Notre Dame football mailbag: Was replay right? Why was offensive game plan so conservative? (2024)

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame is coming off a statement win, and you have questions about how good the Irish might be this season. Let’s talk game plans, offensive line play, national perception, replay reviews and more.

Note: Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Why have a replay booth if it rarely gets the call correct? Have you heard the reasoning for not overturning Riley Leonard being a full yard past the first-down line? — Ryan K.

For starters, they almost always get the call correct. That’s the point of the replay booth.

But in the case of Leonard’s fourth-down sneak, the unofficial yellow line on the field might be more to blame than the officials. Look at how close the yellow line is to the hashmark on second-and-10. Now look at it on fourth-and-1. The first-down line has moved — enough that it’s the difference between Notre Dame getting a first down and coming up just short.

For the record, broadcasters don’t claim the yellow line is official. NBC contracts with a third party to set that distance, which is done independently of the officiating crew. Each camera angle is the first-down line configured independently from the others.

I thought Leonard got the first down. But if the real first-down marker is the yellow line on second down, it wasn’t as clear as it seemed at first glance on fourth down.

But hey, Notre Dame won, and Beaux Collins didn’t get a personal foul call after shoving a Texas A&M defender in the back after his 20-yard catch on the game-winning drive. So maybe this all came out in the wash.

Should we expect the offensive game plans to remain conservative until the offensive line has more experience under its belt, or will some less hostile environments and less imposing defenses allow Mike Denbrock to get more aggressive in the near term? — Will H.

Until Notre Dame is confident it can protect Leonard, there’s not much upside to letting him sit in the pocket to take deep shots. Fortunately for Leonard, the Irish should be able to protect the quarterback much better, both in terms of physically winning at the line of scrimmage and understanding what’s coming. Texas A&M did an excellent job of creating pressure through alignments and breaking tendencies. It rarely sent more than four rushers, doing it on just six of Leonard’s 30 pass attempts.

Look at this play from the third quarter when Leonard sets the protection toward Nic Scourton, only to have the defensive end drop into coverage right where the ball is going. Left tackle Anthonie Knapp blocks the widest defender, but left guard Sam Pendleton steps right, which is how the protection was set toward the middle linebacker (who drops out). It all turns Shemar Stewart loose for a free shot at Leonard, who gets drilled. Meanwhile, three offensive linemen block one defender. Most opponents don’t have a defensive end with the attention Scourton commanded or pressure packages as sophisticated as Mike Elko, who knew Leonard better than anyone.

It would be difficult to have a more conservative pass game than what Notre Dame used against Texas A&M. Leonard didn’t attempt a pass longer than 20 yards, with a pass interference drawn by Jaden Greathouse wiped out by a penalty. Nearly half (seven) of Leonard’s completions (18) were behind the line of scrimmage. The ball came out more quickly than any game plan since 2019, which is when TruMedia started tracking the time between snap and pass.

Leonard can cover a lot of ground as a passer, although it’s worth remembering even his former offensive coordinator at Duke considered him a developmental passer. Marcus Freeman might describe Leonard’s intermediate and deep ball skills as strengths, but there’s little evidence from his time at Duke. He was 21-of-51 (41.2 percent) on passes of 20 yards or more as a sophom*ore and junior, which included going 4-of-21 last season. The next step for Leonard might be more run-pass-action or play-action concepts, which Notre Dame didn’t get to Saturday. Leonard attempted just two passes off play action at Texas A&M, both falling incomplete. Getting Leonard out of the pocket could be devastating because the defense would think run-first when he does, potentially opening the field for deep shots. All but two of Leonard’s 30 pass attempts last weekend came from inside the pocket.

Where does the win at Texas A&M rank among the Notre Dame wins you have covered? Does it top at Oklahoma? — Charles A.

If we’re just talking road wins, I’m putting Texas A&M third, behind Oklahoma (2012) and Michigan (2005).

You can’t have the “How big was that win?” conversation without knowing everything that comes afterward, which is why beating Florida State (2002) gets forgotten, never mind winning at Tennessee (2004). Tyrone Willingham’s first season (and Notre Dame tenure) collapsed after winning in Tallahassee, making the win in Knoxville two years later almost irrelevant. Willingham lost the next three games and got fired.

Winning at Oklahoma put Notre Dame on a path to the BCS National Championship Game, even if the Irish needed a little help to get there. Winning in Ann Arbor in Charlie Weis’ first season offered some compelling evidence he would be able to turn Notre Dame around as the season ended in the Fiesta Bowl.

It’s hard to know what kind of launchpad winning in College Station will be for Notre Dame this season, but it feels similar to 2012 and 2005. If the parallels to those seasons hold, Notre Dame will make the College Football Playoff and do some damage when it gets there. If that happens, winning at Texas A&M might be viewed as superior to Oklahoma and Michigan four months from now.

How would you grade the offensive line’s performance, both an absolute grade and on a curve, based on Kyle Field and Texas A&M? — Ryan S.

