Notre Dame Football Grades: Defense vs. Miami (FL)

It is time to put the Miami (FL) game to rest. As covered yesterday, the offense completely failed on Saturday night in Hard Rock Stadium. The defense played better but not up to the standard Mike Elko is seeking. Here are the grades for the defense.

The Irish Defensive Line struggled mightily on Saturday night. They failed to do the things that got them ranked No. 3 in the country.

Notre Dame’s front four over pursued several times. On a few plays prior to Rosier’s touchdown pass, the Irish got up field too far and allowed Rosier to escape up the middle. Minutes later, Rosier ran for 16 yard touchdown. The same thing happened.

Notre Dame only hurried the Hurricanes Quarterback once and tallied no sacks. This is a complete and utter failure by the Defensive Line.

Defensive End Jay Hayes led the group in tackles with 3 including a tackle for loss.

The failure of the line was partially the fault of the players and partially the part of the coaches. As Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly said in his post-game, they knew that the Quarterback draw was coming. The fact that the players were not coached to stay at the level of the Quarterback is unforgivable.

This position group played incredibly hard on Saturday night. Te’von Coney and Drue Tranquill led the team with 9 tackles and 8 tackles respectively.

This was a particularly difficult game for Nyles Morgan. From his Middle Linebacker spot, Morgan failed to help the Fighting Irish out. He stopped his feet and played too passively. He was eaten up by blocks and missed several blocks.

Julian Love played well in the first nine games of the season. He again played very well on Saturday night. He held Miami (FL) Wide Receiver Ahmmon Richards to no catches. Many will look at the completion to Lawrence Cager as an indication that he did not do well. However, it was a 50-50 ball where he did everything that he could. By definition, 50-50 balls might not always got the way of the Irish.

The true issue was the poor performance of the Safeties. Nick Coleman, Jalen Elliott and Devin Studstill missed several tackles allowing the Hurricanes to gain more on chunk plays.

Notre Dame’s defense did not play well. In reality, the Irish allowed 34 points. The pick six made it look worse. Further, the defense faced short fields several times. Miami (FL) scored 24 points off a turnovers. By, no means is this an excuse for the unit but the offense and special teams failure put them in a bad spot.

The Notre Dame football team looks to recover from this horrible performance on Saturday against the Naval Academy.