If trees fall in South Bend, do AP voters hear?
Saturday’s game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Stanford Cardinal went how every installment of the series not played during the Obama presidency should go, with the Irish scoring a dominant 49-7 victory. Although the Irish actually fell a spot in the AP Top 25 over the weekend, they nonetheless looked like a much more complete team in this game than we had seen for most of the season. They now take some great vibes into a pair of possibly-tough road games on the east coast. Most everyone looked good in this game, but who stood out?
Rylie Mills and Howard Cross
That’s who. In the early stages of this game, when the Cardinal had shown some fight and verve on offense and were threatening to hang in with the Irish, Notre Dame’s two veteran defensive tackles asserted their dominance. Cross’s first sack of the game put a driving Stanford behind the chains and out of field goal range; his second, two plays later, ended the drive on 4th & 5 and put Notre Dame’s offense in position to take control of the game. From that point on Cross and Mills, who notched a sack of his own, absolutely bullied the center of the Cardinal offensive line and disrupted the rhythm and optionality key to Stanford’s offense.
Photo by James Black/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
The tackles’ physical play in the middle of the defensive line also opened up other opportunities for other Irish defenders to get into Stanford’s backfield, and the Irish finished with eight total TFLs. Expectations were high for this pair heading into the season, and for a time they had not yet lived up to them – but in this game they showed up in a big way. If they can keep doing this, the Irish defense should be able to get into an even higher gear as the season goes on.
The Riley Leonard We Were Promised
I’ve been trying to keep this series from having a weekly Riley Leonard entry because even in 2024 football is about much more than the quarterback, but this week’s game calls for it. For really the first time all season, this game showed us the kind of performance that was expected when Leonard came to South Bend. Leonard was mostly accurate and decisive throughout the day, quickly distributing the ball to a wide array of pass-catchers while doing enough downfield to keep Stanford from creeping up too much. While he thankfully didn’t have as big a rushing load as he had in recent weeks, Leonard made a number of key plays on the ground and was once again automatic in the red zone.
Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images
The fruits of Leonard’s improvements were no doubt well appreciated by Notre Dame’s receivers, three of whom notched their first touchdowns of the season. 11 different Notre Dame players caught a pass on Saturday, and only one of them was an offensive lineman (more on that later). This was a game where we finally got to see the deep bench at receiver we had expected when Notre Dame hit the transfer portal hard at that position in December 2023.
There were certainly still weaknesses to pick apart here if you really want to. The Leonard we saw Saturday would never be confused for Tom Brady – he missed an open Jaden Greathouse downfield on Notre Dame’s first drive, and even his completed deep ball hung up and forced Beaux Collins to slow down, allowing his pursuer in white to catch up to him – but he made the throws he needed to make to run the breadth of Mike Denbrock’s offense, and the numbers spoke for themselves. The prettiest effort you’ll see? Not even close, but what we saw Saturday would most likely win every game left on Notre Dame’s schedule.
The Bye Effect
After the Irish escaped against Louisville, I noted that the coaching staff needed to “instill some focus and reinforce the basics” in order to avoid the self-destructive tendencies that had plagued them for much of the season’s early action. The Irish were markedly improved in this regard:
- Only four penalties for 35 yards, as opposed to average of 6 for 57 coming into the game.
- Only one turnover, a weird fumble by Collins.
- Stronger rhythm and execution on offense – I don’t really know how to quantify this but this team seemed far more in sync than we had seen in weeks past.
- Quickly overcoming yet another slow start (punt followed by Stanford touchdown) and scoring 49 unanswered points.
- Focus and presence, as in Pat Coogan seeing a ball get tipped and not only realizing he needed to protect it, but having the wherewithal to actually catch it and carry it for a first down.
Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images
Marcus Freeman and his staff have come in for no shortage of criticism this season, but give credit where it is due – they clearly used the bye to get their team right mentally and it showed in a crisper, more confident and mature team than we had seen since the first week of this season. Let’s hope they’ve also learned how to coach to that week over week.