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That's indeed.com/bluewire. Terms and conditions apply. And to hire, you need Indeed. Check out all of the new products and new features at Apple.com. You can even buy yourself something new. See Apple.com for product availability updates, Apple Intelligence coming this fall. Our second segment of today, we need to discuss some overall team issues and then you know, how to fix it. That's kind of what this segment is going to be. We're going to kind of combine two and three together, right? Yep. Yep. To this one. Yes. 100%. And so you touched on this in the first segment, Brian, and so I want to make sure that we hit it because I don't want to leave everybody hanging. The preparation, okay, team preparation and getting ready for this game. And I just, I get this deja vu feeling when we start talking about this from however many years ago it was when they played Ball State and how just ignorant the, I'll say it was, I don't know if ignorance is the right word, but the way they prepared for the Ball State game was completely terrible and you know, pretty much just giving the starters the week off more or less and then just practicing with guys that they think will play and all these different things, right? And so fast forward to this past week and part of the problem of that was that you did it in week two. Remember? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Same here. And here we are week two and Brian, I will let you take it from there because we're kind of talking a more big picture right now, right, Vince? And what we're saying and what needs to be done about it. Prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over 5 million active members. Prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. 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You've heard me say it again a lot of times, folks, there needs to be some level of consistency and structure to their days, especially when you're talking about young people. Yes. And everybody's like, you know, this guy makes money. He needs to be treated like a professional. He's still a college kid. I don't care how much money he's making. These are still college kids. Even the NFL players thrive on routine, but it's like, but still it's these players need they are college players. And I know there's the NIL and all this other kinds of stuff. These are college players. And this is, and this has been true of Marcus Freeman's entire tenure. This is the maddening part. How do you, how does the team that curb stomped Drake May in North Carolina lose to Marshall two weeks prior? How does the team that curb stomped North Carolina and a ranked Syracuse team on the road and a quality BYU team on a neutral field and beat Boston college 44 to nothing and beat the number four team in the country by third 21 points lose it home to a one and four Stanford team that finished three and nine, including your win. And one of their other wins was over Colgate. How does this keep happening? This right here. How do you go on the road a week ago, play like you did against Texas A&M in a completely different football team shows up in this game and somebody's response because North Carolina never have an O line. That's why North Carolina has O line is why Drew Pine absolutely rip them up in that game. Like come give me something better than that. Please give me something better than that. And then don't ignore. Okay. What's the excuse for Clemson? What's excuse for BYU? How do you look like you did a week ago against Texas A&M and then look like you did it like this against against this? Here's how because you changed how your team prepared for this game. You told your team this game's different and not harder. You got to be more focused. They went hard on Tuesday and Wednesday. There was no need for that. Just have another normal week of practice. Then they went walk throughs I had and I've had this confirmed. I've had this confirmed. They basically walk throughs on Thursday and Friday and here's the problem. There's several problems with this and then I'm going to tell you why it hurts you against North Illinois and why this is a symptom of a bigger problem against Northern Illinois. What are the things we talked about all week? What are the things that I know you listen to my shows when you're, you know, cutting your lawn and stuff. You heard me mention this Vince. This is a very experienced football team at Northern Illinois. Yep. They have a lot of kids back. This is a very well coached football team at Northern Illinois. They do a lot of things offensively that give you a lot of problems. They're not a heavy blitz team, but they're very sound and very smart defensively, right? Everybody pressures on third down, first and second down, they're pretty basic. So then with your, what else did we say? Notre Dame is a football team on offense that has nine starters that are freshmen or sophomore eligibility. Two of your non, your two non freshener sophomores are seniors who are transfers who have been in the program less than your sophomores and the same amount of time as your freshmen. And you thought taking a day away from practice because you quote unquote went hard the first two days going hard doesn't mean you got more reps in. It doesn't mean that. Those means you were more physical. I'm fine with. I don't think it was needed, but I'm fine with it. So you take away and then you've got to go play this team and, and what is the, one of the main reasons for doing all that movement, it's to slow down the line. But what position group gets most impacted by all that stuff pre and post nap? What position group vents on defense gets most impacted by all the motions and shifts and back and who it's the, it's the, it's the linebackers bingo. What's your most inexperienced position group and what's the other one? The safeties. Yeah, right. Right. What's your most inexperienced position on your defense, your linebackers. And so you took a whole extra day of preparation to do walkthroughs with that team. What's Thursday usually about situational football? Guess where Notre Dame struggled on Saturday on defense situational football. Marcus Freeman made the right call on the third and two hold to move them back 10 yards. You and I said it before, and part of the reason we said it is because we just had a feeling they were going to convert it anyway. But we said, even if they converted, this is the right call. Yes. Because you have not stopped them on fourth. You have a better shot of stopping them on third 12 than fourth and two because it's game flow. Right. It's how the game is going at that point. And Notre Dame was terrible in short yardage defensively. And you don't want to give them that opportunity. So hey, push them back, you know, get, you know, yes, they get another down, but push them back. That's absolutely 100% the right call in that moment. But now you're in third and 12, third and 12. That sounds like a situation the most teams handle on Thursday's Vince when you're playing situational football, you know, four down situations. That sounds like something you do on third and fourth, you know, that some sounds like something you do. They converted seven, third or fourth downs against Notre Dame on Saturday, seven, third or fourth downs against Notre Dame on Saturday. You guys want to know why this team doesn't play consistently. There's no consistency to his preparation. You got this big win. This team's going to come in who's just going to lay down and die. And so you change your process for how you go about preparation. That's why this football team is up and down, Vince. Because you come in there one week and it's like, what was one of the things we heard about 22? They had a different theme every week. And eventually they were like, okay, we just got to stick with one theme. Duh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Consistency. Exactly. Yeah. And so when you, when you're going to do things like this, Vince, don't be shocked when your football team is unprepared on Saturday because you changed how your team prepared. You told your team they are not Texas A&M everybody. They already knew that. You confirmed it. You let them know we don't need to practice like we did. And so you want to know why this football team struggles to be the same. And I'm not, everybody has dips, Vince. Nobody plays the same way every week. Seasons are long, but there's a difference between what happened at Penn State where they fell behind 17 to 17 to bowling green and figured it out and went and won the game or Oregon falls and I thought Oregon was going to kill Boise State, by the way, because I thought they'd be pissed off how they played against Idaho, you know, but Oregon now two weeks in a row came out sluggish, fell behind twice, fell behind in the fourth quarter, but they figured it out in Alabama. So their dips are like this, but they end up winning. They dips, you know, you know, Georgia can't prepare for South Carolina mentally the same way that they're preparing to play a top team because it's South Carolina, but they fell behind early and they figured it out and they went out and they made the plays they needed to make to win. There's not the giant dips that we've seen under Marcus Freeman, where you've literally had two of the biggest upsets and Notre Dame history of, well, in my lifetime, both happened in the first 27 games of Marcus Freeman's 10. You know, they've had big wins too and that week was a big one beating number four Clemson in 2022, you blowing out USC last year, which was a big game. They ended up not being a big team, but that was a big game that they were ready for. You've got those and then you've got this, right? And so the conversation that we had, and I said this before, the problem with Brian Kelly is he was always just kind of right here, just right down the middle, never too high, never too low. Well, the problem with that is sometimes you need to get real high and up for a game. And so when they do, they consistently got their butts kit, Brian Coza, a very consistent coach. You knew they weren't going to win the big games and you knew they're going to beat everybody else's last five years. Yeah. Well, Marcus Freeman is the opposite. They are up for Clemson in 2022. They did get up for Ohio State last year. They did get up for Texas A&M and then they didn't show up for Marshall and didn't show up for Stanford and didn't show up for Northern Illinois. That's the problem. Right. Okay. You can't look at your football team and say, okay, teenagers, because when you're a team who's dominated, we're over half of your depth chart, a half of you're too deep right now are teenagers. You can't have all those freshmen and sophomore eligibility players, Vince, that are in their 20s. Yeah. This isn't BYU. I'll tell you what, man, the two punters really skew the age thing. I know, right. Yeah. Here at Goins and Rendell's 30 and 26. But here's the thing though, Vince, you still got a bunch of teenagers that haven't played a lot of football. Right. Exactly. And some of your veterans that you have, especially on offense, may be veterans, but they're not veterans for you. They're still newcomers. Correct. Chris Mitchell, Bull