Al Golden was downright buoyant, almost giddy, after a Notre Dame football practice earlier this week, and one in which the team’s leading tackler the past two seasons — grad senior captain JD Bertrand — was a bystander.
Not that the Irish second-year coordinator liked not having his starting middle linebacker that day, due to Bertrand being in concussion protocol. Rather, Golden's elevated mood was all about the way the other linebackers stepped up in the second half of Notre Dame’s 45-24 road win over NC State on Saturday, with Bertrand sidelined for that portion of the game. And how they’ve sustained it since.
Head coach Marcus Freeman confirmed during his regular Thursday Zoom call with the media that ninth-ranked Notre Dame (3-0) will be without Bertrand on Saturday (2:30 p.m. EDT; Peacock streaming) when the Irish host Central Michigan (1-1) in the first football matchup ever between the two schools.
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“You look at JD Betrand and when he's out, yes, you lose a lot of production,” Freeman said. “He's a really good football player, but you lose a captain. You lose that leadership, the verbal communication of a competent guy who's played a lot of snaps. And that's, to me, where I've challenged that room.
“Jack Kiser’s played a lot of ball, but you’ve got to be so vocal to get guys lined up. A lot of people call the linebackers ‘a quarterback of the defense.’ And so, what I've challenged those guys to do is not only step up with their play, but like the vocal leadership that we need, the communication to get guys lined up and to problem-solve. Linebackers are problem-solvers, and they have to be an extension of the coordinator to fix the problems on the field.”
Replacing Bertrand will be a collective effort. The versatile Kiser, ND’s leading tackler so far this season (16), can and has played all three linebacker positions. He figures to see more snaps inside.
Resurgent grad senior Marist Liufau, the Will (weakside) linebacker, may play more snaps as well. Sophomore Jaylen Sneed’s rotational role will likely expand, Freeman confirmed, and freshmen Drayk Bowen and Jaiden Ausberry are in the mix this week as well.
“Jaylen, let's start there,” Golden said. “Jaylen is really, really progressing. [Tuesday] was a great practice for Jaylen Sneed. Like, he’s just got to make it small, continue to win the day, stack good days, and then that's going to become who he is.
“He's got it in him. It means a lot to him. He's just got to continue to prepare and keep it small. Jack, I thought, was phenomenal. And again, answered the bell again [Tuesday] with a great practice, so just really excited about the group and just whoever's up is up.”
The linebacker group is a big part of the pressure packages for a team that heads into the weekend ranked seventh nationally in total defense. While the linebackers haven’t accounted for a sack yet, they’ve combined for 10 of the team’s 18 quarterback hurries to date.
“It's everything,” Golden said of his linebackers’ contributions. “Linebackers are on special teams. We're on early downs. We're on third down. We're on base. We're on sub. There are a lot of different roles that these kids do, and they're doing a great job for us.”
Why scout team matters
Each week during Freeman’s Monday press conferences at Notre Dame Stadium, the Irish second-year head coach takes time to recognize excellence by those players toiling at the bottom of ND’s depth chart — the scout team.
It is the scout team’s job to help prepare the Notre Dame starters for the next game by emulating the opponents' schemes and providing at least persistent energy and raw athleticism to the equation as well.
On some teams, it might feel a bit like purgatory of sorts. Freeman structures his scout-team duty differently, by keeping an open eye for players who might deserve a promotion and a test drive in a game, as well as stressing how important it is for those players to give maximum effort anyway for the good of the team.
“That's a little bit of why we do that is that we made it a big deal in our team meeting that [freshman] Devan [Houstan] won scout team player of the week twice,' Freeman said. "And I've had a couple guys walk in my office and say, ‘What do I have to do to win scout team player of the week?’
“You’ve got to impress the coaches that you're going against, because those are the ones that vote and tell me who the scout team player of the week is. And so, you try to create almost that want, that competitive desire to want to be recognized.
“But also, it has to be important. If you don't watch it as a coach with your players, if they're not held accountable for their performance on scout team, then really, to me, you won't maximize the results of what you can get. So, those scout team guys have to understand how important it is that we get a great look.
“I love to use the story of: They said Tom Brady one time was in practice, and he stopped because he said, ‘I'm not going to go against an unprepared scout team of players and coaches.’ And so that's the standard that I think our entire program has set, that the scout team — coaches and players — have to take as much ownership as the guys that travel [for road games].
"And so, we love that, because it's going to make the offense and defense better, but also, it gives us a chance to really develop some of those guys on scout team. If you don't watch it and you don't coach them, they're not going to improve.”
Houstan earned defensive honors this week for the scout team, while the honoree on offense was walk-on wide receiver Jordan Faison, with the special teams standout being sophomore Leo Scheidler.
“The biggest thing that we have to make sure we understand,” Freeman said, “is that the importance of having a great scout team will help this football program truly reach its full potential.”
Teamwork in the coaches’ meeting rooms
Gerad Parker doesn’t always finish a thought when he’s answering questions from the media, but the first-year Irish offensive coordinator is consistent in talking about his fellow offensive coaches when it comes to concocting a successful game plan.
