sixth-year grad senior and 2023 second-team All-American was Notre Dame’s top-rated defender by Pro Football Focus in Notre Dame’s 51-14 win over Navy on Oct. 26 against an offense that was heavy in triple-option concepts, though not identical to what Army does with those.
He played 38 of the 50 plays the Irish defense was on the field for against the Midshipmen.
The good news is two of the players who are likely to fill in should Cross be limited or unavailable, also excelled against Navy.
Senior Gabe Rubio was ND’s second-highest-rated defender in 12 snaps vs. Navy and junior Donovan Hinish fifth in 12 snaps against the Mids.
Hinish made his first career start Saturday against Virginia, in place of Cross, and tied for the team high with four tackles, including a sack, and also had a QB hurry. He played a career-high 39 reps in that game.
• Also on the injury front, reserve grad senior running back Devyn Ford is listed as questionable for the Army game with a right groin injury.
Army gets defensive
Even bigger difference in the offensive nuances between Army and Navy and how they interpret and use triple-option principles offensively is how much better the Cadets have been on defense.
Navy is 81st nationally in total defense out of 133 FBS teams that the NCAA charts each week. Army is fifth, one spot ahead of the Irish. And the Cadets are third in rush defense and second in scoring defense.
“They’ve got some good D-linemen,” Freeman offered. “They do a good job. They do a good job of simulating some pressures where you might be thinking a five-man pressure’s coming, a six-man pressure’s coming, and it ends up being four guys.
“They just do a good job of saying, 'We're not going to let you run the ball.' And we got a mindset that, ‘Hey, we still want to run the ball.’ We've got to find ways to get hats on hats.”
Notre Dame comes into the game ranked 12th nationally in rushing offense and third among Power 4 teams at 216.7 yards per game. The Irish are fourth as a team nationally and first in the Power 4 in yards per carry (6.0).
“The other thing I think they do is they move,” Freeman continued on the Army defense. “They're not stagnant. They're not just your typical three-down and they don't move. They're able to move the front and be aggressive, change the leverage on you, which is a challenge. When you change the leverage on an offensive lineman post-snap, it creates some difficulties.”
End-of-the-game etiquette
What are style points out of style? Or when does garbage time get trashy? And what about the flip side when an opponent calls timeout, as Virginia did, to score a late touchdown on ND’s deep reserves after getting thwarted on the previous play?
Freeman has an internal playbook of how the game should be played when the score in lopsided games that guides his decisions.
“I never want to embarrass anybody,” he said. “I've got a lot of respect for the other coaches in this game. But also, I want to get work for whoever's in the game. If these guys are in the game, I want to get work for them.
“If a guy that doesn't play a lot is in the game, let's give them the opportunity to have success. We don't have to run the ball every play. If we need to throw the ball, throw the ball. It's the same thing with our defense.”
Virginia drove 80 yards in 16 plays for its final TD. The Cavaliers had the ball first-and-goal at the 3-yard line with 1:00 left. But after netting just one yard on the next two plays, the clock would have run out if Virginia didn’t call timeout.
Cavs QB Tony Muskett scored after the timeout on a two-yard run with 18 seconds left.
“I'm not mad at coach [Tony Elliott] for calling a timeout,” Freeman said. “Don't disrespect our guys by taking it easy on them. The greatest respect you can do is give it everything you've got as an opponent. It's OK. It's great teaching.
“I can't wait to watch those 10 plays with the guys that don't get a lot of opportunities to play meaningful game-like plays. So, no problem with them calling a timeout. It's a great opportunity for us to teach from those plays that happened during that series.”
Squibs
• Saturday’s Army game will be the 12th offsite home game designated as a Shamrock Series game. The first was in 2009, against Washington State in San Antonio, Texas. The Irish are 11-0 in those games, with the most recent a 28-20 win over BYU in Las Vegas in 2022.
• This ND-Army matchup is the 52nd in their series and 10th in which both teams are ranked, but first of that kind since 1958.
• Freeman regularly announces players of the game and scout team players of the week on Mondays. The top players in the Virginia win were running back Jeremiyah Love (offense), safety Xavier Watts (defense) and punter James Rendell (special teams).
Scout team honorees were quarterback Anthony Rezac (offense), defensive tackle Devan Houstan (defense) and Mick Brown (special teams).
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