Collins, Riley Leonard and Jayden Harrison are playing their second game at Notre Dame. And you decided in the second freaking week of the season that we're going to alter how we prepare. No. Stick to the plan. Right. Now, the harder Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm actually okay with because that's sort of from the Lou Holtz philosophy of, hey, we're going to push you even harder this week to make sure you don't let down. But then you take a step back, you go the complete opposite direction on Thursday and Friday. You can't do that. You can't have your quarterback going in your line going out. And I'm not blaming the quarterback in the offensive lineman there. It's not like they set that autograph session up. You know, Notre Dame and and because everything goes through Notre Dame, you guys aren't doing stuff on their own. I mean, they might be, they might take something to Notre Dame be like, Hey, this is something we'd like to do, but right, make no, you know, make no mistake, especially during the season. Everything goes through Notre Dame. Right. And here's the thing. And this is kind of a point that Brandon was making in the chat events, I could somewhat live with a let down game against Northern Illinois, where you still win or even worse case scenario, you lose to a team like that, if you then show up, like, if Notre Dame would have got upset by Clemson last year, November, because they just overlooked a struggling Clemson team who still had talent, but, you know, it was banged up and they were wounded animal. I could have lived as that if you'd have beat Ohio State and Louisville, right, right. But, but to his point, they get up for certain big games, but not all of them, right. They were up for Ohio State mentally and emotionally and physically. They just didn't execute, right. That game was all about execution and preparation, but you were physically and mentally ready for that game. Same thing with Ohio State 2022. But why were you not ready for that against Louisville two weeks later, right. And so that's a big failure for coach Freeman. And that's one of the things that he's going to have to really come to great. He's going to absolutely need to come to Jesus moment when it comes to, you have to be able to look in the mirror and say, why is my football team so wildly swinging back and forth on the emotional pendulum? Yeah. I mean, you could see it, Vince. My wife saw it. Again, you guys understand it's just not this. She's a coach's wife. You know what I mean? Like she's watched a lot of football in her days. She's heard me talking about a lot of these things. She's heard me post game talking. She knows exactly. And I'm talking about when I was a coach. She can look at eyes and be like, and she's been a lot of Notre Dame games. She's been shooting. She's been on the sidelines of Notre Dame games events since 2015. She saw what the 2017 was about on game day. She saw what the 15 was about on game day. She saw what the 16 team was about on game day to her. She's a former athlete. She played. She was very good soccer player when she was young, right? So she's she's an athlete. She understands that looking your teammates eyes when you're about to play a big game. And she texted me. She's like, they're not taking this team seriously. My wife saw that. You know the coaches had to have seen that. Problem is by the time you get the game day, there's not a whole lot of buttons you can push. Right. And I made this point to a friend of mine today. And I think I made it on the show today or in the past, the Miami game in 1988. The big storyline is Lou Holt saved Jimmy Johnson's butt for me after the fight, right? Right. Yep. But the point I've made is that's what sent that team nuts. But they weren't cowering in their lockers, uncertain of whether or not they could beat Miami. Lou Holt comes in and gives that speech and now we're ready to know. They were already ready for that game. That was sort of that, you know, I'm holding. I got these dogs that want to go on the attack and I'm holding them back and I'm holding them back. And I just let it go. They were already on the gun. And that was Lou Holt saying and not only let them go, but give them a little smack on the button. Say, get them. That's what that was. But those dogs were ready for that fight. You know what I mean? Then and when did that happen? It didn't happen during the fight on the side in the tunnel. They weren't unprepared and not really sure if they were ready for that game and then the fight. No, they got in the fight because they were prepped for that game emotionally all week. Not because Lou Holt was hard on them all week. We said, look, no, we weren't. It's because they understood the moment and they had been prepared to go out there and play the bet. Be the best person. Marcus Freeman says this all the time, be the best version of yourself. And that is a great coaching point because that's way more important than let's go out there and win every game because if you're the best version of yourself, you will win every game on your schedule in 2024, if you're Notre Dame, the regular season. The problem is the head coach who I respect greatly as a human being who I think has loads of potential as a head coach. You know, I feel about that work potential, Vince. It's a both a blessing and a curse all at the same time. Oh, yeah. No doubt about that. You've got to be able to look in the mirror and say, I'm the head coach. We're not prepared for these these and we're we're like this emotionally. That's on us. We did not have this team prepared for this game on Saturday. And then don't just say it and then be like, okay, that'll never happen again. And then go do the same thing again, right, like that's what I'm talking about. That's what I what I mean when I say, you've got to be able to figure out and say, listen, this is on us and the problem of the Marcus Freeman has shown when he can when he properly prepares a team, they are physical and focused and they handle adversity, but what he has not been able to show is that they can he can get his team to respond like that every week. And not only every coach has that struggle to agree, but the problem is you're not being prepared is way down here where your team goes from taking it to tech. I mean, they took the fight to Texas A&M last week. That's what we talked about to then you come home the next week and you get your butt and feel, Oh, Notre Dame. And no, the Notre Dame crowd is never going to sound like Kyle Field at different audience, isn't that just get over it. It's never going to happen. Who cares? Like one thing's, I hate the new stadium environment, especially this year from what I saw said, because there's I can't hear the band ever. It's just nonstop. I'm at a disco or a club or what? You know what I mean? It's just like it's the DJ and the loud shouting girl and all that. It's like, guys, I don't care. I want to hear the band, but that's not why Notre Dame lost on Saturday. No, that's a fan preference. That has nothing to do with how that team played on Saturday. We're not going to pull a Florida state and be like, well, we didn't win because we don't go to do the chant. Okay. Yeah, that's lame that you guys went away from the chant lame third down to be Oh, that's what it should be. Right. I want to hear the band more. That's not why they lost. Right. They lost because you did not have your football team prepared prepared to play Monday to Friday. Like, what did there was a great quote in the comment that Jim trestle, you know, everybody's always can't play trussle ball well, schematically sure, but there's a lot of lessons you can learn from Jim trestle's football teams and germ trestle, I said, you don't, you don't win a championship in the spring, you can lose one. You don't win football games Monday to Friday, but you can lose them. You can absolutely lose them. No doubt. And this team was not prepared. They weren't prepared mentally. They were off their game. Like, you got to know it's the home opener. They're going to have a million things flying to them this weekend. We got to be overly protective of our players. Correct. No NIL stuff this week, guys, past Tuesday, get it done Monday, right? Go do when we don't, when we're not practicing, go do your autograph signing on Monday night, not Friday night Friday is all about the team. Our preparation is going to be locked. It's going to be locked in Tuesday. We're going to be harder on a more demanding of them same on Wednesday, Thursday. We are looking for perfection on Thursday in our normal practice and then Friday walk throughs. Now it's about, make sure we're mentally right and do all that kind of stuff. You went away from that and then you shouldn't be shocked. Like Mark, our team's ready to play and I'm like, no, they weren't. Right. I mean, in the first drive wasn't even all that impressive. They just kind of physically overwhelmed Northern Illinois a little bit on that first drive. Agree. Set some guys. It's kind of easy honestly. Yeah. It's kind of. Riley made some really good runs and Mitch 11s. They couldn't guard them and yeah, but it wasn't like, oh, wow, boy, they're ready to go. But it was like, yeah, this team's better than this team. And that's the way that it should go. It ended up with a touchdown and okay, you know what, that drive wasn't great, but they ended with a score. And when they get the ball back, you know, they'll continue to get better as the game goes on. Cool. I'm fine with that. You know what I mean? They had the ball back. They went three and out. Yeah. That's not prepared. They're not prepared. You're just you're you're not they were shell shocked after that touchdown. The whole team, not just the defense. The offense was shell shocked too, because they didn't expect to be back on the field in a tie game and they didn't handle it very well, in my opinion, and that's a problem. That's a big problem. And I, you know, you mentioned that it was the home opener, Brian, and this, this is one thing that really bothers me. It's the home opener, right? It's the first time in that stadium for a ton of guys, transfer guys, you know, younger guys as starters, last home opener for your captains, like this is, I don't care who the opponent is. It shouldn't matter who the opponent is. You should be locked in for that game, right? Weather was beautiful. Like it was in the sixties, like you can't ask for a better situation. I, I don't even understand how they overlooked Northern Illinois in this particular matchup because of what they bring on film. Okay. But I don't even care about that. This is the home opener, man, like how can you not be prepared for the home opener? So some internal motivation on that, right? And when you're a coach, you're always looking for ways to motivate your players and do some different things and, and some coaches get stale with the way that they try to motivate their, their teams and things like that. This is a gimme, man. Like this is a, the, you know, when, when you're a bat, when you're a hitter and you see that, that fastball coming in, it's like a watermelon, like this is a, this, they teed it up for them. It's the home opener, man. Like this should not be difficult to get