Marcus Freeman And Notre Dame Will Look To Turn Missed Opportunities Into Getting Stronger
Notre Dame's 2022 season certainly didn't start off the way Irish fans wanted, and definitely not how Marcus Freeman and his coaching staff wanted. When you're the head coach at Notre Dame losing is never acceptable, no matter the opponent. Losing, however, should always be an opportunity to grow and learn under the right leadership.
Freeman knows that his team needs to play better, and that means improving upon the mistakes his team made in the loss.
"I think you have to look at the game and learn from all those different opportunities that you had to execute," Freeman said of what his team can take from the defeat. "Twice late in the third and the fourth quarter, we have the ball on the plus side of their territory .... we get the (offensive pass interference), we're down four, and we move back to the minus-44, now its 1st-and-25.
Freeman was referring to the penalty on fifth-year senior Matt Salerno, but that wasn't Notre Dame's only missed opportunity in the second half.
"Another time, it was in the 3rd quarter and we're at the plus 30-something and we get a negative yardage play and we end up having to punt the ball," Freeman continued. "How do we make sure in those opportunities we are able to get points. If you're in plus territory against a great team like that, you have to be able to finish the series with points."
It wasn't just the Fighting Irish offense that failed to capitalize on opportunities to upset the Buckeyes.
"How do we make sure that when the game is on the line and we're down four, a team doesn't drive the field 95 yards and score a touchdown," Freeman stated. "There are plays all over the place and you can learn about execution and how we prepare better as coaches and execute when it matters most.
The Notre Dame special teams also had its woes, which consistently put the offense in bad positions.
"You look at the kickoff return .... six times our offense started a series inside the 15-yard line; that can't happen." Freeman explained. "Some are them doing a great job of downing the punts inside the 10 or 15, but then twice on kickoff return we have to do better, protect better and execute the game plan better; or we have to have a better game plan.
"All different scenarios we have to look at and learn from and have to use that as the foundation moving forward," Freeman continued. "Here's where we are, you lose by 11 to the No. 2 team in the country. There's really good points in that game and others where we weren't great. We have to get better from that."
Freeman and his staff need to work hard this week to make sure the players and coaches alike learn from the mistakes and missed opportunities without allowing them to become an anchor that drags down the emotion, focus or energy of the team. Notre Dame as a program must move past the loss by learning from it and then going out during this week of preparation and use it as fuel from an emotional and mental standpoint.
That's what the Fighting Irish head coach will be looking for on the practice field this week.
"As we take that into practice today it's the focal points of what areas do we need to get better, what can't we not hit that we have to hit every week in practice, the base down things, the third down situations that we have to make sure every week we hit, but then to me it's about the effort and execution of practice and energy we're going to come out with.
"It's easy to walk into the team meeting and say we're 17.5-point underdogs to get a motivator, it's easy to say we are going to a hostile environment with 105,000 fans to get motivated," Freeman continued. "Now we have to use that same motivation when we get ready for this Marshall team. Maybe we aren't looking at the spread but we are looking at the opportunity. We get 12 guaranteed opportunities. 12. We understand that we work 300 days a year for 12 guaranteed opportunities, so for us to waste an opportunity in Notre Dame Stadium, it would be a shame. We'll have them motivated to practice. We've got to practice with intensity, physicality and really, really attention to detail and the execution of what we're looking for."
If Notre Dame can quickly bounce back from the heartbreaking defense this weekend, build on it and make the necessary adjustments the Irish will be able to pick up the first win of Freeman's tenure. That should put Notre Dame in position to start a streak that builds more and more confidence for the next time they face a big-time opponent.
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