SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Marcus Freeman heard the boos leaking from the Notre Dame Stadium crowd in the direction of quarterback Riley Leonard.
And that was during a 25-point win, no less, against Miami (Ohio) — two weeks after a 16-14 Irish cratering at home to Northern Illinois. The implication was that junior backup Steve Angeli needed to be part of a quarterback depth chart shakeup that included a demotion for the Duke grad transfer Leonard.
Heading into Saturday’s regular-season finale at USC (6-5) — a team that actually did make a QB change this season — Leonard is not only still standing as fifth-ranked Notre Dame’s No. 1 option at QB, he’s dramatically improved in the area that coaxed the boos.
Even if the atrophied narrative still festers in some corners of cyberspace.
TV start time for the 95th meeting between the cross-country rivals is 3:30 p.m. EST on CBS.
The Irish (10-1) are a still modest 48th in team pass-efficiency, but that’s a 71-spot climb from where they were on Sept. 7, when the nation’s second-longest win streak started. Just four teams ranked below the Irish at that time.
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“We don't make decisions based off what the sentiment of the stadium is,” Freeman pushed back at a question following the Miami (Ohio) game on Sept. 28. “I didn’t ask him about how he feels about people booing him. People boo me. We can’t perform to make sure everybody cheers for us. That’s a part of the game.
“If you don’t do your job, people are going to boo you. If you let that affect the way you go out and execute the next play, then you’re not the right person for this job or to be our quarterback at Notre Dame.
“I hope he handled it the exact way that I would expect him to. You hear it? Great. Got that. What do you need to do to refocus to go out the next play and get your job done?”
Leonard’s refocused individual cumulative pass-efficiency rating (139.4) ranks ahead this week of both games 1-9 USC starter, junior Miller Moss (135.7), and the sophomore and UNLV transfer, Jayden Maiava, who replaced Moss in wins over Nebraska and UCLA the past two weekends.
Leonard's 223.3 pass-efficiency rating in an abbreviated performance in a 49-14 overwhelming of previously unbeaten Army Saturday at Yankee Stadium, stands as the best single-game mark of his career.
And Leonard is still churning out big rushing numbers, too.
Only Brandon Wimbush (14) in 2017 has scored more rushing TDs by an Irish QB in a season than Leonard’s 13. And only Wimbush (803 in 2017) and Tony Rice (884 in 1989, 700 in the 1988 title season) have amassed more QB rushing yards in a season at ND than Leonard’s 671.
“You realize a lot about a person’s character when they’re down,” Freeman said Monday during his weekly press conference. “Riley is a competitor. He’s a fighter. He didn’t feel bad for himself. He didn’t want pity. He wanted to work. That’s what I’ve learned about Riley Leonard.
“I learned most about him after week 2 when we were down. Anybody can be up when you’re having success. But he continued to work, and now he understands that he determines how good he can be. So, he continues to put the work in. He’s playing at a high level and he isn’t changing as a person one bit. He’s a great human being.”
Still backing Mitch Jeter
Since South Carolina grad transfer kicker Mitch Jeter suffered a hip injury Oct. 12 against Stanford, the Irish are 3-of-10 in field goals from a collection of walk-ons Zac Yoakam and Marcello Diomede and Jeter himself on the comeback trail.
Prior to the injury, the Irish were 5-of-7, with both misses coming on blocked field goals in the Northern Illinois loss on Sept. 7.
Jeter attempted a 48-yarder Saturday against Army that sailed wide right, then had a 30-yarder blocked on a play in which his tackle on Army’s Casey Larkin — returning the block — may have saved a touchdown.
And now?
“Mitch Jeter has always been our best option,” Freeman said Monday. “This week, he hit that ball better than he's been able to hit in a long time — the one he missed. I had a lot, maybe more confidence after he hit the ball — and it ended up going right.
“But he hit that ball really well, and that was from a yard line that we weren't previously able to do. We didn't feel comfortable with his injury from that far. But to see him hit that ball, there was a lot of encouragement for me. I know he missed it, but there's a lot of encouragement that I felt after seeing him hit that ball and the competence he had.”
