Defensive Woes And Poor Coaching Continue To Haunt Notre Dame - Bruce's Thoughts
- Bruce Straughan
- Sep 14
- 3 min read
Coming off the heartbreaking loss against Miami in the opening game of the season, Notre Dame went straight into a bye week, which many assumed would be a great time for the coaching staff to evaluate the glaring issues they faced on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. In some ways, it looked better, especially offensively, with CJ Carr looking significantly more confident and comfortable. At the same time, the defense appears to be getting progressively worse from one week to the next.
The bright side is that the offense seems to be fine and did its job last night. Anytime your offense puts up over 30 points on the board, you expect to win. Carr looked way more confident and comfortable in this game and has shown growth from game one to game two. He continues to make some mistakes, but that's obviously going to be expected. There were always going to be growing pains for a redshirt freshman QB in only his second start, but he has to clean up the mental mistakes. The offense itself is not a major concern to me at this point, and I believe they will only get better as time goes on.
The ugliest part of all this is blatantly obvious, and it's the defensive side of the ball. The Chris Ash hire always seemed like a bad one to many, and his reputation has preceded him in this way of thinking. He's always been known as a hard-nose, stubborn coach with a track record that doesn't exactly scream "success". Two games into the season, and many fans have already seen enough and want a change at the position.
It's hard to argue against a change, as this defense went from one of the best in the country last year to one of the worst in the matter of an off-season. Sure, they lost Al Golden, one of the great defensive minds in football, and veteran leadership like Jack Kiser, Xavier Watts, Rylie Mills, and Benjamin Morrison, but this team still has way too many talented players across the board to be playing like this. Giving up nearly 500 yards of total offense against Texas A&M last night is both inexcusable and ridiculous.
There's no way to put it other than the defensive side of the ball is a disaster right now, with no identity whatsoever, and players looking lost all over the field. It's easy for people to blame the players, but the coaches are ultimately responsible for putting the players in a position to succeed. Chris Ash is not doing that, and the players don't look confident or comfortable in what they're doing as a result. I'm not really confident that Ash can make the changes needed in such a short period to salvage what's left of the season at this point. It will become extremely hard for observers to maintain any confidence in his system as it stands.
This couldn't have started any worse than it has already, and after just two games, many fans are already calling for the defensive coordinator's job. If Marcus Freeman doesn't do something fast to turn this thing around, it'll be his job fans are calling for next. With playoff hopes seeming impossible at this point, it has now become a matter of evaluating talent for the future and righting the ship of any dysfunction so as not to lose this team or allow it to affect recruiting.
Will they get this thing figured out between now and next weekend against Purdue? Nothing is impossible, but right now it doesn't look good. The only saving grace is that the remainder of the schedule gets a lot easier going forward, but if something doesn't change, that isn't going to matter.
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