SOUTH BEND, Ind. — With his Notre Dame football team on fall break from academic demands and the NCAA’s 20-hour limit on football prep, Irish head coach Marcus Freeman got to spend part of his extra time on Monday speaking to outdated templates.
Namely, whether Freeman was chasing non-existent/irrelevant style points — as the ESPN broadcasting crew suggested — in ND’s 31-13 win last Saturday over Georgia Tech, as well as addressing some questions framed about how this week’s opponent, 24th-ranked Navy (6-0), and preparing for what the Mids’ offense used to look like.
TV start time at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. is noon EDT on ABC.
We’ll start in the near future.
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The images of the Irish defense dominating Navy’s triple-option attack in a 42-3 smackdown in Dublin, Ireland in the 2023 season opener are no longer relevant.
Not that Navy has ditched option concepts, but they’ve modernized them, supercharged them and found a QB who can process the updated version of the Wing-T married with pro-style concepts in former two-star QB prospect Blake Horvath. He’s a 6-2, 195-pound junior plucked out of Ohio State’s geographical footprint and did not see action in last year’s ND-Navy game.
Second-year Navy head coach Brian Newberry started the makeover by canning his first-year offensive coordinator, Grant Chesnut, last December after Navy went 5-7 on the field and 122nd out of 130 in the FBS scoring-offense pecking order.
The Mids — under Chesnut’s successor, Drew Cronic — come into the 97th meeting between the two schools ranked No. 4 nationally in scoring offense (44.8 ppg).
They still run the ball (fourth nationally in rush offense, and up from 17th last season), but they throw the ball, and throw it well. Navy is No. 2 nationally in pass efficiency. The Irish are 74th.
And the Navy offense now has gears. The Midshipmen can still sit on the ball when they have the lead if they so desire, but it’s no longer the default setting. Two years ago, Navy was second nationally in time of possession. Halfway through the Mids’ 2024 season, they’re 84th, and under water at 29:20. ND is 52nd (30:39).
And Navy is averaging 11 more plays a game with its defense on the field than its offense, which speaks to its propensity for explosive plays on offense. And the rep for being near the top of the national rankings for fewest penalties per game? Gone. The Mids are 42nd.
“It’s really hard to simulate in practice the speed at which they run their offense,” Freeman offered. “It can take a little time, especially for guys that have not faced that type of offense, to realize the speed at which they run their offense.
“And then when all of a sudden you’re trying to adjust to the speed, you can lose your eyes on keeping your eyes on your assignment. We have to be disciplined. We have to practice until we can’t get it wrong, but then we’ve got to understand it’s going to take a little bit of time to catch up to game speed on Saturday.”
Freeman said that former starting quarterback and current walk-on wide receiver and field goal fake converter Tyler Buchner is one of two players trying to simulate Horvath this week in practice. Walk-on QB Anthony Rezac, twin brother of Irish freshman linebacker Teddy Rezac, is the other.
Navy has realistic College Football Playoff aspirations itself, especially if Mountain West leader Boise State gets tripped up at some point. The Mids, ND’s Nov. 23 opponent — Army, and Tulane are the only three American Athletic Conference teams without a loss in conference play.
The Cadets (7-0), who the Irish will play on the East Coast as well, at Yankee Stadium, are also in that conversation. And those two could meet in the AAC title game before they play their annual regular-season grudge match a week later on Dec. 14, six days after Selection Sunday.
With Florida State, ND’s Nov. 9 opponent, and USC, an Irish road foe on Nov. 30, a combined 4-10 this season, Navy and Army are the most important building blocks on ND’s CFP résumé construction.
“To play a 6-0 team, as the head coach, you’d much rather do that than play a team that’s 0-6,” Freeman said, “because it doesn’t take much to motivate your guys. They know the opponent. They know the challenge we have ahead of us. So, looking forward to the opportunity. Should be a great matchup, and we’ll get back to preparation and get ready for it.”
What they won’t be preparing is for style points, something the ESPN crew of Bob Wischusen and Louis Riddick suggested the Irish were doing with a fake punt and a fake field goal against Georgia Tech.
“At that moment, I felt like that was the right decision, regardless of the score at that point,” Freeman said when asked about the style points motivation. “It was like we want to steal a possession. We’re in a position where we can’t go for the field goal. I really don’t want to punt in this situation.
“If we can fake it here, and they give us the look, let’s do it. That’s why we called it. I felt good about that play at that moment. Again, I tell our players all the time, the future’s uncertain. Why spend time worrying about making a decision today about what the committee or somebody else is going to think?
“I just felt like, in that moment, that’s what we needed to do, and that’s why we called it.”
Study hall?
Notre Dame has been preparing for the Navy offense since August, Freeman said, with intermittent practice periods during training camp dedicated specifically to that. The Irish also spent a good portion of the bye week (Sept. 29-Oct. 5) working on the Mids’ X’s and O’s.
With no classes this week, there’s an opportunity to put in a little overtime, but Freeman is mindful to not overdo the physical demands on his players.
“The ability to have our guys watching extra film,” Freeman said, “the ability to get some walk-throughs in are going to be crucial. The physical is the physical aspect. We have to make decisions in our plan to make sure we’re ready to go on Saturday.
“There is some consistency in terms of the physical preparation. The ability to have them in for more meetings, the ability to have player-led meetings sometimes is something we have to take advantage of, and we will.”
Faison quietly contributes
Seven games into a sophomore season once filled with lofty expectations, wide receiver and Sun Bowl MVP Jordan Faison still has fewer catches in 2024 (4) than he had in ND’s 40-8 bowl rout (5) of Oregon State on Dec. 29.
A right ankle injury suffered in ND’s Aug. 31 season-opening win at Texas A&M and aggravated Sept. 28 against Louisville has been a major contributor in holding down the numbers. But Freeman insisted Faison is making subtle but significant contributions.
That was the case Saturday, despite Faison not getting targeted with a pass attempt a single time against Georgia Tech in 25 offensive snaps.
“The impact he made on that game, to the people in the football program, is tremendous,” Freeman said. “When you watch the plays that he was in, the way he blocked, some of the things he did, the routes he did run. Just because he didn’t get the ball, he performed at an extremely high level.
“But didn’t get the balls, didn’t get the stat line that really says to maybe, to [the outside world], that it was a great performance. But he really performed really well. He’s healing. He’s getting back to the guy he was before he got injured.”
Thirteen of the 25 snaps Faison took Saturday were running plays. And he had the second-highest film grade from Pro Football Focus among ND’s offensive players in run-blocking (76.9). Only running back Jeremiyah Love’s 79.7, on three run blocks, was better.
The best run-blocking score by an Irish offensive lineman was accrued by right tackle Aamil Wagner (63.6), and he was the only Irish O-lineman to break 60.
“We’ll continue to find ways to try to get him the ball,” Freeman said of Faison. “But again, sometimes those outcomes are a reflection of what the defense is doing and what decision is made at quarterback and those types of things. You talk about a guy that was asked to do this role. He couldn’t have accomplished it at a higher level than he did on Saturday.”
Players of the game
Freeman’s standouts for the Georgia Tech game comprised Love on offense, sophomore linebacker Drayk Bowen on defense and fake-punt facilitator Davis Sherwood on special teams. The scout-team standouts were Anthony Rezac (offense), Tre Reader (defense) and Alex Whitman (special teams).
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