your team motivated for it. If anything, it's, you got a temp, you should, yes, thank you, but like you've just got to make sure that there, but here's thing though, Vince, you know that in the home opener beyond all that, I agree with everything you're saying, but you know, there's a lot being thrown at them. Sure. First week. For sure. When there, when it's different when you're on campus, because once you leave, get on that plane on Friday, it is just y'all in your locker room, you get home, sure. And you got to be able to replicate that at home. You do. And, and they did not do a good job of that this week. And, and here's thing, if it was just this game, I would be like, you know what? You did a bad job, but you know, just get back on track and it'll be fine. The reason that we're making such sweeping conclusions about this game is because this isn't just this game. It's a pattern. It's a pattern. We've seen this before and this should have been behind us in 2022. We saw this team fail to show up for a Saturday night prime time national TV. You are still in the playoff hunt game against Louisville. Like I can almost understand the Clemson game. You weren't, you're no longer a playoff team. You're not getting in the cost. We'll play off. I get it. Louisville game. What's your excuse for that? Oh, too many night games. Really? Yeah. Right. Really? Okay. So you're tired being tired. Okay. But you can still be up for it. And, and there's clearly something that is being done or not done or maybe a little bit of both that prevents this team from showing any week consistency. You literally don't know what your, your going to see from this team from week to week. And that was true last year, just like it's true this year and until he can figure that out and fix that Vince, like this is what we said pre-season. When is this going to stop that? That's the big quite well. Is this going to be more like year one or year two or is there going to be maybe a little bit of combination of both? Well, so far this team looks a more a lot more like 2022 than it does 2023. Cause early last season, there ain't came out on fire now. It helps that you're, ah, you're playing Navy. Okay. So is Northern Illinois that much better than Navy? Right. Right. Okay. That much better than NC State. They, you know, like, I think they lost the Central Michigan last year, didn't they? Northern Illinois, I believe so. Probably. I mean, they, they were seven, they were seven and six. They made the, they made a bowl game because they were 500. I mean, Northern Illinois had a, or Central Michigan had to lose it. They were five and seven, but yes, they beat Northern Illinois, 37, 31. But yeah. They're named smack last year. Right. Now there are better team this year. We've talked about this. I think they're a Mac contender, but the absolute best team in the Mac should never, ever, ever compete with no name for four quarters and not only do they compete with their name for four, they outplayed Notre Dame and out coach or name for four quarters. Sure. There is never an excuse for that ever. And this is not the first time that this has happened. And until Marcus Freeman can look in the mirror and say, okay, this is what we're doing. We got to figure this out. There's something in our preparation. This doesn't just, they woke up on Saturday as a team in a funk. That doesn't happen. The team was not prepared for this game, whether you were too hard on them early in the week, like to me, it was a, it was a combination of mistakes. You went a little too, like when I'm, when, when we talk about Lou Holtz being hard on this team, it, for my understanding, talking to the players that played for him, it wasn't so much that they were going to have these even longer brutal practices. It was more so like the demand from them. They were going to push them more. They were going to criticize more. They were, you know, there were times when you needed to be a little bit more physical. And you could have pulled back on Thursday while still having a normal Thursday practice. You know, hey, we're more about speed and perfection today. We're not banging on each other today. Speed and perfection, speed and perfection, speed and perfection. Okay. Cool. But to lose basically a, a, a day of real preparation where you're flying around a ball of Vince, that's just no excuse for that. None. So when you, when you talk about all the issues, then that, that's kind of where, where you need to be. So we're going to talk a little bit about offense and defense Vince. Let's just talk briefly about the defense because, and then we'll go to the offense. For the defense Vince, you, you correct me if you can disagree with me. But what I'll say is this. The defense had a bad game. I'm not as concerned about the, the systemic problem because I think this was a bit more of a one off for this defense. The only concern I have is, is I'm a big fan of, I'm a big proponent of looking at trends. And I do that more and more and more. The, the, the longer I do this, sure, like just one bad game, it can happen. Sure. You have now backed to bat games where your D line underwhelms and underperforms, that's a concern for me when you're that experienced and you're two veterans who, who we're talking about being, you know, one of the besty tackle combos, et cetera, et cetera. You look back at last year and they played like that. That's why the expectations were there because how they played, it wasn't projecting anything else, it was what it was, well, we saw them do that. Now it's two games in a row that they haven't played well. Agreed. And it's not just them. It's the whole D line. Correct. Josh Burnham's about the only guy that really impressed, Boba Carr had a couple of plays, but there was a couple, Boba Carr flash stakes, yeah, but he played hard. Yeah. Josh Burnham was the best guy that they had on Saturday. Right. RJ Oban's been, for two games, I know RJ Oban has been MIA. I mean, I'm about ready to put him on a milk carton. Right. I mean, Riley Miller has had two, me, he made a couple big plays on Saturday, you know, but he has to be working system where Burnham made that stop from behind. That play happened because Riley came off and just drove the guard into the running back, made him bounce. Yeah. Exactly. But then we talk about the 83-yard touchdown. Well, here's the thing that was, I think, third, second or third down. Here's the deal, Vince. If they don't, if they break up that pass, it's still a first down because Riley Mills got, got called for hands of the face. Right. Great pass rush, great pass rush drills the quarterback, then he comes down with a club on the face. Dude, that's football 101, bro. It's like 2024. You can't do that. You're a three-year starter, man. Right. You know that you can't do that. You know? Like, so it wasn't even close. Like, Patel Ho was solid, but he had his fair share of mistakes, but he hustled at least. There just was a lot of -- oh, I thought Onye was solid, but that's it. Nobody's playing really well outside of -- I guess I thought Burnham played really well. We're looking for disruptive, you know, to harm him back to me. And by the way, he got banged up at the end of the game. Well, I was gonna say, do you know how he's doing because that worries me. I do, but I'm sure Marcus Freeman will announce tomorrow. Okay. We'll discuss that tomorrow. Fair enough. But you're now two weeks in a row that your D line played well, did not play well. I'm not trying to start another bash out Washington session, but the reality is, is when your position group's not playing well, the position coach has to figure it out. Al Washington has to figure out, recognize why your unit's not playing well and fix it. But here's the other thing too, man. Yes, Al Washington needs to find some answers and get this group going. It's not acceptable. You're the position coach. But you got a team captain, another guy that everybody thought was gonna be a team captain because he's the preseason, all American, they've got it at more than anything. Out Washington needs to make some changes as a coach. Any coach that's worth a darn will say, when my group's not playing well, I've said this a meantime, Vince, if you got a kid or two, not playing well, that's usually those kids need to step up. When you've got a group where a big chunk of your group isn't playing well, then that's on you. Right. But that's also on your veterans. The leadership. Yes. It's Riley Mills, where's Howard Cross in that regard? That's an issue. Right. No doubt. No doubt. And it's been an underwhelming group. There's no doubt about it. And I think, you know, the linebackers regressed a little bit in this game from where we saw them in week one. That you're going to see a little bit of that from them. For sure. Because of the youth, right? Like a Don Schuller didn't play very well in this game. We said there's going to be some ups and downs with him a little bit. You're a young kid. Your D line though. That's where it started. Tip of the spear, right? I mean, they need to. But they're old. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Very underwhelming defensively. But I and again, am I worried about the defense? No, but I am because they were so good last week Vince. That's my thing is like, I don't want to spend a lot of time on them because like, okay, if they have another game like this soon, then we can be like, Hey guys, there's every unit good or bad has an off game. And for me, because of patterns and trends, I view this as the defense is just like is an off game. Now, again, that's what I said. The D line is the one part that I'm a little concerned about. Sure. Sure. Right. I expect the linebackers to be a little bit of this because they're young. I expect the Don Schuller and Christian Gray to be a little bit of this because they're young. When you're D line that's got six year and fifth year seniors all over it and they're not playing well and they're not playing hard as they need to. Right. That's a problem. All the defense was brilliant in week one. They were not in week two. Right now, I'm just checking on it as a off game. Sure. Until I have a reason to think that I'm fine with that. I mean, look, you know, I was told this at least 74 times yesterday, you know, they only gave up 16 points, got it, but they still didn't play well. They still didn't play well. And they didn't they didn't play well when they needed to play well on that last drive. Okay. Yes. They only gave up 16 points. That's great. That's one stat. You gave up guys, you gave up six yards of play right against Northern Illinois. Right. Bingo gave up 388 yards and here's the thing. They get the ball at the end of the game. You're winning 14 to 13. Correct. No, the defense should not have been put in that position agreed, but they got the ball with 555 left, converted three third, two third downs and a fourth down to get into field goal territory and kick a field goal with 30 seconds left in the game. Correct. Yes. The offense played horrible. You shouldn't have to hold a team to 13 points to win games, but just like Ohio State last year, yes, offense, problem, fix it, but you had a chance to make a stop at the end of the game and win the game and you