Notre Dame Preparing To Block Out The Noise
For the second week in a row, Notre Dame will attempt to end a dubious 0-3 record.
Mission accomplished last week with a resounding 38-17 victory against then-No. 7 Stanford to snap the 0-3 drought versus the Cardinal from 2015-17.
This week it is a different 0-3 streak that needs to be snapped to keep its momentum toward a College Football Playoff (CFP) berth. Since beginning its partial ACC football membership schedule in 2014, Notre Dame is 0-3 against ranked league members on the road.
• It began in 2014 with 6-0 Notre Dame losing a 31-27 heartbreaker to No. 2 Florida State, the reigning national champion with quarterback Jameis Winston. The Seminoles went on to advance to the four-team CFP in the first year of its existence.
• In 2015, unbeaten Notre Dame lost 24-22 at No. 11 Clemson and the Tigers went on to play for the national title versus Alabama.
• Last year, 8-1 and No. 3 Notre Dame traveled to unbeaten and No. 7 Miami with CFP dreams — and was promptly crushed 41-8. It was clear after an early Hurricanes onslaught the Fighting Irish were shell-shocked by the atmosphere of the raucous atmosphere.
“I was public in saying that I don’t think I handled it the right way and giving them enough information about the situation,” Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said of what his team encountered last year in Miami. “I can’t be caught off guard — and maybe I was the one that was caught off guard because I didn’t prepare them the right way. We won’t be caught off guard going into Lane Stadium.
“… We’ve been preparing for this kind of environment for quite some time. So I’m confident we’ll be able to handle the moment when it comes.”
Putting in strobe lights with much noise in the weight room and “chaos sessions” in practice have been part of the extracurriculars since the offseason to serve as a form of shocks to the system. The Irish head coach stated that reminders of the Miami debacle have not been needed to emphasize what will be faced at Virginia Tech. Simulating the atmosphere has its limits on the practice field with piped-in noise, but past visuals serve as a prompting, too.
“There’s plenty of video to show what that environment is like,” he said. “So our guys are well accustomed to what it looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like. They know there will be a lot of Orange. The decibels will be loud. The’'ll be reminded of it during the week.”
Virginia Tech was classified in the 2018 preseason as potentially the type of “marquee” game that Florida State 2014, Clemson 2015 and Miami 2017 were, but the stunning 49-35 loss to Old Dominion Sept. 22 and some recent attrition to quarterback Josh Jackson (injury) and defensive end Trevon Hill (dismissed from team) took off much of the luster.
Some of it was regained with an impressive 31-14 bounce-back win at No. 22 Duke last weekend, which moved the Hokies back to No. 24 in the Associated Press poll.
Meanwhile, Notre Dame is coming off an emotion-laden game with Stanford, so a possible letdown at Virginia Tech on the road could have far more ramifications than the one at home versus Ball State following the victory versus Michigan in the opener.
Virginia Tech has not necessarily thrived in the last decade in marquee matchups. The Hokies’ last home win versus a ranked opponent came against Miami on Sept. 26, 2009. Since then their record is 9-18 against a ranked opponent and 1-8 versus the top 10 (a win over 2014 eventual national champ Ohio State on the road).
Since that 2009 win versus Miami, the Hokies’ home record against ranked opponents is 0-6 (0-3 versus top-10 foes). Unlike Florida State in 2014, Clemson in 2016 and, to a degree, Miami in 2017, the Hokies are not deemed a bona fide CFP-caliber outfit, especially after the loss to Old Dominion. That is impertinent to Kelly and his troops.
“Our job is to handle the environment and go in and play really good football,” Kelly summarized. “If we do that and handle the environment, handle ourselves and our preparation, we’ll be in pretty good shape. If we can’t handle the environment, we can’t prepare the right way this week because we’re distracted because everybody’s telling us how great we are, then we’ll be in big trouble.
“But this team’s shown an ability to prepare the right way, a maturity to stay away from the distractions.”
They have tuned “the noise” out well so far, and they will have to do it in a different manner Saturday night.
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