Marcus Freeman Expects The 2023 Defense To Make A Big Jump
The Notre Dame offense is getting plenty of attention this season as Fighting Irish anticipate that unit making a big jump in production. Sam Hartman's arrival, the expectation that this offense will be more aggressive and the continued maturity of a young but talented group of skill players has certainly raised expectations.
On the other side of the ball, there are plenty of questions and concerns about the Irish defense, but there were plenty of good things about last year's group, and head coach Marcus Freeman expects the 2023 defense to be much improved over the 2022 version.
Notre Dame enters the second year of Al Golden running the defense, and that system experience combines with the return of a deep roster of players who have played a lot of football in that system to fuel Freeman's excitement.
"I think because the scheme is the same, now you can focus on those little things that it takes to have success," Freeman explained. "How to force fumbles, when to look for fumbles, tackling the intricate details of disguises; a ton of different things."
Freeman believes the experience will allow the defense to be more disruptive.
"We struggled early in the year in takeaways, and that will be something I think will help because we can now disguise, we can focus on takeaways and practice a little bit more," continued Freeman. "Last year you couldn't spend too much time talking about it because we needed guys to line up correctly and execute their assignment defensively."
For all of its struggles, the Irish defense did some good things last season. Ohio State and Clemson averaged just 17.5 points in their matchup against the Irish defense. Notre Dame ranked 18th in scoring defense against Power 5 opponents, it ranked 12th in total defense, yards per play and rushing defense against Power 5 opponents as well.
A jump in production from that group could make this defense one that is truly a championship caliber unit, something it wasn't in 2022, even with its quality numbers.
"I really am excited to see the jump this defense makes in terms of how dominant they can be," stated the Irish second-year head coach. "You talk about really every position their is either a returning starter or a guy that has experience playing, I mean a lot of experience. I'm talking from safeties to corners to backers to D-line, there's either returning service or guys that played a tremendous amount of ball."
There is a reason that experience matters, and why there is an expectation for improvement. Notre Dame spent all of 2022 installing a brand new defense, with Golden and defensive line coach Al Washington having to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the roster, and the players had to learn their new coordinator and defensive line coach, and what they wanted from an alignment, scheme and even a preparation standpoint.
For much of the 2022 offseason and early season preparation the defense was still installing the basics and "Defense 101" type of teaching. With a full season and two offseasons under their belts, the Irish defenders can now take masters lever level classes on the defense. It should allow the defense to show more, but it should also allow the players to execute at a far more consistent level.
Ideally that will allow the Irish defense to be far more disruptive. Although the yard numbers were solid, there were areas where the defense struggled. Notre Dame finished in the bottom half nationally in run game tackles for loss, the defense ranked 49th in third-down defense, they ranked 98th in turnovers gained (106th in fumbles gained), 129th in passes defensed and 130th in red zone defense.
The ability to know the finer points of the defense in year two, and the ability to think less and react more due to the gained experience should allow the defense to be far more disruptive.
It should allow the defensive coaches to show opponents a lot more looks before the snap, even if it doesn't mean an equally big jump in post-snap scheme additions.
At least that's the plan.
"I think when you can disguise what you're doing defensively, that causes hesitation for an offense and confusion," explained Freeman. "The result of that is going to be disruption. It's going to be sacks, it's going to be (pass break ups), it's going to be interceptions, it's going to be all those type of things.
"So if we could stem disguise, stem our front and do some different things that we just don't have to stand still and you know exactly what you're seeing as a defense, that's gonna help us ultimately get some of those results that we're looking for."
After the 2022 season the coaching staff knew it had to get better. They did a deep dive into the season's results, and after breaking down the film it was obvious where they needed to improve, and going into year two it should be easier to focus on those issues.
This is especially needed in the run game.
"As a defensive staff, we looked at some of the big play runs and the explosive runs against us and, and you know, a lot of them were from missed tackles, a lot of them were a couple were from miss fits," Freeman explained. "As you look at it, 'Hey, is this an execution error or is this a schematical error? We have to make sure that we're fixing the schematical errors as coaches first, and putting our players in position, then we can make sure we have success."
Knowing where to line up and having great confidence in your assignment creates opportunities for greater execution for the defenders. If you'll recall, Freeman consistently talked about execution mistakes after games during the 2022 season.
"It's the execution," continued Freeman. "You look at, I think about the USC (game), the number one was missed tackles, and we were playing a different style of defense for that game. So I kind of challenged our defensive staff and said, 'Why are we doing this? Did we get what we want out of them? .... Looking back, we say, hold on, did we do more detriment than we did good? Those are some of those lessons that you can't learn until you actually go out and do them."
If Freeman is right and the Irish defense does make a big jump in 2023 the unit will be far more disruptive, it will play cleaner football, and the unit should be a lot more fun to watch and be far more effective.
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