couldn't do it. Yeah, I mean, that's the bottom line for me. I defense can play great the whole game, but they can't, they can't get, they can't give up points there. You just, you just, you just can't give up points there period. If you're going to be an elite defense, you can't give up points there and as bad as everything was going in that game, when, when they got the ball there at that moment, Notre Dame was winning. Notre Dame was winning. Just got to protect the lead. They were over one first down away from being in field goal range. Oh, yes. Yeah. Terrible ball by Ryan Leonard should not have put them in that situation. No, gosh, no. They didn't return it into field goal range. They, they started that drive at midfield 50 yard line almost exactly, wasn't it? Yep. Yeah. 50 yard line. You just can't let them score there. I mean, we're having a completely different conversation. Are we still calling out and we're still watching the film? We're seeing all the mistakes over having a different conversation because Notre Dame's two and L. Now, should they have won by one point? It's ridiculous. Right. But it's still a win. Right. And you can still build off of that. Yep. So yeah, that, that, that was my three units stepped up and make, made plays to help you beat Texas A&M. All three units in the fourth quarter of that game made mistakes allowed, allowed, that caused you to lose that game. All three. Yep. Absolutely correct. All three. Yep. No doubt about it because miss field goal to two of them bottle. I don't put the second one on the field goal unit, but they, the first one got to keep those guys arms down. I mean, come on, man, somebody said, but they stopped them on fourth down, not the first one. And here's think Vince, they had a fourth and two at the 31 yard line. Stop them right there. Ball games over. It did exactly. It converted it. It converted it. That's the problem. Yes. Yeah. That was awful. You had your shots and you didn't make the stops. Right. Did not mean to rhyme there. So the, the big thing is the offense. Yes. Yes. 100%. Let's talk offense. I mean, you can start, look, you can start with the comments. So, so let's just talk about, let's talk about that because that, that to me. At the end of the day is the problem that has to get addressed. Yes. Cause we're going to talk about how do you fix things? Correct. Okay. That, that's what we're going to talk about here. How do you fix things? And at the end of the day, my whole point about Riley Leonard and some people just refuse to understand this. I literally said in the article, okay, I'll read it again. The problem is no, you read the article, you read the article, whatever. Eric's performance is the symptom of a much deeper sickness. This isn't at all a defensive Leonard's play. He was brutal in the lost, nor the, nor lost to Northern Illinois. And if not for some late game heroics against Texas A&M, we'd be having an even harsher conversation today. The play is not defensible. But if you want to have a real conversation about what's going on in your name, you need to look beyond the surface. And that's what Notre Dame needs to do because this is not unique to Riley Leonard. It's the same conversation we've been having for years. And this is even before Marcus, this didn't start with Marcus Freeman. He was supposed to fix it and he hasn't. And here's the point. This is a comment that, that Marcus Freeman made in the game. And people told us about this during the show and I hadn't heard it because you and I are not watching the, we're watching, we're at the stadium, we're watching the game. We have the broadcast on to, we have the broadcast on so that we can like watch replays, but we're not listening to the broadcast, right? So Vince, what were you trying to say there? You were, you're muted. So I could. Sorry about that. I was just going to say we have it on, but no sound like we, and the reason we have it on is because it's delayed. And so we can watch things, you know, basically a replay essentially, but anyway, sorry about that. So here's the deal. So Marcus Freeman, the, the Zora Stevenson asked coach Freeman a very fair legitimate question. She talks about how Riley Leonard said that, you know, he didn't play well in the first game. He's got a lot to prove this week. He wants to be more. He knew he's conserving going to be more aggressive once it got make plays and throw the ball down the field to which Marcus Freeman said, and at first I'm thinking like, all right, this wasn't that bad. His first comment is just play within the offense. We don't need anything spectacular. I'm like, all right, I get that, I have no problem with that comment. So far, not, not, not big, not a big problem, right? Then he goes on to say, do exactly what your coaches tell you to do. Play within the game plan and the rest will take care of itself. I'm thinking, okay, I don't love that, but it's still not terrible. Then he says this, if we start trying to make plays and throw the ball down the field, then all of a sudden we're playing out of character. Just do exactly what we want you to do and the rest will take care of itself. My response is if that's your philosophy on offense, why in the heck did you go out and get Riley Leonard as your quarterback in the portal? Riley Leonard is a street baller that you went out to bring to your team and then you said, hey man, stop being a street baller. A buddy of mine had a great analysis. He says you don't recruit Alan Iverson and put him in the Princeton offense. Right. Good call. You don't draft Magic Johnson to be John Stockton. You don't draft John Stockton to be Magic Johnson. You bring this kid in and you say, we recruited you because you are a pain in the butt to defend. You were a pain in the butt to prepare for because you did what? Not because you perfectly executed the Duke offense. It's because you would do things off script. You were a playmaker. You could be struggling to throw the ball, but you'd still go out and make plays because you're a street baller. Why in the heck do you recruit Riley Leonard to Notre Dame and then say, stop being you. Why do you recruit Sam Hartman to Notre Dame and say, stop being you be this? I don't understand it. If you're going to recruit Riley Leonard to Notre Dame, then let Riley be Riley and you're not doing that. Yeah. It's one thing. Riley's got to play way better. Sure. But when we talk about why the offense struggles under Marcus Freeman, that's what I'm talking about. It's that mindset of you want a robot. You want a robotic quarterback. You brought in a street ball quarterback and told him to stop playing street ball. Right. So then you want. And here's the thing. Well, why does that matter? So here's my thing, man. Here's my thing. I said this in the show. I said, if you wanted a game managing robot, you should not have gone and brought in Riley Leonard. You're bringing him in and saying, don't be you. And then you wonder why he doesn't look comfortable. Because you're asking him to be something he wasn't or isn't. Let him be himself. And if himself is not good enough, then you make the move, but you don't have a guy fail by doing something. He's not. They did the same thing with Donovan Highness on defensive tackle. But this is the whole point and this is this was true of Riley Leonard. This was true of Tyler Buckner. You bring this kid in to be this guy. And you kind of did that against A&M, going for a fourth down and all that. But then you get to this game and it's like, okay, just play, do exactly what the coaches tell you to do. What? Do you know who you have a quarterback like that? Could you imagine if Brian Kelly and Mike Denmark would have said that to Jayden Dank just do exactly what we tell you to do? Don't go beat. Don't be a playmaker. When anything spectacular, they'd have been four and eight last year, if that was true. Why would you bring in Riley Leonard if that's who you want to be? It doesn't make any sense. Light it. Hey Irish breakdown listeners, it's Urban Meyer. This fall, the game changes. Join me. Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram and broadcaster Rob Stone as we bring you a new perspective on football and culture every week. We will be joined by the biggest name in sports and talk about everything inside and outside of the lines. Let us guide you through a new era of college football. Watch triple option on YouTube or listen on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. Hey Irish breakdown listeners, it's Matt Liner. I've got a podcast called Throwbacks with actor Jay Farar, where we'll be talking all things sports, but also so much more. We'll give you the behind the scenes stories from my days as the quarterback on an iconic college football team to Jerry's days as a star on an iconic TV series. So subscribe to Throwbacks on YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. It is the other thing that I want to bring up is, you know, we talked last year about, you know, bringing in Sam Hartman and how, you know, one of the reasons he came was to be part of a pro style offense, right? And so they did ask him to do some different things than what he was used to. But now you compound that with the Riley Leonard experiment. And now you're seeing a trend. You know what I mean? Like, you can almost explain away one, but now we've got two and it's becoming a disturbing trend that they're bringing in these guys and asking them to do things that they're not that that's not what they do. You know what I mean? Do you know who you say that to? Do you know who you, you know who you say that exact comment to Steve Angeli making his first home start? Kenny Menchie, red shirt freshman making his first home start, CJ Carr, true freshman making his first home start. That's who you say that to, right, not to your senior quarterback. That's a three year starter who's a who's a baller who's got over 1,200 rushing yards the last two years, despite missing half of a season. You don't say that to the guy that's got what 20 career rushing touchdowns who your entire game plan in the first quarter was guilt built around on the first drive. And then you went away from it. You don't say do exactly what you're going to do. And I would have said this Vince, I would say that that's just coach speak. If I didn't see them actually go out there and play that way after the fact. That's the problem. It's like what Marcus and here's the, you know what the frustrating thing is? There's so many things that Marcus Freeman's doing incredibly well. It has a head coach in our game so incredibly well. And that's why this team is as talented as it is. That's why they can go on the road and beat Texas A&M and beat the crap out of Clemson two years ago and beat the crap out of North Carolina and go toe to toe to Ohio State last year for 60 minutes. You know, as like somebody says, it's been two games. Oh, a lot of overreaction chill out everyone. No, buddy. It's not two games. We have been here before, it was the whole season last year. It was 2022. It's Marshall. It's Stanford. It's Louisville last year. It's Clemson. You lost to a Clemson team that had what lost two games in a row and it was out eight starters. And they kicked your butt physically in the trenches. If