On Monday afternoon, Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman opened up Purdue week with his weekly press conference. Here’s what he had to say after a 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois and a 1-1 start for the Irish.
On Saturday’s loss to Northern Illinois
“When you evaluate the film, here’s some of the key factors that led to the outcome. Turnover margin — we lost two to zero. Explosive gains — they had six for 186 yards. We had five for 94. Time of possession — they had 35-plus minutes. We had 24. Rushing yards — they had 190 and we had 123. And then they won the third-down battle. So no matter who your opponent is, if you lose all those key areas, you’re not gonna win the game.
The question in the past 48 hours, the challenge for everybody in our program is to figure out why those things happened … We’ve got to improve. We have to ensure we’re putting our guys in the right positions to do what they do best but also to be able to execute in the game exactly what we want. But to me, the biggest thing I’ve been reflecting on in the past 48 hours is … we have to learn how to handle success … This is the first time in my three years as the head coach that we have won the big game early in the season, right? Two losses to Ohio State, and then all of a sudden we win, and everybody says, ‘Hey, you’re going to the playoffs. You’ve got an easy schedule.’ We all hear it, and I think we started to believe that.
There is a physical approach to preparing for a game, and I think physically we prepared the right way, but there’s also a mental approach and a mindset that you have to have every single week, and I think that’s where we failed. And so we’ve got to challenge ourselves to make sure no matter who our opponent is, that physically and mentally our approach to the game is the same way … No matter what people say, no matter what you hear, as much as you can you’ve got to try to tune out the noise, right? It’s easy to listen to the good things. Nobody wants to hear the bad things people say, but neither of them should matter. Your approach should be your approach. Your routine should be your routine.
That’s the challenge we have as a football program is how do we handle success and make sure each week we’re approaching the opponent the right way. The reality is that we have the talent. We have the coaching staff to be a great football team — much better than we displayed on Saturday. But we have a lot of work to do to ensure that we perform that way [in] each opportunity we get.”
On the availabilities of sophomore wide receiver Jordan Faison, graduate offensive lineman Tosh Baker and junior defensive lineman Joshua Burnham
“Faison will be back. [I’m] expecting him to practice on Tuesday and expect him to be back for the [Purdue] game. Tosh Baker will be out this week, but hopefully we can get him back here as soon as we can. And then Burnham is questionable. He went out [on] I think the very last play with an ankle sprain, but he’s made a lot of progress in the past 48 hours, so he’s questionable right now in terms of if he’ll be available to play.”
On Purdue
“It’s a team, as you watch film that really from last year to this year, has continuously improved under [head] coach [Ryan] Walters. They’ve won three of their last four games. On offense, I have a lot of respect for [quarterback] Hudson Card. I think he’s a really good player. [He] runs their offense well. [Offensive coordinator] Graham Harrell’s a guy I know that was the coordinator at USC when I was a defensive coordinator here and have a lot of respect for how he runs an offense.
They do a really good job at running the football. They led the Big Ten in rushing last year in conference games, and I think they’ve rushed for 250-plus [yards] in the past three of the last four games. And so we've got to make sure we’re prepared to stop the run … It’s a unique defense that you don’t see every week in terms of their scheme. They’re gonna stack the box, and they’re going to make you have to try to throw it on them. They take pride in stopping the run [and] play a lot of man coverage.
And so to have success, we’re gonna have to be able to beat man coverage … We’ve got a great challenge for us. Our guys will be ready, and we’re gonna have a great week of preparation mentally and physically and then get back at it on Saturday.”
On Notre Dame’s downfield passing struggles
“There’s opportunities to throw the ball down the field. We’ve gotta do it. We’ve gotta make the decision to throw it there. And we tried to create some opportunities to push the ball down the field, and for whatever reason, for that play, maybe we didn’t do it. A couple of plays we did push down the field, and we’ve got to make the play … Maybe one time we dropped it and one time we got it picked off and a couple of times we scrambled. And so there's a lot of different things that go into the passing game that we have to improve on.
