Notre Dame Notebook: Marcus Freeman Talks Drew Pyne, JD Bertrand, Jordan Botelho And More

As Notre Dame looks to keep things rolling this week with its second matchup against a Top 10 opponent, head coach Marcus Freeman shared his thoughts on several Fighting Irish players.

On Quarterback Drew Pyne

Drew Pyne is 5-1 as a starter after last week’s win over No. 16 Syracuse, and all three of the team’s wins over currently (Syracuse and North Carolina) or formerly (BYU) ranked teams came with Pyne as the starter.

The junior quarterback completed at least 70% of his passes in each of his first three career starts (all wins), but his best completion percentage in the last three games was 50% against UNLV. He was just 9 for 19 for 116 yards against Syracuse, while throwing his fourth interception of the season.

"He’s got to improve,” Freeman said of Pyne. “He’s got to improve in his accuracy ..... but there’s a whole bunch more that goes into that. The quarterback’s got to improve. We’ve got to continue to improve our protection, and it’s not just the offensive line. Protection can be with running backs. Hey, people being in the throwing lane. I wrote down a couple notes when we were watching film as an offensive staff and just saying, okay we’ve got to get the running back here to step up or step out of his way so the quarterback has a lane to precision of routes. That’s so important. To the eye, just watching the game, they won’t understand it, but to the coaches the precision of routes are so important. That’s a challenge for Michael Mayer, that’s a challenge for every tight end, that’s a challenge for the wide outs to be precise; exactly where you’re supposed to be when you run routes.

"Then the other thing is at some point, if we’re not running the ball so well, we’re going to throw it more,” Freeman continued. “Right now we’re running the ball pretty well and if we don’t run the ball really well I think it’s going to force us to obviously take more opportunities in the passing game.”

On Linebacker JD Bertrand

Thanks in part to missing the equivalent of one full game and parts of two others, due to multiple targeting ejections, JD Bertrand got off to a slow start to the season. But the junior who led the Irish with 102 tackles last season, is nearly halfway there this season with a team-leading 48.

"I would have to say JD Bertrand probably sets the standard,” Freeman stated. "Coming in last year, I think the last year when I came in as defensive coordinator, I didn’t know much about JD Bertrand. He didn’t probably play much the year before. And the thing I remember about JD is, every day he would ask me ‘Hey, coach. When can we watch film’. When you’re a new coordinator it, ok, yeah, you want to come in and watch film, let’s watch a little bit of film. Every day, religiously he would say, ‘When can we watch film’. It could be six, seven in the morning or it could be seven or eight at night. My family wasn’t here at the time, so I was here all night, and he would come in exactly when I would say come in. Sometimes you roll your eye like ‘Man, you’re back. Shoot, you remembered.’

"But that’s him,” Freeman continued. “You look at his brother (former Notre Dame pitcher John Michael Bertrand). I don’t know much about baseball, but there’s got to be something in that family, two young men that maximize their abilities. That’s the challenge that I think our entire team can really learn from that. If we can get every individual, which you’re never going to do, to maximize their God-given abilities .... and that’s JD Bertrand, man. He probably doesn’t want to hear me say it, but I don’t know if he has as much ability as everybody in that room, the linebacker room, but he maximizes what he can be, because of the way he prepares, the way he takes care of his body, the preparation. He’s a guy that’s on a timer in terms of when he goes to sleep.”

On Running back Audric Estime

Audric Estime put his fumbling issues behind him with a big game against the Orange. Estime had fumbled in three of Notre Dame’s four games prior to Saturday, earning a benching in the first half of the win over UNLV. He had nine total yards on the first two plays of the game against Syracuse and finished with 20 carries for 123 yards and two touchdowns.

"It’s really important as a coach to make sure your players know you believe in them,” Freeman explained. "That’s the one thing that never wavered with Audric is the belief in him being productive and the things he can do as a running back. Now, belief and work in practice are two different things. We had to be very intentional in the things we did with ball security with him in practice. That has nothing to do with the belief I have in Audric Estime. But, in saying it, we don’t think we don’t change certain things that we do in practice to get the results we want.

