Game Observations - Defense: Notre Dame Beats Central Michigan

Notre Dame improved to 4-0 with a 41-17 victory over Central Michigan. It wasn't pretty, but the Irish got it done and remain unbeaten. It was a sloppy game from the Irish defense, who struggled for much of the game against a CMU offense that isn't overly talented and was missing their starting quarterback.

Here are my thoughts and analysis of the performance of the Notre Dame defense.

NOTRE DAME DEFENSE

*** With JD Bertrand out, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman stated on Thursday that freshman Drayk Bowen would get the start. Ultimately, the Irish decided to move Jack Kiser - the starting Rover - inside to Mike linebacker. There is really only one reason to do this, and that is to put a veteran on the field so you can continue to run a diverse and multiple scheme, instead of putting the talented young player on the field, scale back the defense and allow your talent to carry the day. That's not a knock on Kiser, it's that he's not a Mike linebacker, and this is a move that is about putting a veteran on the field instead of taking advantage of an opportunity to put a very talented rookie on the field to get some work (or two if you wanted to also work in Jaiden Ausberry).

*** Notre Dame ran a very diverse blitz package against CMU, but it seemed as though the CMU coaches had a good read on what Notre Dame was doing. Despite not having their starting QB and best weapon in Bert Emanuel Jr., the Chippewas score 14 first half points and had 160 yards of offense. That could have been more, but a field goal was missed in the first half. Notre Dame had issues with gap integrity, they had way too many missed tackles and there were multiple coverage mistakes in the game. There was a clear lack of focus from the defense in this game, and there is A LOT to clean up for next week. This also includes two really poor roughing penalties that simply cannot happen. They were undisciplined plays in both instances.

*** The Irish defense caught a few breaks in the second half, as Central Michigan had a couple of big mistakes of their own that kept them from going on longer drives.

*** There were way too many defensive penalties in this game, and most were a direct result of not playing smart and not playing sound.

*** Central Michigan rushed for "just" 131 yards against Notre Dame, but their backs averaged over 5.0 yards per carry. Notre Dame gave up too much ground, especially in the middle, and there was a lot of inconsistency protecting the edge, which allowed for too many chunk runs. Notre Dame's inside was also soft. I'm not talking about players playing soft, but rather referring to soft spots that CMU was able to find and gash, especially early in the game. That was a big reason for the first touchdown drive. It was clear CMU had the Irish defense scouted well.

*** I didn't notice anything drastically different in the second half, but the Irish defenders were making a few more plays and CMU had a couple of big plays called back because of penalties.

*** Up front, I'll need to study the game more to see exactly what went wrong, but there were too many holes opening up in the run game. One defender that I did feel played well was Javontae Jean-Baptiste, who had good moments in the run game and pass game.

*** Kiser played very hard in the game and he gave everything he had. He also flashed at times and made some quality plays, including forcing a fumble on an inside blitz. The problem is he was playing out of position, and we saw him twice turn a receiver loose (once on a cross, once not getting underneath a deeper route) for big gains. You have to give him a lot of credit for stepping up and giving all he had, but simply put he shouldn't have been put in position to play Mike linebacker today, at least not as much as he did.

*** I liked what I saw from Thomas Harper, at least after the first play of the game. He missed a tackle in space on the first play, but after that I thought he played hard, he was effective setting the edge and he had two excellent edge pressures. We saw more of Clarence Lewis in the second half in the nickel, and he was a bit up-and-down. But when he was up Lewis had a couple of strong plays up the seam and in run support.

*** The Irish cornerbacks were outstanding in this game. They blanketed the CMU wide receivers and forced the ball inside. My issue is once again we saw the middle of the field come open, and a better QB would have been able to take greater advantage. That's three straight games this has happened on too many snaps, and that must be addressed by next week.

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