it's not for Xavier Watts having to pick like a borderline pick six at the start of the second quarter or second half, that game's even close. They were down 24 to six at halftime. This isn't just about two games because Byron's comment is right. If this was just, we didn't have this in the past and they just played really bad against Northern oil. Like guys, you were making a way too much out of this, but it's not just this. This is a pattern. This is a pattern. This is a pattern on our offensive end. So what do you do to fix it? Play to your player's strengths because you got it. If you're Notre Dame, let's just talk short term. Let's talk right now. You have two decisions to make. They involve Riley Leonard. First one is why is he playing so poorly compared to what he was coming in here? Is it us or is it him? Are we putting him in position to be successful? Are we playing to his strengths? Are we giving him enough freedom to go make mistakes as long as you're also making plays? Riley Leonard is so afraid of making a mistake that he won't make certain throws. Then in the fourth quarter with the game on the line, you say, okay, now let's throw down the field. And then you're shocked that he can't hit that throw or read that play. You haven't asked him to do that the entire game. Let him be a playmaker or if you are dead set on running structured offense that way, which I would say is a mistake, then put another guy in the game, either let the kid be himself and build around his talent or put somebody else in the game. But you are putting this kid in position to fail. That's what you're doing with Riley Leonard. You're putting him in position to fail. And again, my point to Vince is the Tyler Buckner, perfect example. Now Riley Leonard is a much better quarterback than Tyler Buckner was at the time. First two games of the year, they were real structured with Tyler. Do exactly what we're telling you to do, had a couple of design runs, but all the scrambling street ball stuff Tyler did a year before they got rid of took it away. In the first two games, the offense can't do Jack. Tyler only had like what the one interception, I think, in the first couple games, you know, late, right? Let me go look at that. Let me go. I just want to make sure that I'm I'm accurate, but he had the real bad pick six, right? But at that point time, it's a group behind. You've got to now go make plays and all this other kind of stuff, right? So then you go into, you go into the, he gets two picks in the game. He's afraid to make mistakes, which then leads you to mistakes. Then you come out in a bowl game and they pretty much with Tyler had an effort mentality. I'm just going to let the kid go play. He threw three picks, two pick sixes, and they won. Why? Because he made a ton of plays in that game. They couldn't handle his run. He's throwing bombs down the field, hitting Brayden Lindsey on a bootleg bomb. All right. Stuff they didn't let him do him before. And you know what I mean? Now, is it okay that Tyler had three interceptions? No, it's not okay at three interceptions. But when you let him play, and say I'm going to live with these mistakes, because you're also getting the playmaking, right? That's the whole point. When you try to have him be this rigid, run the offense game manager, not only did he still make mistakes, but you lost all the playmaking exactly. When you let him be a playmaker, you still get the mistakes. You try to clean those up, get the playmaking. Your team goes out and scores 45 points and wins in a ballgame that a lot of people thought you might struggle in. He was, he was, and played all year. What's he going to do? When he, he was dominant in that game, he cleaned up the mistakes and all that, right? Well, same thing here. Let turn the kid loose or put him on the bench, because you're not doing him a, you're doing him a disservice and you're doing a team of disservice by trying to say, well, we'll let him be him at times, but at other times we want him to be this, you brought, if you want that, put in a young kid that you can mold, you brought in a senior who had established himself as something that you thought was a problem for you. And now you're asking to not be that. You went out and got Sam Hartman because of, he was a gunslinger at Wake Forest, gunslinger turned the ball over a little bit and you tried to turn them into a robot, a robot that was then became, became afraid to really take those chances he took at Wake. And what happened, he still had the bad turnovers because he was so gun shy that he would then force mistakes and his, his mind starts not, Riley Leonard has never been this bad from a processing standpoint ever, including as a red church, as a true source more, making his first couple starts. Again, guys, we're not talking about, oh, he's not good enough to be Georgia. This is Northern Illinois, so that's the whole point, is you brought this kid in, let him be himself or move on, or move on, that's the first decision. Now once they make that decision, the second step is Marcus Freeman still has to understand that you can't play football with your offensive players with so puckered that they're afraid to make a mistake and afraid to let loose. I see a lot of robots on, that's why I use the word robotic on purpose. We've talked about this for years. When your receivers are so afraid to make a mistake and your lineman and your quarterbacks, they're going to look slow because everything is like, you got to do it exactly this way. You've got to let them play, you got to turn them loose. Jayden, Chris Mitchell is at Fort International running by dudes that are no better than the kids he played on Saturday. Let him. But now he doesn't look fat. How did he come to Notre Dame to get slower? Explain that to me. Makes no sense. Let him eat, let him feast. I don't care who you have a quarterback, you can't have this, and this is the problem with defensive coaches. Kirby had the same problem his first couple of years, which is why they had some of the issues they had in his first year. You can't be so mistaken first that you just, you can't do anything. He's coaching offensively scared, right? I mean, because he's so afraid of turning the ball over. And look, we had the same complaint about Brian Kelly, right? And we had, look, it feels like a broken record in my head when we talk about quarterbacks being afraid to make a mistake, because that's been a problem for a decade at Notre Dame, because it was beaten to their head by Brian Kelly. And unfortunately now it's beating beat into their head by Marcus Freeman. Don't make a mistake. Don't make a mistake. Don't make a mistake. Now these guys are afraid to pull the trigger because they're afraid to make a mistake. They have to let Riley Leonard be Riley Leonard, or they need to move on from Riley Leonard. He played awful. No one is saying that he didn't and it's not, you know, he didn't play awful because they're not letting him play, right? He's played, he had a bad game, regardless of the philosophy of the, you know, the direction of the offense. He played poorly and I want to be very, very clear. I've got the chat off, but I want to be very clear that we are saying he played poorly, but it is still bigger than that, because you're not allowing him to play the way he's played his entire career. So play bad, but you've got to let him open it up a little bit. And when I mean by open it up, let him run the ball, play his style, his style, his way of playing, which by the way, was the exact same way that Mike Dembrock had a quarterback that won the Heisman Trophy. All right. Well, in this, okay. So like, let's just say hypothetically, well, but he's not okay. Fine. He's certainly Desmond Ritter. He's certainly DeShawn Kaiser. You, you know what I mean? Like the end of the day, Vince, no matter who your quarterback is, if you, if you decide Riley was not your guy, okay, that's fine. It doesn't change the overall principle. So you can then bring a CJ car and then turn him into a robot. The whole point is you have to understand Kirby Smart goes out and gets Todd Monkman in 2021. They didn't go away from Kirby's overall philosophy of, you know, we're going to be a balanced offense and I don't want a million turnovers, but they played more loose. They took more shots. And it didn't, you know, you still had, you know, you had like 11 interceptions in 2021 as an offense. I think in 2020, yeah, you know, you turned the ball over a little bit more and, you know, 11 and then, but in 19, you only had six picks, you know, but in 2019, you had 30.8 points a game in 2021 with the almost twice as many interceptions. You have average 38.6 points per game and won a national championship. You know, I mean, you scored over 30 points against Michigan and scored over 30 points against Alabama, you know, because why? With stats and fricking Bennett at quarterback, right, exactly. So, you know, it comes down to you don't need to be this wide open, throw the ball down the field a million times, but you got to be willing to say, Hey, we're going to, we're going to let these kids play loose and free and get after it, especially when you're young and you have this type of there's already that built in lack of confidence that these kids have because they're young, you got to let them play a little bit. You got to learn to live with mistakes of younger players sometimes and the defense did that last week. They went with those, I'm sorry, go ahead, Mitch. I was just going to say, when you said that you've got to let them play loose and free, you know, he's letting that happen defensively, let it happen offensively, like it just came into my head when you said that I was he's the head coach. He should be able to see both sides of the ball. He's allowing these young guys to play fast and play free and do all of these things on the defensive side, but then he's just got these handcuffs on the offensive side. You've already got the philosophy, just let the offense have the same philosophy. That's it. I mean, easier said than done, I guess, but I don't think it is. So we've already seen that he can do it on one side of the ball. I need to see you do it on the other side of the ball. That's the side that you're not used to. Yeah. Exactly. Because you've got that defensive coordinator mentality of you can't put them in a bad spot. I'm like, well, no, you don't want to, but it's going to happen sometimes anyway. So why not get like, I said this uses example with Sean Watson. I mean, why was DABO willing to live with 17 interceptions from Deshawn Watson in 2016? Because if you do the things you have to do to get rid of those interceptions are things that also get rid of your playmaking. Correct. Correct. Now, that doesn't mean you just live with every interception and Deshawn made some dumb interceptions, but you don't overreact to it. You correct it. You don't overreact to it because you also know that he also made these three insane plays in that game that he wouldn't have made if we would have done these other things. And so that's the thing is, is at the end of the day, you've got, you bring, why did you bring in Chris Mitchell to run a bunch of quick outs and stop routes? Like if you're going to run