Freeman said the blocked field goal wasn’t Jeter’s fault.
“That was a field goal-protection error that we have to get fixed immediately, with urgency, and we're attacking it. But the second one was not on Mitch Jeter one bit. And I’ve got the utmost confidence in Mitch Jeter every single opportunity we have to kick a field goal. It's just that line. Where's that line that we ask them to go out there and kick it [from]?”
Jeter was 23-of-25 on field goals during his career at South Carolina.
Thanksgiving week practice/travel schedule
Notre Dame has, at times over the years, made the late-November trip to either USC or Stanford on Thanksgiving itself, but it will be Friday this time.
“The schedule for the week [was] created months ago in terms of knowing that Wednesday we don't have school,” Freeman said, “so we’ve got to maximize the opportunities that we have on that day to get the most out of it.
“And then Thursday, being Thanksgiving, we have to work and be prepared, but we also want to be able to give players and some coaches and staff the ability to have Thanksgiving. So, we’ll practice in the morning and we’ll have a Thanksgiving meal together, and then in the afternoon and evening the players have a chance to get away as do the coaches.”
The 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 PT TV start time, a departure from a typical primetime ET start, only subtly impacted the schedule, Freeman said.
Annihilate one for the Gipper?
Marcus Freeman mimicked the pregame directive he shared with the NBC crew about the way he wanted his Irish team to play Saturday night in his own pregame sermon to his players ahead of the ND-Army game.
Violent was the operative term in both instances.
“You could take out the word ‘violence’ and say ‘physicality,’” Freeman explained. “You could say ‘speed.’ You could say ‘velocity.’ I chose to use the word ‘violence.’ But that’s the mindset I wanted this group to have.
“The reason why I said that is because when you play against a triple-option team — especially defensively — it can tend to make you play cautious. ‘We have to be perfect, stop the dive, stop the quarterback, stop the pitch.’ That’s not what this offense wanted to do. This offense wants to just pound you vertically. They wanted to attack you. And we had to have that attacking mindset.”
The same mentality was applicable for the ND offense.
“I know they had the top-something [third-best] run defense in the country,” Freeman said. “I wanted to attack them. I wanted to have a mindset that we are going to have to go after them and not worry about our athleticism, not worry about the talent we have. I wanted to physically go at them.
“And that’s the mindset I had, and that’s what I thought we needed to have success in that game. And our guys did a great job of playing with speed, velocity, physicality and violence.”
C’mon feel the noise — or not
Freeman called the USC game Notre Dame’s biggest challenge to date — including ahead of matchups with currently ranked teams away from home already in the rearview mirror, Texas A&M and Army.
A big part of that assessment? The noise. As in all the buzz around the program centering on a possible home College Football Playoff Game in December.
“All I continue to do is remind myself and them, it’s human nature,” Freeman said. “Every person in this room, every person watching this, we all tend to drift into the future. We all tend to daydream about a future that’s uncertain.
“So, I always challenge them, it’s the thought after the thought. If you start thinking about things other than right now, remind yourself to get back into the moment and take care of what you have guaranteed right in front of you, and that’s right now.
“Is the noise louder? If you let it be. We control the volume of the noise in terms of what we read, what we listen to, who we talk to. We control that. We control what things go into our head. It’s a choice we all have to make is to turn down the noise. The noise is loud, sure. I mean, shoot, I’m sure I can get on social media and it will be a lot louder. But we, I, control the volume of the noise that goes into my head.”
Players of the Week
Per Freeman, as is his custom on Mondays: On offense, running back Jeremiyah Love. Another sophomore, safety Adon Shuler, took defensive honors, while freshman Bryce Young — who blocked a punt — received mention for play on special teams.
The scout team players of the week were: Scout-team QB Tyler Buchner (offense), freshman linebacker Bodie Kahoun (defense) and walk-on Jerry Rullo (special teams).
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