Notre Dame Notebook: Marcus Freeman Talks NC State Win

Notre Dame showed a different kind of resiliency in Saturday’s 45-24 win over North Carolina State. The kind of resiliency that second-year head coach Marcus Freeman’s Irish didn’t have at key moments in his first season.

The Freeman’s 1.0 version of the Irish suffered inexplicable losses to both Marshall and Stanford. The chance to win was there in both games, but they were not able to overcome adversity in key moments in both losses.

Freeman’s 2.0 version saw its first real adversities of the season on Saturday in Raleigh. Their first road game of the season was halted for nearly two hours due to a nearby lightning strike and even when the game was going, the team committed uncharacteristic penalties and quarterback Sam Hartman fumbled for the first time in an Irish uniform.

Ultimately, they put all that behind them to win a close game going away by outscoring their hosts 21-7 in the fourth quarter.

"It’s great to be able to have some of those bumps that we talked about last year that cost us wins, victories,” Freeman said after the win over NC State. "You had some today and we were still able to come out with a victory and you can see what type of team we have. There’s a lot of different elements today that really occurred with the rain to start the game, then the two-hour delay. Then we go back out there and it’s still raining, and good things and bad things are happening, but the guys just continue to stay in the moment. That’s been our message all week. Just stay in the moment, man.

"I think it’s a sign of a mature football team,” Freeman continued. "There was no panic from coaches and players, myself included. In those moments, it’s easy to panic and start yelling and screaming and create chaos amongst the team. But to be able to be able to get to the sideline and say, Ok, what went wrong on that last series? What do we need to do to get adjusted and then go out and go play. I think when you have a team that’s been through some of that adversity and then you’ve got guys coming in, like Sam that’s been through adversity, to stay in the moment, to not be so focused on what happened in the past. Like, right now is all that matters that’s to me what the mindset was.”

A Long Delay

A lightning strike within eight miles of Carter-Finley Stadium halted the game just :15 seconds into the second quarter with the Irish nursing a 3-0 lead. Freeman was initially told there would be a 30-minute delay, but more lightning ultimately pushed the stoppage to one hour and 45 minutes. The team and coaches were able to scrounge up some hot dogs from the stadium concession stands and then they went to work on their plan of attack for when play resumed.

"Come out and go and do your job,” Freeman said of the message to his team during the long suspension of play. "Who cares how the game started? Who cares about the two-hour delay. Let's go out there and play ball and be aggressive as heck and that’s what I wanted our team to be is aggressive. All week we were talking about how aggressive they are and those things and rightfully so. I mean, that was a good football team we faced. But I wanted our guys’ mentality (to be) we’re not going to play passive. We’re going to be just as aggressive as any team we face.

"The plan was to be able to talk about different adjustments,” Freeman continued. "So, coaches were able to come down and let’s talk about things we saw the first two or three drives and then we were able to get with our players and say, ok, here’s the things we’re seeing that we weren’t...we hadn’t planned for. Then the next thing was, ok with a two-hour delay what is our plan as we go out there.”

A Fast Restart

It took just one play for the Irish spark the offense after play resumed. Notre Dame had the ball at its own 20 and Sam Hartman handed off to Audric Estime, who bolted 80 yards to the end zone for the first touchdown of the game.

The Irish shuffled their line in a different look than NC State had seen. Regular left tackle Joe Alt was lined up as a tight end next to right tackle Blake Fisher, while tight end Mitchell Evans occupied Alt’s left tackle spot. Left guard Pat Coogan pulled right behind Alt and Fisher and Estime hit the hole nearly untouched.

"We planned on using it coming into the game just to .... give them something they haven’t seen and see how they adjust to it and at first they didn’t adjust the way we thought they were going to and then they did,” Freeman explained of the formation. "So, it was just a different wrinkle we had for the game.”

Corralling Brennan Armstrong

NC State quarterback Brennan Armstrong was the top focus of Notre Dame’s defense this week. Armstrong ran for 96 yards and two touchdowns in the Wolfpack’s season-opening win over UConn. He had 1,363 career rushing yards and 22 touchdowns on the ground in his career entering the game, but he finished with just 26 yards on 12 carries while completing 22 of his 47 pass attempts for 260 yards in the Irish win.

"It’s a constant battle, because you don’t want to keep them on leashes,” Freeman said of his defense defending Armstrong. "You don’t want them to be so non-aggressive that there’s no pass rush. You have to be somewhat aggressive. I thought we created different rush lanes to confuse him so he couldn’t just step up. We kept talking those B gaps, especially to his left. Our right B gap, we had to keep him out of there. So those different things we were trying to do to truly keep him from escaping vertical through that B gap. I mean, he still did a great job of keeping plays alive. He’s a competitor. He’s a tough guy. We tried to...you know obviously, if he ran they ball try to hit him like a running back. He kept bouncing up and competing, so I have a lot of respect for him.”

On Holden Staes

Holden Staes had the biggest game of his career vs NC State. The tight end had four receptions for 115 yards and touchdowns of 40 and 35 yards.

"He adds a big element to the pass game,” said Freeman. "We’ve known Holden’s been a tremendous pass threat. We’ve got to get him continuously better in the run game and he’s committed to that. Today he showed the threat he could be in the pass game but my challenge to Holden is how can we continue to to be a complete tight end and that’s in the run game and pass game. But it was great to see him put two touchdowns together today.”

On JD Bertrand

Fifth-year linebacker JD Bertrand left the game in the second half after registering five tackles, two quarterback hurries and one pass breakup.

“(He was) out with a head injury,” Freeman said. “I haven’t talked to him yet, but they told me they pulled him out in the second half with a head injury.”

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