Winners and Losers of Notre Dame vs Texas A&M
- Noah Wehby
- Sep 14
- 6 min read
After another gut-wrenching loss, Notre Dame falls to 0-2 and is at risk of missing the CFP. With that, let's take a look at who performed well and who did not for Notre Dame vs Texas A&M.
Art by The Irish Tribune
Winners
Jeremiyah Love & Jadarian Price
After a very quiet game against Miami, Love and Price excelled against the Aggies. In week one, Notre Dame questionably did not look to their star running backs very often. That decision became a huge talking point coming into the game against Texas A&M, as they were the strongest part of last year's offense. In this game, they were featured heavily throughout the game, and their presence was felt. Together, they combined for 162 yards and three touchdowns on the ground, while Love also tacked on 53 yards and a touchdown through the air. In a high-scoring game, Notre Dame's stable of running backs was its biggest weapon all night. Even in a loss, this was a good sign for Notre Dame going forward. Although A&M has shown signs of suspect run defense this year, they are still a solid SEC defense that could not seem to slow Love and Price down. Like last year, the running back room is still clearly the strength of this offense, as they will need to continue to feed the duo who can truly change a game.
CJ Carr
Once again, Carr looked in control for most of the game, especially considering it was only his second career start. Against Miami, Carr played a pretty good game, even leading Notre Dame down the field on a game-tying drive. In this game, Carr orchestrated a high-powered offense that was responsible for 33 of Notre Dame's 40 points. Carr finished the game with 293 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. Carr was accurate, decisive, and collected for the entire night except for the one interception. On that play, Carr was caught between running and dumping it off to Price. As a result, he seemed to have panicked a little and overthrew his target into an Aggie defender. Carr had an answer for pretty much everything that was thrown at him, as he was consistently converting big third downs and finding his players downfield. Through two games, it is fair to say that neither loss is anywhere close to Carr's fault, as he has actually been one of the few bright spots on this team.
Offensive Line
After a very rough game against Miami, the offensive line unit looked much improved coming off the bye week. In week one, the offensive line looked incapable of getting any sort of push in the run game and lacked the ability to keep pressure off of Carr. This was not the case against Texas A&M. Instead, this offensive line was able to create gaps for Love and Price all game, resulting in 162 yards on the ground. In pass protection, they only gave up two sacks, not a bad number for 32 passing attempts. The main reason this unit is a winner this week is based on the improvement they showed compared to their lackluster performance in Miami.
Losers
Chris Ash
There are a lot of places to start when it comes to Chris Ash. Last season, Notre Dame had one of the best defenses in the entire country, especially in the secondary. With a lot of returning talent, Ash has made this defense unrecognizable. Instead of the fast, aggressive, and chaos-inducing defense featured last year, this defense looks slow, lethargic, and reactive for the second game in a row. The choice to run many more zone plays than last season seems to be one that is not best-suited for the personnel. There were multiple times Aggie wide receivers were able to comfortably find the soft spots in the defense for big gains. In just one half, Notre Dame's secondary gave up 173 yards to just one receiver, Mario Craver. Craver ended the game with 207 yards, a total that was never seen with Al Golden.
Like week one, Ash's defense once again lacked the ability to apply meaningful pressure to the opposing quarterback. Against Texas A&M, the Irish pass rush recorded zero sacks. Although he did try, Ash was not able to dial up a blitz that got home. Instead, Texas A&M was able to pick up almost every blitz Notre Dame threw their way. When Notre Dame did get pressure, Texas A&M QB Marcel Reed did not deal with it well, usually resulting in an inaccurate ball. The issue was that these plays were few and far between. This not only allowed Reed to comfortably find wide receivers, but the lack of sacks also never gave Notre Dame's defense favorable situations to be in.
Lastly, the final play of the Aggies' game-winning drive is largely on Ash. The questions arise in two different areas. First, it is unacceptable that Reed was able to roll out. There needed to be more of a concerted effort to make sure Reed was not able to cleanly leave the pocket, whether that is with an edge rusher or linebacker. Neither happened, allowing Reed to buy himself more time and find a matchup he liked for the winning play. Secondly, Ash also allowed, potentially, his worst cover linebacker, Drayk Bowen, to be alone in single coverage with no one else around. It is that sort of bad positioning and personnel management that has so many Irish faithful frustrated through two games.
Notre Dame Secondary (Excluding Leonard Moore)
Although Chris Ash may be the root cause of many of the defense's struggles, the players are still to blame. As stated before, Notre Dame's secondary last season was one of the nation's best, even without Benjamin Morrison. This year, it seems like the unit, as a whole, has taken a huge step back.
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To start, Christian Gray has been a liability to begin this season, and was again against Texas A&M. Gray's matchup, whether it was Craver or KC Concepcion, was consistently getting the better of him, as he carved up the defense all night. Gray was also responsible for a critical holding call that gave Texas A&M a clean set of downs at the end of the game. Gray may have had an even rougher night if Reed had been able to hit on a couple of deep balls he missed. Gray has always been a bit of a hot-and-cold player for this defense. The only difference is, now, he is not making the important plays to swing games like he did last year. He was not the only player who got picked on, however, as Karson Hobbs was also having a very hard time staying in front of receivers.
For Hobbs, it was Craver who was getting the better of him, leading to 207 yards for Craver. Jalen Stroman also gave up a huge play early, which resulted in an 86-yard touchdown by Craver. On the play, Stroman simply did not play the route well and was beaten downfield. To make matters worse for Gray, he also missed a tackle on the big play to Craver when he blindly dove into a tackle. As a unit, they were nowhere near good enough against the Aggies, giving up 360 passing yards to a team with a QB who is most known for his running abilities.
Notre Dame Defensive Line
To go with bad secondary play, Notre Dame's defense was not much better. In week one, this unit struggled. With two weeks to prepare, it was expected that they would see improvement, especially in the pass rush, but it only seemed to have gotten worse. Against Miami, at least Traore showed promise. In this game, there is not much that they could hang their hat on. Reed dropped back to pass 37 times against the Irish and was not taken down once. Some of this can be attributed to Reed's mobility, but a lot of it should be blamed on the coaching and players.
All off-season, excitement for the prospect of Traore, Bryce Young, Josh Burnham, and Jordan Botelho as edge rushers grew. So far, they have been almost non-existent. A group this talented should be able to generate some sort of pass rush. Along with this, the line, as a unit, has shown a general lack of ability to create negative plays. In the game against Texas A&M, Notre Dame only forced two negative plays compared to the Aggies' 10. This could be where the defense's problems start. Without predictable situations and long down and distances, it is very hard for a defense to get off the field. This is Notre Dame's current situation, and for their sake, it needs to be addressed and corrected.
Do you agree with our list of winners and losers on the Irish's end of the stick? We'll be providing lots of reflection and analysis this week regarding the loss.
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ND has no defensive identity other than the fact that their first two opponents scored more than 70 points on them. The story has it that Al Golden had this burning desire to return to the Bengals BS . ND is cheap with what it pays coaches and they got what paid for with the new defensive coach., NOTHING!