the, and this is the whole, this is the thing, Vince, you have to play to your personnel or and recruit to what you want to do. So let's just say hypothetically that they don't have the players to run the offense he wants to ring. Run. Then why are you recruiting the guys you're recruiting? Why are you going out there and getting Elijah Burris's and Logan Saldate's and Cam Williams's and Chris Mitchell in the portal and Jaden Harrison in the portal. If you're going to run an offense where you're receiving core in reality, Bo Collins should be your smallest guy. Like if you want to run the offense, you're trying to run, then go recruit like they did in the 20 for the 2018 offense. Give me a six, four kid outside there and a big six, four kid outside there and we're just going to play big boy football. But why are you recruiting these type of athletes and then running nothing but, and it's like, yeah, okay, Mike Denbrox, the person who's responsible for it now, but you then look at kind of it's the same thing last year. Do some stuff to scheme these guys open and they did it at times, but not in the big moments. Right. And it's been an issue for a while. It's been, it's been an issue for a while, Vince, where you, you bring in this kid, you bring in Chris Mitchell and then you're not letting Chris Mitchell do the things that made him effective at FIU, right? You bring in both columns and half his catches are on tunnel screens. It's like, okay, that's great, but eventually people are going to figure that out. You got to throw the ball down the field with him as well. Right. I mean, he made a pretty good catch late in the game and where was that ball? Here's thing that anyone that was at that game knows there was plenty of one on one opportunities outside. Didn't do it. Yep. Didn't do it. Especially a second half of the game. Right. Actually the second half of the game. Right. I mean, again, it does feel like it was like watching an Ian book offense. It's like, okay, go ahead, throw the ball. Right. Do it. Right. We're going to stop you from running the ball. Go ahead and throw it. And that was the beef when we talk about Ian. Right. Exactly. In the big games, just let it go. Throw it down the field. So it's just repeat after repeat after repeat and it's a different head coach and it's still not good enough. And I was hoping that by bringing in my den Brock, he was going to kind of loosen the reins on the offense. Like that was my hope in the off season. And based on a lot of the stuff that we saw and when we were in practice, it was okay, we're going to loosen the reins on the offense. And I know some people will say like, you know, hey, den Brock is doing what he wants to do. And I'm like, maybe he is. But my whole point is when there's an overall philosophy of what we've seen under Marcus Freeman and what he has said, right, what he has said he wants him to be. Right. Yes. I just don't understand why you, why you, why you do that. But I don't understand why you bringing a, if you want to do that, then go hire someone that's from the Jim Harbaugh tree, right, that's going to run 12 personnel with motions and shifts or the David Shaw, yeah, David Shaw tree at Stanford, that's going to run all that stuff. I don't, you're, you're, you're in an 11 personnel offense and you're not, and you're playing slow. Correct. And I don't mean slow. I mean, they, they push the tempo at times. I mean, slow, like everything you're doing is methodical. There's no, there's no urgency to what they're doing. And that's been an, an issue for how long? Right. You know, no, because like, like some, like, like Andrew Gilmore, what we wish to QB was like in book who threw for 250 yards many times. Okay. First of all, okay. Here's the issue. The problem with Ian book is yeah, he would do that against teams at stunk, but he never did that in his good teams. You know what? This team, Ian book would not have struggled to throw the ball against this team. This would have been a game where he had yards and touchdowns because this is where he excelled. Yes. And I'm no Ian book supporter, but this is not a game where Ian would, but this is where you are now though, right, where you take a kid who did what he did at Duke. And now you've said, okay, but we're not going to have you do that here. Right. Sometimes we'll let you run, but he's, he's structured, right? He structured the point that we're making about Ian is he wouldn't do it when it was really on the line, right? Because you were so afraid to make a mistake in those moments. Now we're seeing this team even pucker up in games like this. And the first thing is that's not what they did last year. We're back to 2022 stuff. You know, we're back to 2020 stuff where you've got a dual threat quarterback that you're trying to not be a dual threat quarterback and except for the couple of times you want him to be. He either is or he isn't. And if you don't want that in your offense, then put in Steve and jelly, put in Kenny Minci or put in CJ car. Personally, I'd put in Kenny or CJ if you're not going to let him be that, then make the move. Yeah. Completely agree. That's my thing. So yes, so we can talk about all these different things, but if you're not willing to loosen the reins up a little bit, correct, to be more aggressive. When you say this, Vince, and this is kind of where we're going to land a plane. When your head football coach says this, just play within the offense. We don't need anything spectacular to exactly what your coaches tell you to do. Play within the game plan and the rest will take care of itself. If we start trying to make plays and throw the ball down the field, then all of a sudden we're playing out of character just to exactly what we want you to do and the rest will take care of itself. Did you imagine saying that to, I mean, I don't even want to give those names because like he's not Lamar Jackson, he's not DeShawn Watson, but like Holmes, you know, like, yeah, the reality is is you have to, he's the same style, right as those guys, it's not the player they are. And we're not saying that he is. Same style. Correct. It's the mindset. Right. Remember we heard all about, you know, and again, I'm going to use the example, but we heard all about, you know, when when Lamar went to the, to the Ravens and how they had to kind of adjust their offense to fit what he does best and allows him to shine. That's what we're talking about. You have to allow Riley Leonard to shine at what he does best. And I know there's people out there who don't think he does anything well. Right. And they just pull a scholarship and kick them off the team. I get it. Right. But the, the point is it has to be a philosophical change. Right. And if not, then like you said earlier, you need to go back to, is he the right guy within the offense that we want to run? Right. Because if this is the offense you want to run, I don't think he's the guy for you. No, but even if you make that change and you go to one of the other guys, now we're more of a Sam Hartman type of quarterback and we had the same problem last year. Fair enough. Got to loosen the reins up a little bit. Right. Here's the final point for this year's team, specifically right now, who are your playmakers figure out more ways to get them to football? And if right now you're two best playmakers or Jeremiah Love and Jadarion Price and it's not even close, you've got to figure out more ways to get them to football and you've got to figure out ways to get them on the field together. Right. Because right now you're, you're just not that team. Right. Make the defense wrong. Yes. Figure it out. That's all fine. Yep. But you've got, there's no excuse for on the game winning drive when you're trying to beat Northern Illinois, you've got two guys on your football team that have proven that they can go be playmakers in space and in turn short plays into big plays, two of them. And on that game winning drive, when Notre Dame's trying to go down and win the game, they were both standing over by the coaches. Right. And you tried to hand the ball off to Devin Ford and the Nia's wins. Nice football players. At some day we may be talking about a Nia's like we're talking about Jeremiah. Right. But he's a true freshman. Darian. But he's not there right now. Yeah. Those other two guys have proven themselves in big moments and in games. I mean. And they're more dynamic. Right. And in this football game, Jeremiah Love, they played 62 snaps on Saturday. Jeremiah Love was only on the field for 31 snaps. Jadarion Price was only on the field for 13 snaps. Devin Ford and the Nia's Williams combined for more snaps than Jadarion Price, who basically won you last weekend's game or at least gave you the spark to win last weekend's game. And he had three carries. Jeremiah Love rips off a touchdown that gives you the lead early in the third quarter and he touches the ball one time after that. That's not on Marcus Freeman. Right. Most dynamic play of the day. That's more. Marcus Freeman is not in heads and hey, hey guys, no more touches for Jeremiah and Jadarion. Right. They're they're they've reached their quota. They're done. The pitch count. Right. We're taking them out. inexcusable. Right. inexcusable. And and those are things that have to get fixed. There's no excuse for Jadarion Price only up there to and look, I understand Devin Ford's your third down back. But again, guys, when it's it's it's winning time. When it's winning time, you don't have your best person. It's the same thing we said last year against Ohio State. It's winning time. You don't take Audrey off the field. Now what Devin had done all game was great, but it's winning time now. Seven stays on the field. You just gassed him for a 10 plus yard run that moved the chains and you took seven off the field and guess what happened after that Vince crap went downhill. Four and 24 are dominant players. And when the game was on the line, you had them on the sidelines. So right now Notre Dame is trying to install an offense and I understand it, but they need to start thinking about, okay, now you have two games to figure out who you are. Now it's time to say four 24 need more touches. We got to figure out a way to get 10 going. We got to figure out a way to get one going and there's and two and four 24 and four combined need more touches and absolutely need more touches in different ways. Use them also to set up other things, fake a screen, pump, throw deep. Give me. Yeah. Those are your play makers. Back to play that. They had a guy go in jet motion, they faked the jet as their running back runs a wheel route wide open. Could you imagine a scenario where Jeremiah Love is coming on a jet sweep and Jadarion is going to lead block? You don't think they're thinking about coming down to stop those studs as Jadarion sneaks right past them for a big play. Where's that? Where's that? There's no creativity. This is not the Mike then Brock offense I've seen in the past. Not that's not just on Marcus Freeman. That's on Mike Dembrock. Also, you got to figure out how to get these guys going. Mike Dembrock's a great football coach. He's proven it at three different stops. He didn't just forget how to coach football. Right now, they're struggling to