It’s no accident.
“As far as the collaborative effort on offense, [with] leadership, there's so many different ways to lead,” Freeman concurred. “And I would say coach Parker is similar to me in terms of leading as a collaborative effort amongst the staff. I do it as a head coach. Coach Parker does it as the offensive coordinator. I did it similarly as the defensive coordinator.”
Two of ND’s other four offensive coaches have college offensive coordinator experience — QBs coach Gino Guidugli and offensive line coach Joe Rudolph. The other two, running backs coach Deland McCullough and wide receivers coach Chansi Stuckey have coordinator aspirations.
“You have to embrace the really tremendous minds that are around you,” Freeman continued. “We have great minds on our offensive staff, great minds on our coaching staff. And the ability to take some of those ideas and say, ‘OK, does this fit to me?’ To me [that’s where] the leadership comes in.
“Everybody has ideas. Everybody has great opinions. And so, true leadership to me is being able to take some of those ideas and say, ‘Can I filter this so it fits what we want to be on offense or we want to be as a football program?’ And then implement it. And so, I love that coach Parker has been able to do that, to utilize those great and brilliant minds we have on the offensive side of the ball. And you're seeing it come to fruition on the game field.”
What about Ohio State?
What’s the best way to keep the Notre Dame players from focusing on their Sept. 23 primetime showdown with sixth-ranked Ohio State at the expense of a letdown against Central Michigan on Saturday?
Apparently address it head on instead of avoiding it.
“Maybe the challenge this week is the minute you start to drift to Ohio State, win the moment of today,” Freeman said. “And the same thing will be next week. ‘Don't worry about this Saturday, win today.’ And that's ultimately what matters.
“I told the guys after practice today, it's human nature to drift. Your mind drifts. You naturally drift away from what's important, and that's right now. And sometimes it usually tends to drift to things that don't deserve your attention, and that shouldn't deserve your attention. That could be social media. It could be wins. It could be losses, it could be past. It could be the future.
“But if we can stay in the present and we can catch ourselves drifting away from the present, we will have more intentionality in our practices, in our meetings, in whatever we're doing at the moment. And so, if you can do that you're going to build skill. You're going to become a better football player as an individual. We're going to become a better team if our reps are intentional.”
The long game
There was nothing statistically in Spencer Shrader’s four seasons as a kicker at South Florida that suggested he’d eventually break the record for longest field goal at Notre Dame after transferring in, in June.
His longest field goal last season for the Bulls was a 49-yarder. The longest of his career was a 52-yarder in 2021. It was the only time he made a field goal of 50 or more yards in his career in five tries at USF after switching sports from soccer.
But last Saturday Shrader booted a 54-yarder in ND’s 45-24 victory at NC State, deleting a record 53-yarder by Dave Reeve that had stood as the Irish standard for 47 years and has been matched only once — by Kyle Brindza, in 2013.
The new record almost didn’t last the rest of the game, as Shrader’s 56-yard attempt later in the NC State game had plenty of leg but hit the inside of the left goalpost and bounced back instead of through the uprights.
First-year Notre Dame special teams coach Maty Biagi, knew Shrader had the leg strength, but he had to change Shrader’s approach to maximize it.
“We've worked to get him to make sure the ball flight is finishing in the same rotational direction we're looking for,” Biagi said earlier this week. “A lot of guys that have massive legs are over-swinging, and you see more of a soccer or baseball-rounded swing. And so that's where you keep seeing the ball tail off.
“Whereas we're trying to hit that golf pendulum swing of straight up and through the ball. Playing the position [myself in college], coaching a lot of different guys, that's a habit that we're constantly trying to work on, because everybody can clearly see that the strength is there. So, now it's the consistency of that leg-swing pattern.”
Biagi said the longest field goal he has eeen Shrader make in practice is a 70-yarder, which wouldn’t even require crossing the 50-yard line on offense if attempting that in a game. There are many factors that come into play, though, in determining what the max length will be for Shrader, and it varies from game to game.
“So I still use an analytics program that a student here in 2016 helped me make that we basically can chart all his kicks in practice,” said Biagi, who served as a special teams analyst during his first tour of duty at ND. “All his kicks where it's a live rep versus holding on a stick to make it more realistic, and then his game reps obviously or scrimmage reps.
“So, it's something we constantly are looking at. Game conditions are huge. And also, [in golf terms], it would be the difference of a firm field, where the ball's in the fairway, versus more of a spongier field. And you can kind of notice that in warm-ups.
“Then you're talking about it with him. I kind of go in after warmups, and coach Freeman and I will talk about that kind of feedback. And then it's a feel and it's a game plan. It can depend on are we moving the ball and feel good? And he might say, ‘hey, I want to go with the offense.’ Or is the defense doing a great job that a shorter field isn't as detrimental? Or, hey, we do need to punt to make them go the distance? And then it's just an open line of communication.”
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