Notre Dame’s biggest Achilles’ heels show up once again in ugly victory over Boston College, leaves doubt for CFB Playoff run
Notre Dame needs to find some answers, and quickly.
Notre Dame football kept its winning streak alive against the Boston College Eagles on Saturday, coming out with a 25-10 victory for its sixth straight victory after a 0-2 start. While you always celebrate every win, head coach Marcus Freeman can’t be overly satisfied with the performance coming off a bye week. It was a win, but an ugly one, nonetheless.
There were some stellar moments from quarterback CJ Carr and superstar running back Jeremiyah Love, among others, but it was a sloppy outing overall. Heading into the game against Boston College, there were two massive Achilles heels for this Notre Dame team that the fans wanted to see remedied. Unfortunately, both were on display once again during the game, and this staff is going to need to find some answers.
Another slow start for Notre Dame
Freeman has done a lot of tremendous things at Notre Dame, and he has my full confidence as a coach and a program builder. One inconsistency that we have seen throughout his tenure, however, is slow starts. To Freeman’s credit, the Irish have typically been a great second-half team, clearly making solid adjustments and waking up in the most critical moments. That’s also been a consistent thing, and you have to give him credit for it.
In the bigger games, those slow starts can and will hurt you. We saw that in the first game against Miami, and in the National Championship game against Ohio State last season. In both, Notre Dame came back and made it a football game, but fell short because of the hole they dug. Getting off to faster starts is a major point of conversation that needs to be had.
Kicking game woes continue
Perhaps I’m a bit ignorant of the state of field goal kicking around college football, but there can’t be many kicking situations worse than Notre Dame right now, right?
It has largely been the consistent story under special teams coordinator Marty Biagi during his tenure, but this one feels the most helpless. You left five points off the board tonight at minimum, which doesn’t sound like much, but that could be the difference between winning and losing a big game in the future.
We saw not one, not two, but three kickers during this game against Boston College! What did all three have in common? Each of Noah Burnette, Erik Schmidt, and Marcello Diomede missed a kick. All three missed wide to the right. There doesn’t appear to be an answer in that special teams room right now. I’m not sure where this position goes from here.
It may sound hyperbolic, but at what point do you make the conscious decision to just go for two on every point after, and attempt the majority of your fourth downs in “field goal range?” It’s a very real conversation right now, whether you want to have it or not.
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