Notre Dame football: Special Teams need to improve

For the second straight week, Notre Dame football had their special teams unit leaving a lot to be desired.

Wins don’t get much uglier than what was seen this past Saturday, as Notre Dame football mustered only 12 points on seven offensive possessions against a lowly Louisville squad.

Thankfully, the Irish defense came to play as they held the Cardinals to 219 total yards and just 7 points.

The offense is still not where it can and should be, as the passing game has taken a noticeable drop-off in 2020 compared to the final five games of last season. The good news is the offensive line and Kyren Williams have picked up the slack thus far with the run game averaging 261 yards per game.

While there are plenty of talking points to discuss for the Fighting Irish offense and defense, there needs to be a discussion in earnest about special teams. The game against Louisville was the second straight week where the special teams play hurt Notre Dame.

Against FSU two weeks ago, a muffed punt late in the first quarter set up an FSU touchdown. Later in the game, Notre Dame narrowly avoided a second muffed punt when an Irish player ran into returner Matt Salerno.

Kicker Matt Doerer also missed a 45-yard field goal late in the third quarter vs the Noles that kept it a two-possession game.

Special teams were admittedly better vs Louisville, but they were almost disastrous. Doerer connected on both of his field goals early in the game and didn’t get the chance to kick his third right before the half.

Blame the play call or the execution – or both, but the Irish decided on a fake field goal on 4th & 9 from the 13-yard line where holder Jay Bramblett came up 2 yards short.

This swung the momentum fully into Louisville’s direction as the score stayed 6-0 at halftime. The Cardinals received the ball to start the second half, scored, and took a 7-6 lead instead of being down 9-7.

This decision was also costly as it forced Notre Dame to chase points down the stretch. After Ian Book scored the go-ahead touchdown late in the 3rd quarter, Brian Kelly opted to go for two to make it a 7-point lead instead of being up 16-7.

They didn’t convert the 2-point try and were fortunate to have their defense hold the Cardinals scoreless in the 4th quarter only up 5 points.

Was the fake field goal risky? Absolutely. Was it a terrible decision? Debatable.

Given the circumstances, with the offense struggling to score points in the red zone and the defense pitching a shutout at that point, the reasoning in trying to light a spark and get some energy before the half was understandable. Unfortunately, it backfired and the Irish were lucky to hang on to the lead and recover from those missed points.

The call was reminiscent of the fake punt vs Duke. Notre Dame was down 3-0 at the start of the second quarter and fixing to punt the ball for the 4th straight drive. Instead, Bramblett picked up 14 yards on 4th & 8 from Notre Dame’s own 21-yard line. The drive continued and ended in the first Irish touchdown of the season to go up 7-3.

The next glaring special teams blunder came after Louisville scored their only touchdown of the game. They just marched 83 yards coming out of halftime and were up 7-6 with all the momentum when they went with a surprise onside kick and recovered it easily.

Notre Dame was fortunate that an illegal blocking penalty negated the kick and forced the Cardinals to re-kick it deep. Regardless, a lucky break prevented yet another disastrous special teams play that would have given Louisville complete control of the game at that point.

The frustrating part of that sequence was the complete lack of discipline and anticipation for something like that. Regardless of whether or not it’s a “surprise” onside kick, one of the fundamental rules of the kickoff for the first line of players to see the ball go over their heads before they turn and run.

It didn’t hurt the Irish this time, and hopefully, now they will be more aware of potential surprises like that going forward, but the bottom line is they need to be better.

Special teams truly can be the difference between winning and losing. The last two weeks were great reminders of that for Notre Dame, who were lucky to be playing subpar teams and able to overcome those mistakes.

Down the stretch, playing Clemson, North Carolina, and perhaps Clemson again in the ACC Championship game, muffed punts, missed field goals, and giving the other team extra possessions and momentum are recipes for losing.

This isn’t to say that Notre Dame’s special teams have been completely awful all season. There has been a lot of good, too. But the last two weeks have seen noticeably bad, potentially game-changing plays that need to be fixed moving forward.