Rakes Report #235: You don’t face your fears. You ride ‘em. (The Season Preview)
Or to put it another way: With Marcus Freeman entering his third season as head coach, do his Fighting Irish have it in them to make it epic?
~optional musical accompaniment~
It’s tough to argue with the theory that third seasons end up being telling for Notre Dame coaches. Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz all won titles and Brian Kelly played for one. On the other end, you have campaigns of 3-9 and 5-7, plus a 6-5 so uninspiring it resulted in a termination. It is of course possible to buck this trend but for the sake of history books, appeasement of any football gods and our own personal happiness, why not make 2024 a banner year and etch Marcus Freeman on the positive side of that divide?
Let’s take a moment to review Freeman’s first two seasons, considering we exist in the context of all in which we live and what came before us. Freeman’s debut 2022 was capital-F Fine, two understandable road losses to elite quarterbacks bookending the schedule but two horrific home defeats at the hands of Marshall and Stanford marring things. There were some nice wins mixed in (at North Carolina and Syracuse, the neutral site against BYU) and it ended on a high note in a bowl win against a Top 25 South Carolina team that was fully engaged.
With a 10-3 final record, 2023 also fell into the realm of solid but indubitably a mild disappointment. Losing the Ohio State game in that exact fashion was as painful as it gets, and the poor efforts in Louisville and Death Valley raised concerns about readiness for road games and a questionable offensive coordinator hire. But there were positives: Notre Dame blew most of their opponents to kingdom come, including both an undefeated USC team starting the reigning Heisman winner and an overmatched bowl opponent to enter the offseason on a positive note. I know I say this a lot but it can’t be overstated how big of a thank you this staff owes Audric Estime for what he did in the final moments against Duke to avoid putting the season on the leg of a 68% kicker.
Taken in its totality, this is the start to a career that’s going to be shaded from what comes next. If Freeman succeeds, 2022 and 2023 will be seen as a capable foundation that had a few early-career head coaching mistakes along with peeks at the peaks he’d eventually reach. If he fails, those errors will be forefronted and begrudging credit will be given to the position the program was in with 44 wins the four seasons that preceded his hire.
Freeman still has robust support among a Notre Dame fan base that wants to see him succeed and comes into his third campaign with pretty much everything you could want in place to make a playoff run. Instead of an embarrassing offensive coordinator search that ended with an iffy result, it was a quick pull of Mike Denbrock, who was doing excellent work in Baton Rouge and ran the best Notre Dame offense of the last decade and a half. Al Golden stayed, and so did a bunch of veteran defenders who could have headed to the NFL. With the exception of some questions about undergrad transfer admissions (which seem to be trending in the right direction) and being stuck with Under Armour, the university and football program are in Peak Alignment, be that with NIL, ground breaking on the new facility or going as far as shifting the finals schedule around to accommodate a potential home playoff game.
Riley Leonard will provide a dual-threat element we haven’t seen in some time and there’s depth behind him. What makes me excited about Leonard is that while some of his stats don’t jump out, the guy has a knack for making plays. Remember how Duke seemed dead in the water and then was winning very late against the Irish? That was Leonard. He delivered haymaker after haymaker against Clemson and had the lead in Tallahassee on a bum ankle before it finally caught up with him. It’s been a few years since the long-term starter was a threat with his legs and I’m happy to be back in this world.
The biggest trouble area last year — wide receiver — now has the potential to be a strength even if there’s no true No. 1 (but perhaps one develops over the course of the season). Jeremiyah Love and Mitchell Evans could earn consideration as the nation’s best at their positions and there are options behind them (Jadarian Price seems overqualified as a second tailback). The offensive line looms as a major issue but at least the staff is being clear eyed in their approach to it and working through a lot of different options. Mix in some full hearts and your prospects of losing a game in Texas go way down.
The defense, to put it plainly, has the chance to be the best in the country. There will need to be some good fortune when it comes to avoiding injuries in the secondary as well as a young player or three stepping up at linebacker but there are multiple starters playing their sixth year of college football and that doesn’t include the guy who was a unanimous All-American at safety last year nor the cornerback projected to go in the top half of the first round. The defensive line is stacked and there is a tantalizing upside for the unit when you consider the third year of Golden’s scheme and the mix of savvy veterans and athletic underclassmen he has to deploy within it. Someone across the schedule’s collective roster will likely step up but it’s a welcome relief the list of opposing quarterbacks this year doesn’t include a C.J. Stroud or Caleb Williams.
All of these good vibes and on-paper promise will immediately be put to the test in a toss-up of an opener. Last season in College Station, Jimbo Fisher assembled a veritable rogues gallery of assistant coaches on his way to a 7-6 season. On most staffs, Steve Addazio (mishandling COVID-19 and harassing a Black janitor) or Bobby Petrino (being Bobby Petrino) would be the crown jewel of shitheels but they paled in comparison to the presence of D.J. Durkin. In an unfortunate break for the Irish, Texas A&M chose to tap into their oil reserves and replace Fisher, eventually landing on Mike Elko.
I think most Notre Dame fans have a healthy respect for Elko considering his one year in South Bend and the scare an undermanned Duke team caused last September in Durham. Elko brought in Collin Klein as offensive coordinator following a run of successful seasons at Kansas State, which he achieved using a wide variety of quarterback skill sets. The Aggies bled some talent in the transition, but Elko’s familiarity limited the loss and they made some quality acquisitions in the transfer portal. It was a relatively quiet offseason for the Aggie football program, a marked difference from the flop sweat and fireworks of the Fisher tenure.
