The middle part of October is already off to a very interesting start for Notre Dame football. The Irish clobbered Stanford with a 49-7 win on Saturday. Then, on Monday, they officially lost junior cornerback Benjamin Morrison for the season due to a hip injury. However, on the same day, they flipped two four-star recruits in offensive lineman Cameron Herron and quarterback Blake Hebert. With so much developing at the season’s midway point, here’s a look at what’s trending up and down around Notre Dame football.
Stock up: passing efficiency
You might not choose to celebrate it too much because it happened against Stanford, but Notre Dame just had its best passing game of the season. Senior quarterback Riley Leonard posted season highs in passing yards (229), passing touchdowns (3) and quarterback rating (205.2) as the Irish cruised down the field after a bumpy first quarter. The timing on Leonard’s short-range passes looked as sharp as it has all year, as senior wide receiver Jayden Thomas, graduate wideout Kris Mitchell and junior tight end Eli Raridon each caught touchdowns in the red zone. Mitchell had his best game in an Irish uniform since transferring from FIU, snagging four balls for 32 yards, including his 5-yard score before halftime.
Even senior center Pat Coogan hauled in a tipped pass for 11 yards. They say effective passing offenses know how to spread the football around, right?
Stock up: the defensive line
The strength of Notre Dame’s defense is most often its secondary, but that changed on Saturday. The Irish defensive line, quiet throughout most of the first five games, got after it and made for a slow day of Stanford offense. Led by graduate defensive tackle Howard Cross III, who totaled two sacks and two tackles for loss, the Irish collected four sacks on the afternoon. Cross made a key fourth-down stop when the game was still close in the second quarter, busting around a low block to sack the quarterback. Graduate defensive tackle Rylie Mills also contributed a sack, while junior defensive end Joshua Burnham made a phenomenal play to intercept a pitch in the backfield.
With graduate student Jordan Botelho and sophomore Boubacar Traore both out for the season at the vyper defensive end position, Notre Dame has a lot to figure out at the line of scrimmage. Holding Stanford to 200 total yards and 2.8 yards per carry is a great start.
Stock up: strength of schedule
Looking ahead to the second half of the season, Notre Dame has two ranked opponents remaining on the schedule. Florida State and USC, two College Playoff contenders at the start of the season, right? Absolutely not.
Navy and Army are both ranked now, the Black Knights at No. 23 and the Midshipmen at No. 25. The two service academies have used high-powered offenses to produce a combined record of 11-0. What looked like an incredibly weak stretch run of scheduling actually carries some nationally recognized challenges now.
At the same time, Notre Dame’s Week One at Texas A&M keeps looking better by the week. The Aggies are now 5-1 and ranked 14th in the country after obliterating No. 9 Missouri two Saturdays ago. Many have said this Texas A&M team isn’t the same one Notre Dame saw on Aug. 31, and they’re probably right. But what are the Irish supposed to do, play the Aggies again?
The Texas A&M win is still a very important one for the Irish, and it’s a big reason why an 11-1 Notre Dame team should easily make the playoff.
Stock down: health
This stock has been dipping all year long, and the Morrison injury really exposed its decline. It’s been every other week that Notre Dame has had a significant injury pop up somewhere on the team. Going into Week One, it was projected starting sophomore left tackle Charles Jagusah going down with a torn pectoralis. Week Three put junior center Ashton Craig and junior right guard Billy Schrauth on the shelf long-term. Botelho suffered his season-ending injury that week before his backup, Traore, went down in Week Five.
Minor injuries have also shuffled the deck for Notre Dame at times. Leonard’s health was a major question mark early in the season, and his physical rushing approach still leaves him susceptible to damaging hits. Sophomore wide receiver Jordan Faison hasn’t established his footing due to a Week One ankle injury, while senior tight end Mitchell Evans hasn’t looked like himself for the better part of a month since returning from last year’s torn ACL. Even graduate kicker Mitch Jeter missed most of the Stanford game due to a hip injury.
Notre Dame’s depth has already been tested in the trenches. Now, the step forward of several young players in the secondary will play a significant role in shaping the season’s second half.
