Marcus Freeman pleased with Notre Dame football wide receivers' play

There have been few things more frustrating for the Notre Dame football team’s offense than the passing game. In fact, it’s hard to say there really is a passing game at this point.

However, both the analysts and Irish head coach Marcus Freeman see some improvements. Of course, in order for Freeman to really see improvements, he has to look beyond the stats. He talked about that during his Monday press conference and it’s likely that his comments will once again be met with some serious derision.

The Notre Dame football head coach said that the improvement is less about the yards the receivers get or the catches they make. "Our wideouts are playing at a high level,” Freeman said. “They're doing a much better job in terms of blocking on the perimeter. Stats are stats. What I'm looking for is wins."

The thing is, while the passing game, as far as stats like yards and touchdowns is getting better, the blocking, at least according to PFF isn’t really improving. Granted, Pro Football Focus isn’t the end all and be all for this kind of thing. The coaches might have different evaluation points. But if anything, the blocking is getting worse.

Notre Dame football wide receivers draw praise from head coach

Transfer Jayden Harrison is the best blocker on the team, in regards to wide receivers. However he doesn’t have a ton of snaps there. Jaden Greathouse, Beaux Collins and Kris Mitchell are some degree of mediocre.

When looking at a game by game glance, Greathouse has gotten a little bit worse, Collins has been bizarrely consistent and Mitchell had the exact same run blocking grades against Miami and Purdue.

All of this is to say that while Notre Dame football’s passing game is improving. There is room for more improvement when the receivers don’t have the ball in their hands.