Marcus Freeman breaks down improvement of Drew Pyne

Drew Pyne has spent the season finding his footing as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback. It’s been a week-by-week improvement for the former four-star and Marcus Freeman says they’re all along for the ride.

Freeman spoke about Pyne’s development during media on Monday. He said it’s not just game-by-game improvement but also half-by-half and series-by-series with his quarterback and, of all the things he has worked on thus far, Freeman is most impressed by Pyne’s execution.

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“If you look at Drew Pyne the UNLV game versus the Stanford game or maybe the first half of Cal, that’s the law of progression,” said Freeman. “Drew wasn’t perfect the entire game. But he was able to execute maybe even when he didn’t have a successful play the play before.”

Pyne bounced back after a slow outing during the Irish’s loss to Stanford a week ago. He completed 50% of his passes for 205 yards, two touchdowns, and only one interception in the 44-21 win over UNLV.

Freeman sees Pyne as one of the program’s best examples of consistency this season. He says Pyne is great about minimizing his mistakes in the sense that he doesn’t let one slip up snowball into an avalanche.

“To continue to have the mental confidence to go out there…Consistency is something that we all as a program have to improve at. But I think what Drew did was he was able to not let one bad play turn into two or turn into three on Saturday,” Freeman said. “Nobody’s perfect. He’ll tell you he’s played better this year, but I think there was growth.”

Pyne’s numbers aren’t eye-popping by any means but he’s managing the game for Notre Dame at an almost invaluable level. It has shown in their record too with the Irish going 4-1 with him as the starter. With stiffer competition on its way, Freeman will need Pyne to continue his progression in weeks to come. Pyne keeping his pace will be big if Notre Dame wants to go knock off a ranked Syracuse team on Saturday.