Room for Improvement: Where the Irish Need Strengthening Before Navy

Noah Wehby
Nov 5
4 min read

Notre Dame is coming off one of their worst performances of the year against Boston College. With just a few more days before their matchup with Navy, there are certainly a few key areas where Notre Dame have faltered and need to improve upon down the stretch.

Photo by The Irish Tribune

Offensive Consistency

Although Notre Dame's offense was extremely explosive last week, it lacked the rhythm to sustain a team that was in need of points late in the game. Against BC, the offense only had a few bright moments, resulting in three of their four touchdowns. Those bright moments included two deep balls to Will Pauling and Malachi Fields and, in perfect Jeremiyah Love fashion, a 94-yard touchdown run to ice the game. Besides that, the offense looked lethargic for most of the game. One of their biggest issues was on third down. On those crucial downs, the Irish were only 3/10 on the day against a subpar defense. Notre Dame was forced to punt often, try their luck with a field goal (yikes), or go for it on fourth down. When they did go for it, Notre Dame was not much better, only converting two of their four attempts. One reason for some of these tough third down situations was the lack of a consistent running game. Notre Dame's success this year has been geared around the dominant rushing attack of Love and Price. Last Saturday, that run game was nowhere to be found for much of the game. This led to a lot of the offensive pressure being put on the shoulders of their freshman quarterback. CJ Carr is talented, but the Irish passing game still seems to lack the ability to completely carry an offense. Overall, the offense was just clunky and needs to find their footing and stay on schedule moving forward if they want to reach their goals that are still very much in reach.

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Special Teams

It does not take a genius to understand how dire Notre Dame's kicking situation currently is. Right now, they have three kickers who all seem incapable of making an extra point. This was not just a BC problem. It has been lingering over this team since the beginning of the season. Marcello Diomede and Noah Burnette both missed extra points, while Erik Schmidt missed a 35-yard field goal right before half. This performance was just the culmination of an issue that has turned into an embarrassing feature of this Notre Dame team. There is no telling how many more misses there could have been on Saturday if Marcus Freeman had elected to kick every time he had the chance, and that is why this problem is so concerning for the Irish. It forces them to go for it much more than they would probably like to, causing them to leave potential points on the board. Against BC or other opponents, it may not matter, but it could be the flaw to end their season if the problem is not corrected soon.

Avoiding Crucial Mistakes

Whether it was some costly, undisciplined penalties or a fumble inside the 5-yard line, Notre Dame made too many mistakes against BC that could have easily cost them the game. In total, Notre Dame was responsible for three personal foul calls that extended drives. Luckily for the Irish, the first personal foul did not result in any points for BC, which cannot be said for the other two. The second one is hard to blame on Notre Dame. Joshua Burnham was flagged on a sack that would have gotten Notre Dame the ball back, but after replay, it was clear that he never grabbed the BC player's facemask. The third one happened early in the fourth quarter with the result still in doubt. BC was going for it on fourth down at around midfield. Notre Dame's defense did a great job to put pressure on the quarterback and cover options downfield. The play was going nowhere, looking like Notre Dame was about to get the ball with good field position with a chance to distance themselves from BC and put the game away. Instead, Jaylen Sneed pushed the BC quarterback well after he had thrown the ball and stepped out of bounds. It truly was a head-scratching decision by Sneed that enabled BC's offense to stay on the field with a chance to tie the game. Like the kicking, this mistake may not have caused Notre Dame to lose this time, but habits like this can come back to bite teams against strong opponents.

The other crucial mistake that the Irish need to clean up going forward revolves around Price's fumbling trend. For was good as Price has been this year, he does have a bit of a fumbling issue, especially when near the end zone. At the time of the fumble, Notre Dame was already leading by one score and looking to make it two. Price's fumble not only wiped a potential touchdown off the board, it also gave BC the momentum they needed to stay alive. Turnovers at that spot on the field just can not happen for a team with Notre Dame's talent. This is not the first time this has happened for Price this season, which could see him lose snaps near the goal line going forward. This also points to a larger issue this offense has had all season, which is short yardage situations. Notre Dame, for as good as they are running the ball, can't seem to be efficient when only a few yards are needed. Whether it is fumbles, interceptions, or plays going nowhere, Notre Dame has seemed largely unable to be a dangerous team in short yardage situations.

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