That recent Notre Dame football roster deletion Benjamin Morrison was breaking down Georgia Tech film this week from his hospital bed and texting his insights to his freshman understudies/replacements would seem to be a compelling backstory.
Except it actually is THE story, the main plotline, the soul of the journey of a 2024 Irish team that face-planted in week 2 against Northern Illinois and has been simultaneously rehabbing its image, College Football résumé and what its dreams should look like ever since.
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The eventual 31-13 dismantling of Georgia Tech Saturday at opulent Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta by a relatively un-opulent 12th-ranked Irish team (6-1) looked more like what eventual 2023 national champ, Michigan, did last season in largely just whelming its way into the final four-team version of the CFP last season.
Lead with defense. Lead with toughness. And when the original script hits a snag, as in the season-ending injury to arguably ND’s best player in junior cornerback Morrison, embrace the new edits and characters rising to the occasion.
Like freshman cornerback Leonard Moore, one of the recipients of Morrison’s post-hip surgery coaching/inspiring this week.
“You definitely got to be confident, as a cornerback especially,” Moore said in his second career start after pinch-hitting for sophomore Christian Gray against Louisville just two games ago.
“What Ben told me is don’t think about it like you’re a freshman. Just think about you going out there and playing football. Don’t give yourself any excuses. Just go out there and guard your man.”
And Moore did that, to the tune of seven tackles, a tackle for loss and two pass breakups. Only one player in the game had more tackles — Irish sophomore linebacker Drayk Bowen, who early in the season looked like he’d get overtaken by freshman prodigy Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa.
Instead they’ve pushed each other to another level of competence and physicality and often find themselves on the field together in linebackers coach Max Bullough’s five-linebacker rotation. Bowen accrued a career-high nine tackles Saturday and included a bruising postscript seemingly to all nine of them.
He too showed up in the Irish pass defense with a breakup, that after Georgia Tech’s red-zone specialty quarterback, Zach Pyron, got elevated to full-time, fill-in starter and began the game with nine successive completions.
The fourth-time career starter (the previous three in 2022) then connected on just 11 of his next/final 27 throws for Tech (5-3). And his two interceptions, one each by Irish safeties Xavier Watts and Adon Shuler, constituted one more than injured starter Haynes King and Pyron had combined for in the first seven games this season.
The ACC’s most potent run game — and one that had rolled to a combined 616 the past two games in wins over Duke and North Carolina — managed just 64 against the Irish, a season low, with a 2.2-yards-per-carry average. Pyron accounted for 45 of those 64 yards.
“Coach [Al] Golden has done an amazing job of doing that all season long — adjustments,” ND head coach Marcus Freeman said of his defensive coordinator who gets to decode unbeaten Navy’s new, more-passing game-friendly offense this coming week for a Saturday clash with the Mids (6-0) in East Rutherford, N.J.
“We've seen some different things that we haven't prepared for,’ Freeman continued, “and so the ability to make adjustments has been huge.”
Even when the Irish do the opposite of foreshadowing, as they did against the Yellow Jackets, with another sloppy first impression.
But the ND defense — which yielded a 71-yard, 13-play, 7-plus-minute scoring drive to close the first quarter — flipped the script until garbage time, late. As did the offense after quarterback Riley Leonard started 0-for-2 with an interception, then strung together 12 straight completions.
“You can’t throw that ball into Cover 3. I knew that,” Leonard said. “It’s just one of those things where you’ve got to be disciplined as a quarterback. It’s very easy to get greedy and want to make the explosive play.
“But throughout my career I’ve learned that just taking what the defense gives me is what wins you ball games. Ever since then, I was like, ‘All right, settle down. Trust your eyes. Trust your coaching. And get the job done.’.
“Don’t be a dummy. If they give you a hitch, take a hitch. It’s hard to do, but it’s really not that hard. Just take what the defense gives you and move the ball down the field and stay in front of the chains. After that, I was just like, ‘All right, settle down. Play your game.’”
Leonard’s game looked like this at game’s end: A second straight push past the 200-yard passing mark (203 yards) on 20-of-29 accuracy. A big factor in the Irish running game, with 51 yards on 10 carries and his ninth and 10th rushing TDs this season with at least five games to go.
Only Brandon Wimbush in 2017, with 14, has amassed more rushing TDs by an Irish QB in a single season.
“This team just knows how to do it,” Leonard said. “We’re an old team, and we keep learning from our mistakes at this point. We know how to pull through.”
Maybe they’ve read old press clippings of all the offseason turmoil that preceded the 2012 Irish team’s title game run. We do for certain that know Freeman showed the team video of a female track athlete running the 100-meter hurdles, tripping over the second one and not only finishing the race, but winning it.
“Like, that's life,” Freeman said. “Like, that's a week of prep. I mean, it's a game. It's a season. Like, you're going to hit some hurdles, and you’ve got to get up and sprint through the finish line. And that's what they did.”
And it didn’t hurt that ND’s special teams kicked it into high gear on Saturday. The Irish blocked a Georgia Tech field goal (freshman end Bryce Young), smothered an ad-lib on another field goal try with a bad snap. They also successfully executed a fake punt and successfully executed a fake field goal.
The latter came with former Irish QB Tyler Buchner wearing the same uniform number (26) as ND’s usual holder on place kicks, Chris Salerno. In his first game action for the Irish since the Gator Bowl to cap the 2022 season and after transferring back from Alabama, Buchner ran four yards for a first down.
The ESPN announcing crew, meanwhile, persistently prattled on during Saturday's broadcast about ND’s need for style points and that those special teams plays were proof that Freeman thought the same thing.
But they weren’t at all stabs at style points for a College Football Playoff selection committee that won’t release its first rankings for 2 ½ weeks, on Nov. 5.
It’s the DNA of this team. It’s business as usual. It’s not the shiny object you typically see on ESPN’s SportsCenter. It’s grit and grind and revolving heroes laboring to pull the still-alive lofty preseason aspirations back into view.
Even by players like Morrison, who can’t do that on the field anymore. But they can still impact the team.
“That's what type of leader and person he is,” Freeman said. “We can't replace him with one guy, but dang, Leonard has done a great job.
“We knew Leonard was special from the time he got on campus. It's just when was he going to get his opportunity to really present himself? … But it's a long season, and one guarantee in life is that the future’s uncertain. So, just keep preparing.”
And prepare Moore did. And rewrite the story Moore did. And so, for another Saturday, did the rest of the Irish.
“The people are, at times, inexperienced, but the team is becoming more and more experienced together,” Freeman said. “And that's when you take a big-picture look at the performance, like this team is continuously getting better.
“And I challenge [them]. You’ve got to believe that there's another level. If you believe that, you'll be willing to put in the work. And I really think this is a reflection — I believe, I choose to believe — it's a reflection of the preparation. And I'll always believe that.
“Performance on Saturday, it's never perfect. We want to be perfect, but it's a reflection of the way you prepare. And so, we — as coaches — are going to continuously challenge them that there's more.
"There is no finish line to the way we prepare and how we prepare. That's going to give us a chance to be more experienced on Saturdays and perform better.”
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