This defense is going to be nasty and provide a challenge to Denbrock and Leonard. The line may be the very best in the country and there’s a chance all four starters could be high picks. The secondary was awful last year but brought in loads of transfers from two very different pools: top recruits who didn’t click at big programs and productive players from smaller schools making the SEC leap. The best hope for the Irish is there are just enough growing pains on the back end that they can break a couple big plays. Still, it’s hard to feel good going against an Elko defense that shouldn’t have to blitz to get pressure.
The other side of the ball is a little trickier for the Aggies. At quarterback they love Conner Weigman, a junior who was a top recruit but saw a promising start to 2023 cut short with a foot injury. (NFL Draft prognosticators tend to get as starry eyed as anyone this time of year, and Weigman has appeared in a number of first-round mocks.) The Aggie offensive line has been a mess but they’re hoping transfers, experience and good health improve things there. Similar to the secondary, it could be beneficial for the Irish to deal with that group in game one versus November. There is talent at the skill positions but nobody is pegged as a preseason all-conference threat so Golden and company can potentially get out of town before a clear pecking order for usage is established.
This game reminds me of a previous primetime road opener: The 2019 trip to Louisville. Both teams had new coaches making their debuts and were coming off seasons where they had Petrino on staff and a messy culture. Simply having a steadier hand at the controls had that team go from a moribund 2-10 to 8-5 and this Texas A&M roster has way more talent than those Cardinals did. In his SEC preview at ESPN, Bill Connelly compared this team to the 2012 Aggies*, underscoring a concern I had bouncing around in my head all summer. There’s also a little 2021 (road game down south with a new quarterback and left tackle) and a whole lot of 2018 (feeling unimaginably huge for setting the tone of the season) thrown in the stress stew.
* The 2011/2012 Fighting Irish and Aggies are a great example of how the underlying advanced metrics can be useful in projections. The 2011 versions of those teams combined for 11 losses but both finished in the Top 18 of F+, suggesting it was more close-game luck and bad bounces than fundamental program deficiencies. In 2012, the teams went a combined 23-3 and had the top two finishers in the Heisman race. The guy who finished third will be calling plays for the Aggie offense this season.
The Irish offense performing well on Saturday evening obviously would be welcome and portend great things for this season. However, if it is clunky, I won’t hold that against Denbrock and his charges because it would make sense that with pretty much a completely overhauled depth chart and new scheme it might take some time to gel. As long as they’re rolling by the time they have to trade paint and points with Mike Norvell and Lincoln Riley, that’s a success.
Such indulgences will not be granted to the defense, who need this to be their showcase performance of the season a la the 2023 Southern Cal and 2022 Clemson games. When Golden defenses have faltered at Notre Dame they generally don’t do so in spectacular fashion but it’s death by a thousand cuts, dribs and drabs and five-yard runs and limited havoc and a chunk play at an inopportune time. The offense absolutely should have been much better in the losses to Louisville and Clemson last fall, but giving up 11-play, 75-yard drives to both Jack Plummer and Cade Klubnik in one-score games is heartbreaking stuff.
If the rumblings out of camp in College Station are legitimate, Klein’s offense might not be ready for primetime just yet with too much left to figure out along the line and at receiver, especially when you consider the quarterback — while undeniably talented — has only started a handful of games. It’s entirely plausible there are enough Weigman miscues coupled with enough big plays from Leonard that the good guys prevail and both Irish partisans stressing about the game and Vegas oddsmakers look silly. On the other hand, sometimes you can throw analysis to the side and it’s as simple as “Went on the road to play one of the more talented teams in the country in front of 100,000 people in the fifth ring of hell and enough freak athletes made enough plays it slipped away.”
We have talked about this at length but the 12-team playoff is creating a clear line of demarcation for a lot of programs to decide whether their season was a success or not. Notre Dame fans are very fortunate that their program is at a level where that’s the bar for us, but that also brings a great deal of pressure. Not that there’s ever been an autumn where we are normal, but these dozen games will carry the weight of the acute playoff expectations as well as the broader work of Freeman continuing to establish his head coaching bonafides.
Whew, I can’t believe we’re already to the season’s start. Considering the three games following this one are two MAC schools and Purdue (so three MAC schools, if you squint?), the mood for the majority of September will likely be decided on Saturday in College Station. Not to hype this up even more, but the tenor for the whole season will also be set, a loss meaning there will be zero margin for error the rest of the way to avoid a perilous playoff positioning. A win? Well, a win would be real, real nice, and a huge step toward the goal of another home game come December. There are a lot of stakes for both a single game and a single season, but that’s why we’re here.
Go Irish. Beat Aggies. Let’s do this.
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Some additional reading: Loved this Pete Sampson piece on the process that led to Howard Cross, Jack Kiser, Rylie Mills and Xavier Watts all returning. Jamie Uyeyama goes as deep as you possibly can on the Texas A&M roster. Tons of useful information in Michael Bryan’s look at the offense through an advanced stats lens.
To further fill the hours before kickoff on Saturday evening please consider the latest round of podcasts (Spotify) (Apple). In August we dropped the depth chart power rankings, Frosh O primers, schedule preview and excitement draft featuring a range of fun and smart guests. Merch watch: shirts, mugs, hoodies, stickers, things of that nature all available here.
If you enjoyed this, please consider sending to other Irish fans in your life. This is a word-of-mouth promotional operation and I appreciate everyone who joins but especially love those that badger others into becoming readers and listeners. Due to the holiday weekend (how did we end up with Boston College/Florida State as the Monday night game?), the A&M Review will land Tuesday morning but the plan is a return to normal schedule for the rest of the season.
Go Irish!! I'm cautiously optimistic, now.