But what we’ve got to do is make sure that we’re doing things that we feel like our guys can execute on gameday. There’s one thing [to] execute in practice and to feel like, ‘Hey, we have the answers. If we see this look, this is where we want to go with the ball.’ But it’s another thing to actually do it on gameday. And so as coaches and players, we have to be aligned on, ‘Hey, this is exactly what we want you to do.’ And then we’ve got to go out and do it on Saturday.
On Notre Dame’s inability to defend NIU’s rushing attack
“We gave up way too many rushing yards. We know that, and I don’t think it was because of our play at the tackle. I think it’s more so [Northern Illinois] did a good job of forcing us to be lateral, and that's not who we are. We are [an] aggressive, attacking defense that plays on the other side [of the] line of scrimmage. But when all of a sudden you get all these motions and color in front of your face and you get outside running plays … it made our guys almost play ‘fitball’ instead of football. And that's a challenge that we’ve had for our defense this week. We have to be aggressive no matter what type of offense we’re seeing. We still have to play on the other side of the line of scrimmage, and that's going to be a point of emphasis this week.”
On Notre Dame’s loss of the run game late against NIU
“When you have back-to-back three-and-out, and then you — I think the one interception drive, we had four plays – that’s going to affect the amount of carries that we can give our running backs. And so we’ve got to be more efficient on first down — and more efficient on first and second down, really — so we can create more plays, right? That’s part of that time of possession. [Northern Illinois] did a good job of — even though we held them to field goals — moving the chains, and we’ve got to do a better job of that because three-and-outs or four plays and the interception, it limits your opportunities for anybody to drop back or to run the ball for any offensive play.”
On considerations of using junior quarterback Steve Angeli
“There was no consideration of that [in the fourth quarter against NIU]. We had a lot of belief in [senior quarterback] Riley [Leonard] and him running our offense. And we’ve got a lot of belief in Steve, too, right? That’s not a shot at Steve. We got a lot of faith in Steve, too … Again, the quarterback is just like the head coach, right? He is going to — and rightfully so — get the blame and he’s going to get the praise. There are times that he has to throw the ball better. He knows that, and his fundamentals have to be better. His decision-making has to be better.
But we also have to be better around him. And that’s [on the] coaches, right? What we’re asking to do and what we’re asking to read and that’s players-wise to like — we’ve got to catch the ball when he throws it. We’ve got to be better in contested — they made some contested catches, right, and we didn’t when we needed to make as many contested catches as we’re supposed to.
And so the finger’s at everybody. We’re pointing [the] finger at everybody. It starts with the coaches. It’s always us. And we’ve got to make sure we have a plan that our players can execute — like, you can love your plan, but you better love what your players can execute. And, I’ve got a lot of faith and belief that we’ll make sure we do that.”
On Notre Dame having a hard time sustaining success during his tenure
“That’s the game of football, man. If I had the perfect answer, I guess we would win every game we played, but that’s the challenge. That’s the ultimate challenge. And I think every year presents a different challenge. I think I said this after the game — we've been here before. But it was different obviously in the loss to Marshall, right? We hadn't won a game. I hadn’t won a game. And so that’s a lot different than where we're at now. And that's why it took me a little bit of time to look back and say, ‘Okay, what do we have? What do we have to learn from this game?’
Yeah, [there are] schematic things we’ve got to fix. But here’s what’s different about this one is that we’ve got to handle success the right way, and that's [on] every individual including me, all the way down to our players. How do we handle success in terms of our mental approach to the game? And so I’m focused on making sure we’re ready to go this week, and that’s more important than worrying about a season-long of sustained success. Let’s get better this week and take care of business this week.”
On what he wants to see from the team’s identity this week
“Nobody’s gonna feel sorry for us. I don’t want anybody to feel sorry for us. Let’s go. I’m a competitor. I’m surrounded by competitors. Let’s get back to work and let’s challenge each other ... Nobody needs sympathy, man. Let’s just get back to work and do the things it takes to have success on Saturday, right? Do whatever it is within our routine better than we’ve done it to make sure we can have success on Saturday. And I’m confident that we’ll have an entire program with that mindset.”