figure out who they are as a team. And I understand the offensive line is a problem. That's only more reason to do some of the stuff we're talking about because the stuff we're talking about doesn't require as much dominance from the offensive line. Exactly. What's been the best, most consistent play for Notre Dame so far this season? Inside zone. Nope. Nope. Consistent. Reminder screens. Tunnel and now screens. True. That's true. I don't know if they got the right guys running them, but yeah. Why not get Jane Harrison one of those? That's on the same. We're just Mitchell one of those, right? Like Bo's doing a great job, but like, oh yeah, he won't give it to Bo. I'm trying to see what they've got right now. But yes. You're going to take in. Do some things over here. Right. Exactly. And you got to come out and get your guys going, get them and do something to get your playmakers established early. That was always something that I believe then as a coach. Who are my most explosive players? What can we do to get them to football early? Bingo. And they're not doing that in the past game, in my opinion. You got to do something this week that we got to get 10 going, got to get 10 going. What'd you bring in here for? You'd be a rotation guy. You got to get him going, right? You've got to loot. Hey, hey, this is, let's just say for a second Marcus Freeman's not the reason that the offensive struggle invents. Then you know what they need to do. Hey, coach, Dan Brock, and we got to turn to loose, man. We got Chris, we brought Chris Mitchell here for a reason. Okay. He's not Malik neighbors. So what? Don't ask him to be. Yeah. Exactly. He's better than the kids in Northern Illinois. So is Bullcott. So is Jay. We got to get these guys going. 24 and four together. We need to do more things in the past game to get them rolling, right? So we're going to rep the heck out of some of this stuff that got to turn it loose. We got to score more points. We got to be more aggressive. If you're not the reason that they're behind, then you need to be the reason that you push them. Let's just say we are dead wrong on our Rita Marcus Freeman in the office. Let's say we're dead wrong. Then he needs to go in the offensive room and say, Hey guys, we need more from you. Be more aggressive. Turn it loose. What can I do with our practice preparation to make sure you guys have the work time you need to go out there and be a more consistent, efficient, and explosive offense. What can I do? What can we do better? Because this is what's required. Coach Dan Brock, I brought you here because you had coached the number one offense in the country last year. Got to get her going. If he's not the reason that they're held back, then he needs to really make sure he puts pedal to the metal and says we got to be more. You got Riley Leonard, coach, let her rip. But based on the comments that Marcus Freeman has made, here's the thing, that comment he made before the game is not an anomaly. No, it's not new at all. He said stuff like this before. And if it wasn't further, here's the problem. It's not coach because Marcus Freeman is one of the most open and honest coaches in college football. When he says something, you better believe that that's what he's telling his players to because then we go see on Saturday. Right. And he keeps saying, Hey, we got to run the ball. We got to do this. I do. You know what? Like, this, this isn't 2000. You know what I mean, Vince? Yeah. At the risk of going down a rabbit hole, I do want to bring this up. Marcus Freeman to his credit has surrounded himself with two talented coordinators who have been around the game for a very long time, right? Do you think it is the responsibility of one or both of those coordinators when things aren't going the way they think they should go to go to the head coach, be like coach? I think this is what we need to do offensively to get where we need to be. You know what I mean? Like Mike Dembrock has seen what offense, you know, he's seen offenses work, right? He's seen SEC offenses. He's coached an SEC offense. He's coached the number one offense in the country. Is this a time where he goes to Marcus Freeman is like, look, coach, I know what your overall philosophy is, but right now that's not working and it's not conducive to what we have with the pieces that we have, let me do X, Y, Z to get things back in shape. What do you think? Do I think he should do that? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, should he or and or will he? If he if he is being held back, yes, he should. If this was his call, then that meeting needs to be happening on the other person's needs to be happening on Marcus Freeman's term fair. If Marcus Freeman is holding Mike Dembrock back, right? Then he needs to go in there and have that conversation, okay? If he's the problem, if he's not if he's the problem, if he's the one that's determining what we're seeing right now, then Marcus Freeman is going there and have a conversation with Mark with Mike Dembrock gotcha, right? So yes, a conversation needs to be had because look, guys, when you when you lose at home to Northern Illinois, it's not a sucks. Let's move on to next week. No, it's guys, there's a bigger problem here that we need to address. Yeah, right. Exactly. And because and it's also because this has happened before and and and look, you know, if it is a Marcus Freeman problem, then you go there and you say, Hey, listen, coach, would you you said publicly that you brought me in here because I have the number one scoring offense in the country, I can't build that kind of offense here. This way, right, right. If you're if you're if you're Chad Bowden, you go into the office of coach, man, I can't recruit receivers based on this. If this is what we're doing, right, like we got to turn it up and and say, okay, yeah, we got to do it. And the thing that's frustrating is that's actually helps the defensive defense better events when you when you are that aggressive. That's the whole thing we talked about when you put so this is the whole point. You put way more pressure on the defense with how with that conservative game plan that they got to win it late. Sixteen points. Isn't enough for them. Yeah, true. Put more pressure on them that way than you are. If you're really super aggressive and maybe you turn a ball over early, right? Okay. Hey, guys, hold them down. We're coming right back. We'll get we'll put points on the board. Don't worry. Just try to keep them out of the end zone. Yeah. Right. Right. Totally agree with that. Right. And I was less optimistic that Brian Kelly was going to change because Brian Kelly had a lot of success and veteran coaches don't often, hey, man, I've done this for a long time. He always liked to remind us how many years he'd be coaching been a head coach and you just every you never you never questioned that because he would always tell you coaches like that are less prone to change. Marcus Freeman should not be a set enough in his ways. He's not want to change. You know what, some of the coaches that we're willing to change have rings at Orgeron believe that you were going to win a LSU by playing power football and great defense. And guess what? They were good, but they were never good enough and they were inconsistent. He went out and said, hey, we're going to have an explosive offense. And guess what happened with that orgeron? That's what championship ring. Yeah. Right. Okay. You know, Texas is playing 21 personnel, power, I foot, you know, power football with Chris Sims, fullback, tight end, two receivers and all that kind of stuff, and they kept getting their butt kicked every year by Oklahoma. They were good under Mack. I mean, they were always good. Vince, I mean, they were never a bad team under Mack Brown from what I can remember. I always remember them being a pretty darn good football team, but they can never win the big games. They can never beat Oklahoma and they would usually get smashed by Oklahoma. I mean, Mack went nine and three, nine and five, nine and three, eleven and two, eleven and two, ten and two. And then after a while, he said, look, this isn't, this isn't working for us. So he didn't fires OC, him and the OC said, we got to do something different. So they went out, they studied offenses. They talked to coaches. They, they went to a more of a spread offense and went out and recruited Vince Young and they recruited Colt McCoy. And guess what? They go out and know for eleven and one, beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl, got the next year, went a national championship. Then they go 10 and three, 10 and three, 12 and one, 13 and one, play for the national championship again in '09 and I still contend, and I've said this a million times, if Colt McCoy does not get hurt after Texas went up six, nothing, I think they win that football game against Bama no nine. They were having trouble stopping Colt early in that game, because remember the six nothing was two field goal drives and he got hurt on that last goal line run. Remember at the goal line, he got his shoulder hurt. He said, Hey, we, we can't be this. We've got to open it up. We've got to score. We've got to do this. And he, and he got himself a ring and a, and probably Hall of Fame. Coach Freeman needs to say, Hey, listen, we're going to play great defense and we're going to have great line play, but you can still be dynamic. Yes. In that regard. Yes. And still hold on to those. Yes. Those virtues that you hold so dear. I want the other name to have an elite defense. I want them to be dominant at the lines. No doubt about it. Final pieces, this Vince, if you're going to say you're an old line driven team, however, and a D line driven team, however, then you better play that way. Right. Now the second out of three years, that offensive line has been a concern for Notre Dame. Sure. In certain moments. Right. And your defensive line is regressed. Right. That's not, that's not a, that's not a good trend. You got to figure how to fix that. And part of that is take some of the pressure off of them, this young group of hat, we need you to carry us. They're not going to. Right. We've got a quarterback that can carry you if you let them, and if not, then you need to figure out something else out. Correct. But again, at this point in time, I don't care if they've been triley, I don't care if they're going to start Riley, but whatever you're going to do, lean into your players. Correct. You're going to, if you're going to bench Riley, then you better have a game plan that has four and 24 written all over it. And that's going to include taking some shots with your young quarterbacks, like Michigan did with changing McCarthy. He didn't throw the ball a lot, but he would throw the ball down field. They designed stuff that got creative with him. You know, lean into your talent. Don't give me this. I don't want to see this again. I don't ever want to see this type of offense performance again, where you just, you're slow, you're not aggressive, you coach, like you're so afraid to make a mistake that you make mistakes and you get beat. That needs to be gone. And if it's gone, then they're going to be okay. If it's not gone, then Marcus Freeman's not going to