First Look at Notre Dame: Cal's Next Opponent in Serious Disarray After 0-2 Start
Folks in South Bend, Indiana aren’t the least bit concerned about the unbeaten Cal team that will visit on Saturday.
Their attention is fully focused on a Notre Dame team that is off to the most disappointing start of any program in the country.
No. 5 in the AP preseason rankings, the Fighting Irish are 0-2 after a 26-21 home defeat to Marshall — a 20.5-point underdog — on Saturday. Not how a coach wants to introduce himself in his home debut.
Marcus Freeman is now 0-3 (including a Fiesta Bowl loss to Oklahoma State last season), making him the first coach in Notre Dame history to lose his first three games. That history dates back to 1899 and includes 13 national championships.
*** Cal cornerback Isaiah Young, in the video at the top of this story, says the Bears are excited to play at Notre Dame.
The headline above South Bend Tribune columnist Tom Noie’s post-game critique is a glimpse into what a lot of Notre Dame fans probably are feeling:
“Shame on us — all of us — for believing Notre Dame was better,” the headline screamed.
Noie hadn’t even gotten started at that point. Here’s the lead to his column:
At 5:54 p.m. on a Saturday that was supposed to serve as a celebration, everything we thought we knew about this No. 8 Notre Dame football team, about this coaching staff, about the rookie head coach, effectively evaporated into the Northern Indiana evening.
Poof. All the feel-good vibes are over. Gone. Like that, it’s all become difficult to dissect.
The Irish are just the third team since 2000 to begin the season as an AP top-5 team and then lose the first two games, according to ESPN. Florida State (2017) and Michigan (2007) also did it.
But no team ever had started the year 0-2 while ranked in the top-10 for both games.
That may speak to the historical cachet Notre Dame brings, but also to the clear reality the Irish were vastly overrated.
That's not the case anymore. The Irish fell all the way out of the AP Top-25 on Sunday, ending a stretch of 80 straight poll appearances dating back to Sept. 17, 2017.
The loss to Marshall, which was picked to finish fourth in its division of the Sun Belt, snapped a 42-game Irish win streak against unranked opponents.
SI’s Pat Forde, a long-time observer of the college game, said Notre Dame’s losses to Oklahoma State a year ago and to No. 2 Ohio State opening this season “were understandable.”
“This was not,” Forde wrote. “It’s the worst Notre Dame loss since the Charlie Weis Era, at least.”
Irish fans never want to hear references to the Charlie Weis days.
So what’s wrong with this Irish team? How, exactly, has it under-performed?
It starts with the offense, which after two weeks ranks 117th nationally in both scoring (15.5 points per game) and total yards (302.0). The Irish are 119th in third-down conversion, making just 26.9 percent (7 for 26).
By comparison, Cal is 89th in scoring (27.0), 76th in total offense (392.5) and 54th in third down efficiency (42.9).
Notre Dame’s line was supposed to be the strength of the offense, but the Irish averaged just 3.5 yards per rush against Marshall and the quarterbacks were sacked three times.
Pressured early, Notre Dame quarterback Tyler Buchner didn't make it to game's end.
Photo by Matt Cashore, USA Today
Complicating matters is the fact that starting quarterback Tyler Buchner, a sophomore from San Diego, injured his left (non-throwing) shoulder in the fourth quarter Saturday and could not finish the game
Freeman said afterward he did not know the extent of the injury or whether Buchner would be available for the Cal game.
Drew Pyne, a redshirt sophomore, finished the Marshall game and threw a last-minute touchdown pass that made the final score closer. He also threw an interception to go with the two picks Buchner suffered.
The uncertain status of Buchner may be responsible for the betting line on the game dropping from Notre Dame opening at minus-17 to anywhere from minus-10 to minus-11.5, depending on where you look.
In any case, despite all of their problems, the Irish remain significant favorites.
Freeman is tasked with dissecting and fixing the team’s issues. He was the team’s first-year defensive coordinator last season — hired from his alma mater at Ohio State — and was promoted to head coach in December after Brian Kelly surprised everyone by leaving for LSU.
Freeman was the popular choice of Notre Dame’s players to replace Kelly, but he is a first-year head coach and just 36 years old.
And he has to deal with unexpected fallout from a frustrated fan base that spans the country.
Freeman didn’t let himself off the hook in his post-game media session.
“If it’s my experience as head coach, and I don’t know if that’s a reason why, or the lack of execution? But it starts with me, right?” he told reporters. “It starts with me as the head coach and looking at myself and saying, ‘What do I have to do to help this football team and really look at everything we’re doing?’
“Because the performance isn’t where we needed to be.”
Notre Dame fans are sure to be in full agreement on that. Whether Freeman has many of them in his corner on anything else at this point is up for grabs.
Cover photo of Notre Dame Marcus Freeman and his team by Matt Cashore, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
