Riley Leonard calls Notre Dame football in the second half 'awkward'
While the Notre Dame football team is sitting at 4-1 on the season after a 31-24 win over the Louisville Cardinals, there are still a few areas where Riley Leonard knows he and his teammates can improve. For instance, while the offense played pretty well in the first half, unit scored just one touchdown after the break.
Following the game, Leonard admitted there was a still a hitch in the offense giddyup from time to time. He also made it clear that he didn’t believe it was a situation where the Cards defense was the reason the Irish had problems scoring.
“I don’t know if it was exactly their defense; [they were] awkward drives,” Leonard said. “You got some penalties here. I think it was just a weird thing that we got to fix.” Unfortunately, “awkward” drives has been the name of the game for most of the season for Notre Dame football.
For Leonard’s head coach, Freeman wants to see more drives like the one they put together to open the game.
Notre Dame football still trying to get the awkwardness out of the offense
“That’s the offense I want to see,” Freeman said. “That’s a perfect drive on offense. And it’s not just about Riley. We ran the ball well, too. Thought our whole offense did a really, really good job on the first drive.”
That first drive took 12 plays, moved the ball 75 yards and tied the game, 7-7. It also took some momentum away from Louisville who opened the game with a quick 7-0 lead. It stopped people from worrying this was going to be another home loss.
The struggles really happened before half. Notre Dame scored a touchdown the first three times they had the ball, giving them a 21-7 lead. Their next seven possessions ended thusly:
- Fumble
- Punt
- Field Goal
- Half
- Punt
- Punt
- Turnover on Downs
Leonard and company then drove 75 yards on just 5 plays to score what was the eventually game winning touchdown. Followed by a 3 and out. And then their final possession they were able to run out the clock.
While a win, is a win, is a win for Notre Dame football, three points out of a seven possession stretch needs to be better. With a bye week until their next game against Stanford on October 12, they’ve got some time to work on things, but they need to get it ironed out.