"So, (last) week in practice we did some different things in terms of ball security with Audric and with all the running backs,” Freeman continued. “Coach (Deland) McCullough brought some different ideas and it was really good. But it’s going to be continuous, that work in practice that we do. The intentional work to make sure that we don’t let fumbling the football that’s a staple of our program, we can’t. Ball security is so important. You can’t just say it without doing the work. But the belief in Audric, that never wavered.

Howard Cross Dealing With Ankle Injury

Defensive tackle Howard Cross has been one of the most productive defensive linemen this season. He led the team in tackles for a time after tallying 18 combined against Marshall and Cal.

Howard sat against BYU with a high ankle sprain, but he has played in the last three games. He got his hand on a second half pass at the line of scrimmage that turned into Marist Liufau’s tide-turning interception. Freeman called him a “warrior” for how he’s played with the ankle injury.

"He’s a tough guy, man,” Freeman said. "He had an ankle injury that kept him out and then battled back and battled back. I think he tweaked it a couple times in practice. Those ankle injuries, high ankle sprains, can be more nagging than actually a break. It's hard sometimes, because it’s hard to truly recover in the course of the season. But he’s a tough dude. He is a tough guy (who) works his tail off.

"I kind of challenged the D-line,” Freeman continued. "We need some more...we need to get some batted balls. I said we might be height deficient in that room, but when you’ve got a guy like Howard Cross .... he claims he had two PBUs.”

On Defensive End Jordan Botelho

Now a junior, Jordan Botelho has been fairly enigmatic in his time at Notre Dame. He showed flashes of brilliance (see his punt block return for a touchdown vs USF in 2020) when he managed to see the field, but his time on the field has been scarce.

With eight games played this season, he has seen action in 30 games in his three seasons, but most of his action has been on special teams. He saw defensive snaps against Syracuse for the first time in about a month, but he made the most of them with two of the defense’s four sacks.

"You saw in his ability to rush the passer his ability,” Freeman said of Botelho. "He’s a physical football player. He’s a great example of the message I said to the team yesterday is that, we’re going into week nine and the ability at certain positions to still have that healthy competition that we don’t know who’s going to start. We’ll decide after this week of practice. We don’t know who’s going to be the second Vyper in the game, Jordan Botelho, Junior (Tuihalamaka), we’ll decide off the way we practice. It’s a way to continue to remind those guys how important practice is.

"Jordan had a great week of practice and he got the opportunity to play in the game and with that opportunity he was productive,” Freeman continued. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with this week. And so, the message will be the same thing. You're playing time will be determined off of how you practice. I think what he sees is, okay, if I practice well I’m going to get an opportunity, with an opportunity I can show them how good I can be. I’ve said this before, there’s no room for gamers. We need great practice players. That’s what our team needs him to be.”

Irish Breakdown Fans be sure to get your Notre Dame tickets from SI Tickets HERE

Be sure to check out the Irish Breakdown message board, the Champions Lounge

Irish Breakdown Content

Notre Dame 2022 Roster
Notre Dame 2022 Schedule

Notre Dame 2023 Class Big Board
Notre Dame 2023 Commits Board - Offense
Notre Dame 2023 Commits Board - Defense

Notre Dame 2023 Scholarship Offers
Notre Dame 2024 Scholarship Offers

Ranking The 2022 Signees - Offense
Ranking The 2022 Signees - Defense

———————

Become a premium Irish Breakdown member, which grants you access to all of our premium content and our premium message board! Click on the link below for more.

BECOME A MEMBER

Be sure to stay locked into Irish Breakdown all the time!

Join the Irish Breakdown community!
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown YouTube channel
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown podcast on iTunes
Follow me on Twitter: @SeanStires
Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook

Sign up for the FREE Irish Breakdown daily newsletter