last him. He's not going to last. He's not going to win like he's not going to win like he needs to win, but he does so many things so well that if he can just get past this hurdle, these two hurdles, one is the, this, the preparation thing, be more consistent. Tell your analytics guy to stay away from you in the game, right? Go upstairs in the booth, put a headset on and you speak when you're spoken to. Exactly. That's it. Speak when you're spoken to. That's true. But I don't ask you something. I don't hear jacked from you or you're going to get your mic taken away or your headphones taken away. Right? You be you. Yep. In those regards, coach with your gut, right? But you've got to, you've got to be better with your preparation and you got to turn your offense loose. If he does those two things, coach is going to get this thing turned around real fast because he's recruiting talented players. That's part of the frustration. If he does it, then we're going to continue to see games like this. And we're going to love him and root form and think he's a great guy, but it's not going to be good enough. So the chances there, this is a true crossroads moment, Vince. And that's true. This is really what it boils down to. And that's going to make your defense better too. Oh, for sure. There it is. That's going to conclude week two of upon further review. And oh, we have a couple super chats. We'll just roll through these with my fault. Yeah. No, absolutely. So what happens when I close the chat? So thanks for the super chat. A stubborn Mick. Appreciate you very much. I'm happy you both are still kicking after yesterday's debacle. Me too, brother. Me too. No, no, no. Took him some smash burgers and took me some inner peace while I was cutting the lawn today where I just had to kind of bring it back in and, you know, give my family a hug basically. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. Lou Holt, thunder and bolts. Thanks for the super chat. I really appreciate you. 50 Friday catered catered us what what did where did the week go wrong to physical, not physical enough. Thursday, walk through physical without attention to detail and I you scheme. Well, it's none of those things specifically. It's the fact that you went away from what your normal preparation is routine routine. You needed the reps also, right? Routine was important, but you needed the reps routine and reps for hugest week and you didn't give your team either of those things, right? Because hard doesn't equal more reps, not, not, not like a whole practice is worth. It usually means more physical, more demanding, faster tempo, faster pay, stuff like that. It doesn't mean you got a million more reps. And that that was the problem. So it was, it was literally just like you said, they're going away from the routine bits. Ryan Dernay, thank you so much for the super sticker. Really appreciate you. That's awesome. Thank you. B eight too. Thanks for the super chat sitting behind the Notre Dame bench yesterday was tough. I didn't see coaches getting after players for mistakes, light fires under their beehines. Agree. There's nobody from a player or coach level agree because you and I are kind of looking over there in between serious just to see what's going on. There was no flyer on that bench ever. Yeah. Ever completely docile. Yeah. They played like it. Michael S. thanks for the super chat. How confident are you in Denmark's ability to solve offensive issues going forward? If, if I, if I know that Mike Denbrock has free reign to do whatever he wants on offense, I'm extremely confident that he'll figure it out. Me too. That's a great way to put it. And if I'm wrong and this was all on Mike Denbrock, I'm so confident because coaches have bad games too. Yeah. That game plan. You lose a whole day of preparation in this second like if they'd have done this in seven weeks when the team is kind of tired. All right. I get it. Yeah. You're, you're, we know who you are as a team. We're two. Yeah. Two problem. Yeah. Come on, man. Yeah. That's, that's, that's the problem. For sure. Michael S. thanks for the super chat. Has the old line returned to Quinn's status? No, because this is more about youth than it is about just not being coached. Right. I, you know, I mean, people know I'm not a huge Jeff Quinn supporter. I'm not going to use this opportunity to pile on. Right. I still have some questions about who we started and how the process got there and things like that. But, you know, like let's give him more than two games. I mean, a week ago, people were saying, oh, you know, he figured it out, you know, because they competed. Well, they didn't really, I don't know that they didn't compete yesterday. There was a little less of that fire, but I just think that they just got their butts physically kicked and the preparation wasn't there to kind of handle some of that stuff. So one bad game. I mean, Harry, he Stan had bad games and he was the greatest offensive line coach that I've seen at Notre Dame. Again, I wasn't around for the Joe More era, but he's by far the best offensive line coach in our name. I think he's one of the best in the business. If I, if you were say, Brian, you're the new head coach at Notre Dame, I'm going to go to coach Eastan's house and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get him to be my old line coach. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, or at least to be part of my program and hire whoever he wants. And then so yeah, I'm going to hire who you want as long as you promise to give me three years as an analyst to help groom that guy. Cool. I hired Chris Watt, I hired Chris Watt, as long as you're around, to help him out, gladly do that. But he had bad games and he'll tell you that and you know, where his guys weren't prepared enough or didn't play to the standard that he expects from them, that happens to everybody. And I'm not going to be that guy that just because I don't agree with the hire that every time that guy has a bad game, see, like, he's just like Jeff Quinn. That's not fair. That's not fair enough. It's a trend and it continues and sure, sure, but you know, his kids competed their butts often weekend. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a youth thing. It's an inexperienced thing right now. So I'm willing. And we said last week that there's going to be a little bit of this with the offensive one. Absolutely. You're just, you're going to have some ups and downs, but you can't, you can't call a game though, like they are an experienced offensive line that has 80 starts under their belts. So there has to be some give and take there too. Right. Agree. Michael, thanks again for another super chat. Appreciate you. I think Leonard was pressing because the O line and receivers are ineffective. No, I'm not blamed. Look, no, yeah, no, because he's going away from guys that are getting open. That's the whole point that we're making. I don't think the O line and receivers and I think the O line is in his head a little bit. I'm not going to deny that. No, I agree with that. That's the part I was going to agree with. That receivers aren't the issue. He's missed them more than they've messed up for him. Then there's been some mistakes. You know, the outcut by Jordan Faze on last week where he was supposed to do an outcut and he didn't, if he doesn't outcut, it's an open pass. But you know, his receivers also made some plays for him last week, like, are they on the same page? No, they're clearly not, but is it because they don't have faith in him or he doesn't have faith in them? No, I just think they're not on the same page. And there's just a lack of confidence in each in them in themselves right now. Riley's biggest issue right now is Riley's pressing too much. Everything's going way too fast in his head. That's got to get fixed. You know, Guduli has to fix that right now, right now, and they've got to have a game plan that's designed to, we got to design some shots for Riley, right, and get him rolling. Or just bench him and then do the same thing forever. The starter is next week is you got to get that guy going. Don't give me this ground in pound. Let's just get out of the Purdue game with a dub. You got to get rolling. Last one, Vince. Last one. Full life. That's how much for the Super Chat protecting the football and taking shots and playing aggressive are not mutually exclusive. Amen. That's a great one to end on, man, because I could not agree more. Amen. I agree more. You can take safe shots just like being conservative doesn't equal running the football. Correct. Right. Just in being aggressive doesn't mean thrown at a billion times, right? The mindset. It's an attitude. It's a tempo. It's an aggressiveness. It's a, when we get our shots, we're definitely going to take those. Mike Denver, I didn't throw a million beat balls last year, but that's kind of, that's where I'm getting from, Vince. That's a great, great point. Great point by full life. Bring that up one more time, Vince. Yeah. Really, really good point. I appreciate it. Yup. Good stuff. That's going to do it for our second edition of Upon Further Review after week two. Make sure you guys stay tuned for the rest of the week. We will be back at it tomorrow. I want to double check. Is there going to do? There's no show Monday after the news, correct? Okay. Yeah. So Monday afternoons are off. I have an Asian sports talk. I'll be back Monday evening at five o'clock with Sean and myself, and then following the rest of the week, we'll have afternoon shows. We've got the evening shows and then, of course, pregame show will be uploaded and ready to roll on Friday night and into week three, which is produced. So a little bit more recap coming up over the next day or so, and then, you know, we turn our sights to the next game. So we'll see how things go. Very interested to hear how the press conference goes tomorrow, and you can guarantee that Sean and I will be breaking that sucker down tomorrow evening. So make sure you stay tuned for that, but make sure you hit the like button, the subscribe button, hit that notification bell, share with your family and friends. And of course, jump on the boards, boards on average breakdown.com. There's going to be all kinds of breakdowns over there that are going to be exclusive to the premium message board. So if you're not a member, you're not going to get the good stuff. And you know, then you're just missing out, and I'm sorry for you. So again, thanks for hanging out with us on a Sunday night and everybody enjoy their Monday. I know that I will when I get all of the, you know what, from people, but you know what? Guy in my office is a huge Michigan fan, so I'm going to give it right back to them. So that's, it's all I got. So what I'm hanging on to. So in that bad that eat, how bad this weekend was, it took all the joy out of trash about Michigan. I was in such a good mood. Was it such a good mood, Brian? And it just went to the wayside, but hey, what can you do? But again, thanks everybody for hanging out. Really appreciate you. And we'll be back before you know it. So for Brian, I'm Vince and we will talk to you guys next time on the Irish breakdown podcast. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
