SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Last week Logan Diggs had Audric Estime’s back, lifting his fellow running back up after a disastrous fourth-quarter fumble ended Notre Dame’s last best chance to beat Stanford in a game the Irish absolutely had to win. But when Estime coughed up his third fumble in four games on Saturday against UNLV, no pat on the back came.
Advertisement
Sometimes leadership doesn’t mean support. Sometimes it means intolerance.
That moment arrived early in the second quarter of Notre Dame’s 44-21 win over UNLV when Estime cradled the ball in his left arm until safety Jonathan Baldwin — who is listed 40 pounds lighter than the Irish running back — separated him from it. UNLV recovered but didn’t do anything with the turnover, running three plays, losing 12 yards and punting. That wasn’t the point. The moment became a line in the sand for Notre Dame. Estime didn’t get another carry the rest of the game, and no one feigned confusion as to why.
“So last week I was kind of on the side of it’s going to be all right. Just keep on doing your job,” Diggs said. “Keep being better. But today I was a real teammate and told him, for real, if you want to play, you’ve got to hold on to the ball.
“It’s as simple as that. We have that mutual respect and that love. I could tell him anything, and he could tell me anything.”
Notre Dame could probably use a little more hard truth during the season’s final five weeks because the Irish look like a program that could stretch for eight wins or barely qualify for a bowl. The Irish showed who they are against a hapless Mountain West program on Saturday inside Notre Dame Stadium, which was not sold out for the first time this season. They’re a flawed team with enough talent to put almost everything in doubt, good or bad.
After putting away UNLV thanks to two blocked punts by Isaiah Foskey and three sacks, Michael Mayer being Notre Dame’s best (and sometimes only) option in the pass game and Diggs posting a career-highs of 28 carries for 130 yards, Marcus Freeman got honest with himself and his roster. Notre Dame may have reached the acceptance stage of mourning this season. It started with so much promise in Columbus. It has been six games of whiplash ever since.
Advertisement
“We needed this for our mentality … and we are a good team,” Freeman said. “I’ve said that before. We are a good football team that doesn’t always play that way. It’s our job as coaches to get our team to perform this way.”
Freeman went on to talk up UNLV, which was down its starting quarterback and starting running back and had been blown out by larger margins than this in the past two weeks by San Jose State and Air Force. So maybe not everything said Saturday was totally honest. But instead of leaning into the positives and only the positives after his second career home win, Freeman appeared clear-eyed that Notre Dame needs to get a lot better if it wants to redeem this season in any meaningful way.
“That’s where we are as a team,” Freeman said. “We have to continue to get better, right? You’re talking about the ebbs and flows of a season to get us to this point where you see it in a game. You see it within series.”
Notre Dame could have avoided all that with a better start offensively. With the help of two Foskey punt blocks, the Irish began four possessions in Rebels territory, just in the first quarter. But those ended with three field goals and one touchdown, meaning Notre Dame allowed a scintilla of doubt to hang around all afternoon. UNLV may never have been in position to win the game, but the Rebels weren’t a prop for the Irish either, never having the look of a get-well card wearing shoulder pads.
Even though Notre Dame led 30-7 at halftime, the victory was in enough jeopardy to make Freeman think twice. There was the Estime fumble that led to the sophomore back’s benching. There was the apparent helmet-to-helmet hit on Drew Pyne at the goal line that looked like it might knock the quarterback out of the game entirely. Pyne only gave way to Steve Angeli for three snaps. The freshman didn’t attempt a pass and didn’t even handle the ball on his first play, a direct snap to tight end Mitchell Evans that went for a one-yard touchdown run.
Advertisement
Pyne returned one series later but was never quite the same throwing the ball, even if some of that was by design as Notre Dame built a three-score lead. Pyne opened 8 of 17 for 155 yards and a 20-yard touchdown to Mayer. Following the goal-line hit, he was 6 of 11 for 39 yards, one touchdown and one interception that probably should have been overturned by replay. Of that post-hit passing output, all but 11 yards came on shovel passes to Braden Lenzy.
Again, Notre Dame got honest with itself about what it has at quarterback, where Pyne has struggled to replicate his performances against North Carolina and BYU. Those games came with caveats about Pyne possibly holding the starting job next year after Tyler Buchner got healthy. Now Notre Dame is talking about trying to boost its quarterback’s confidence, never mind his actual play.
“I know Drew pretty well. I know when he’s down. I know when he’s up. I know when he’s in the middle,” Mayer said. “I know when he needs a slap on the butt to say, ‘Let’s go, we’re still in this thing. Let’s drive down the field. Let’s go score.’
“I think it’s important because he does get down sometimes, and I think he does need some people to lift him up sometimes … because we need our quarterback to have confidence. He had confidence today, and we need to keep that rolling.”
There wasn’t much about Saturday that felt easy for Notre Dame. And Freeman accepted that postgame, which doesn’t mean he endorsed it. The Irish are short at quarterback, poor at receiver and inconsistent on defense. They also have the best tight end in college football, a future NFL defensive end, a running back playing himself into the lead back in a talented room and a punt block team that’s a real weapon.
It’s not that everything is askew for Notre Dame. It won a football game going away in a season that has felt difficult from the first snap. Freeman can celebrate that without being accused of overlooking the program’s issues. It’s all just not quite what the head coach expected.
“It’s never going to be perfect,” Freeman said, referencing Pyne, though he could have been talking about the program as a whole. “We’re confident. Let’s go out there and execute.”
Notre Dame did enough of that against UNLV. It also knows what was sufficient on Saturday won’t be moving forward.
(Photo: Matt Cashore / USA Today)
