While the Notre Dame football team went to halftime with a lead over Navy, the Fighting Irish hardly looked very sharp.
On defense, the Irish looked flat-out bad. Between making some very interesting decisions about who got playing time on the first drive and calling plays where the defenders looked like they didn't know what to do, Chris Ash's unit looked about as bad as it has all year, including the BYU game.
Ash took plenty of fire from fans and analysts after a first half dominated by Navy's offense. The Midshipmen held the ball for 23:33, while the Irish had it for just over six minutes. But fans and analysts were deeply, deeply displeased not only with the defensive execution, but also with the defensive play calling.
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman spoke as he headed to the locker room at halftime about what needed to change, and his comments don't bode well for Ash for the rest of the season. At the very least, they sounded like a warning shot across the bow.
Marcus Freeman’s halftime comments increase pressure on Notre Dame football DC Chris Ash
"We got to get them off track. We're not getting them off track right now. They're doing a couple new things, but it's just the execution. We can't panic," Freeman said. "You can't start calling things that your guys don't know how to execute, so we gotta make sure we clean up what they have to do, and then they gotta play physical. We gotta play on their side of the line of scrimmage, but you can't be out of control."
The comment about calling things the players don't know how to run was striking. But also, it wasn't coming out of nowhere. On more than a few plays, Notre Dame defenders could be seen with their palms up, looking toward the sideline. The body language clearly read, "What are we doing?"
His comments came on a day when Freeman was also noticeably more engaged in the defensive meetings on the Fighting Irish sideline. Making such a proclamation when he was more dialed into what the defenders were being told from one play to the next than he normally feels he has to be should have sent a chill down Ash's spine.
It was such an interesting comment that more than one analyst pointed out that Ash was still calling the defense. That's not something anyone normally checks.
If Marcus Freeman was sending a message, Chris Ash received it. Notre Dame's defense absolutely dominated the way it was supposed to in the second half.
However, it doesn't feel like the defensive coordinator's footing is all that solid. Freeman's comments also came one week after BYU talked about how "vanilla" the defensive playcalling was in Provo and then, off a bye week, to come up with a better plan.
How Freeman and Ash work together the rest of the season will be an interesting one to watch for Nore Dame fans the rest of the way.
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