When Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman met with the media on Monday afternoon, he wasn’t shy about pointing out very obvious issues with the Irish defense against BYU.
Freeman’s press conference, which seemed to come from a man still genuinely frustrated by the loss despite a bye week to decompress, also showed he was plenty annoyed by how his offense performed in certain situations.
Freeman added that the bye week and this week are about getting ready for Navy, but also finding a way to be better on third down and in the red zone. Those are two areas that have plagued Notre Dame at times all season. Against some weaker opponents, the issue didn’t rear its ugly head the way it did against teams like Wisconsin (in the first half), North Carolina, and BYU.
“We gotta be better on both sides of the ball in the red zone,” explained Freeman. “I think defensively it's third down. Both sides of the ball really is third down. We have to be better on third down in the red zone. QB runs are hurting us a little bit. Defensively, they're getting to the point where it's a manageable third down. We gotta be better in our technique versus some of those third down passes.”
BYU exposed them. The bye week identified them. Now Freeman needs Notre Dame to actually fix them.
“We really focused on a lot of red zone and third down situations this past week and we'll continue to do it even more going forward,” Freeman stated. “You can identify it and just say there's an issue where you can really say, OK, how can we truly have a plan to work it? That's my job to make sure we're working it in practice and we've increased our emphasis in those two areas.”
The Red Zone issues were especially painful, as the Cougars were 4-for-4 once they got inside the Notre Dame 20-yard line.
On third down, the Irish have struggled on short-to-medium downs. BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier completed 6-of-9 passes for 61 yards on third down while adding 17 yards on three rushing attempts.
Freeman also said he spent the week without a game challenging his defensive coaches to find a way to fix the issues prevalent in Provo. With talk earlier in the press conference about improving the wide receiver rotation, it’s clear the head coach sees flaws everyone can see and needs to fix before facing Miami.
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