The offensive line overperformed expectations, big time. There weren’t many pre-snap penalties, and there was just one notable holding call that wiped out a long Jadarian Price run, although that had no impact on that drive. Notre Dame struggled at times to pick up Texas A&M’s blitzes, but that was an issue for the entire operation, not just the offensive line.

If the grades on Pro Football Focus are worth anything, the marks from last weekend aren’t far off last year’s Clemson game or the opener at Ohio State two years ago. Notre Dame lost both of those games. It won this one. So if this is the base performance for a young offensive line, Notre Dame can grow the position into a strength.

Denbrock called the game to help the line in a way Tommy Rees and Gerad Parker didn’t (or couldn’t) against Ohio State and Clemson. Denbrock had the best quarterback of those three games, which helped. Leonard didn’t have any massive runs, but he moved the chains and was athletic enough to turn a few negative plays into no gains or incomplete passes. Tyler Buchner and Sam Hartman didn’t offer much of that. This group of receivers was better than anything Notre Dame put out in Columbus or Clemson. Those things all helped the offensive line play better.

Ultimately, the right side of the line turned in a solid performance at Texas A&M. The center, left guard and left tackle have a lot of room to improve.

Why did Notre Dame use sideline signals, sent in from players in colored vests, on Saturday? I thought the helmet microphone was approved to replace hand signals and eliminate signal stealing. — Brad B.

Only Leonard had the helmet communication, and the receivers couldn’t hear him at Kyle Field. On top of that, Notre Dame prepared for the game as if Leonard’s helmet communication couldn’t be heard, which at points it probably couldn’t be. Freeman said the uncertainty around the communication was more about when the signal would turn on after the previous play more than when it would turn off before the next one (15 seconds remaining on the play clock).

Not to signal the plays into the game would have meant the offense was flying blind (or deaf).

The Irish are 7-2 against current SEC teams that aren’t Georgia and Alabama since 2010. Yet, Nick Saban and other national analysts seemed mainly to choose Texas A&M, with the thought Notre Dame couldn’t beat SEC-level schools. What do you think it will take to break this stigma? — Ryan M.

Notre Dame is 24-6 against Big Ten teams — excluding Ohio State and Michigan — during that same period, which I mention only because you can’t exclude Alabama (0-2), Georgia (0-2), Ohio State (0-3) or Michigan (3-4) when you’re talking about the national perception of Notre Dame.

This was Notre Dame’s third road win against an SEC team in the past 25 years. It’s fair to think the Irish aren’t going to do something they do once every decade. Yes, the SEC has an infatuation with itself, but the recruiting rankings every winter do too. Saban has lost at Kyle Field with better teams than what Notre Dame took there last weekend, so I get it.

But the national perception of Notre Dame changed a little last weekend. Turn on “The Pat McAfee Show.” It’s easy to look at the Irish offense and see the upside. It’s easier to look at Notre Dame’s defense and see an elite, lights-out unit. With an easy schedule combined with a top defense and developing offense, this should be a season that adjusts perceptions of Notre Dame … right up until the Playoff.

When it comes to playing in major bowls, which is basically everything after the first round, Notre Dame hasn’t earned any benefit of the doubt. Win a CFP quarterfinal and consider the stigma broken.

Where are they thinking of putting Freeman’s statue? Kidding (but hopefully not). My real question: I appreciate and get behind the juice Freeman brings, but is there a point of diminishing returns when your coach is the emotional driver of the team? Can the captains do that? — Jonathan G.

Based on Freeman’s choice of pants last weekend, his statue will go in a squat rack.

As for the actual question, here’s what Freeman said about the pregame energy during his Monday news conference:

We’ve been here ☘️

Ready to compete in any environment #GoIrish☘️ pic.twitter.com/R8o3RMMcN4

— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) September 2, 2024

I understand your point that the coach burns energy in doing this every week (it won’t happen every week), but the point is Freeman is in tune with what his team needs from its coach at that moment. That’s good player management. Remember Brian Kelly letting the offense run up the score at Pittsburgh in 2020? He did it because he thought the offense needed to build some extra belief, with No. 1 Clemson on the horizon. Or take former Notre Dame defensive coordinator Clark Lea at Vanderbilt. His natural disposition is more professorial than street fighter. But during a game two years ago, he head-butted a player (who was wearing a helmet) on the sideline because he thought his players needed a coach who was in the fight with them.

These maneuvers might be different, but they all served the same purpose: giving a team what it needed at that moment. I would expect Freeman to go back to a more measured approach against Northern Illinois.

And it’s after Labor Day, so no more white pants.

(Top photo of Riley Leonard: Maria Lysaker / USA Today)

Pete Sampson is a staff writer for The Athletic on the Notre Dame football beat, a program he’s covered for the past 21 seasons. The former editor and co-founder of Irish Illustrated, Pete has covered six different regimes in South Bend, reporting on the Fighting Irish from the end of the Bob Davie years through the start of the Marcus Freeman era.