Notre Dame football: What surprised us against Ohio State
The No. 5 ranked Notre Dame football team lost vs No. 2 ranked Ohio State on Saturday night, 21-10, in a game which Notre Dame controlled for 2.5 quarters rattling and confusing CJ Stroud and the high-powered Buckeyes offense.
Here, we look at what was surprising in this matchup of top-5 teams.
Notre Dame football: What surprised us against Ohio State
Defense
One of the biggest surprises negatively was how non-existent your two best defensive linemen were Saturday night. When your stars needed to play like stars, Isaiah Foskey and Jayson Ademilola combined for five tackles and zero sacks.
Pulling into the game, if you would have told me that this would have been their combined stat line, you would have thought that Notre Dame football got blown out. Although your two best defensive linemen didn’t have their A-game, Notre Dame was still able to slow down Ohio State’s high-powered offensive attack, holding them to only 21 points and 395 yards of total offense.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Notre Dame defense. Obviously, they had to do something right when holding Ohio State to one of its lowest scoring totals in recent years. Overall, I thought the secondary as a unit played really well.
A couple of players really stood out from the secondary. Brandon Joseph lived up to all of the pre-season hype and played like an absolute stud on Saturday night. He was all over the field. While the stat line isn’t the most impressive with only four total tackles, what he brought from a leadership and communication standpoint was just as important.
He has really solidified the Notre Dame secondary. One of the biggest bright spots from Saturday night was the emergence of Freshman cornerback Benjamin Morrison. Morrison showed himself to be more than ready for this prime time match-up versus Ohio State’s elite receivers. He has all the makings of being a star in South Bend.
Saturday night was just a glimpse of what Irish fans can expect for years to come.
Offense
Offensively one of the biggest takeaways was how much the offensive line struggled versus a talented Ohio State defensive line. The Irish only totaled 76 yards rushing on 30 attempts averaging 2.5 yards per carry.
Coming into the game, if the Irish were to have a chance to the win ball game, the offensive line would be a major factor in helping them pull off the upset. This simply wasn’t the case, they struggled to get any consistent movement and push in the run game. That wasn’t the only issue, Saturday night they also struggled in pass protection, constantly turning Ohio State players free and not giving Buchner enough time in the passing game.
The offensive line has some talent but definitely has some things they need to clean up. They should look to do that in the next two games versus teams that are nowhere near as talented as the Notre Dame offensive line.
Overall, this team battled for four quarters and the moment was definitely not too big for them. The defense played more than well enough to win the ball game but the offense simply did not do its part. There are no moral victories in games like this and the Irish’s search for another big-time program win will have to wait.
There were obviously some negatives and some things to clean up but it’s only game one. Those types of mistakes and executions are expected and magnified when playing a top-five match-up.
This team is super talented and well-coached and I fully believe they will clean up these mistakes and improve tremendously from game one to game two when the Irish welcome Marcus Freeman for his first home game in Notre Dame Stadium.