Everything Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said after beating Louisville

After beating No. 15 Louisville 31-24 on Saturday, the Notre Dame football program heads into the bye week 4-1 with momentum on their side.

Following the Fighting Irish’s Week 5 victory, coach Marcus Freeman addressed the media for about 13 minutes. Here is everything he said.

Opening statement:

“Yeah, man, great win. Obviously wasn’t perfect as everybody saw, we saw, our players saw. You find a way to get it done when it matters most. (The) defense had to go out there and prevent them from scoring that last drive. 

“A lot of confidence — I know the game gets close, but we have a lot of confidence in our defense. It’s why I’m so aggressive as a coach on fourth down. You got a lot of confidence in your defense. 

“I’m proud of them. Proud of the coaching staff. Proud of the players in terms of how we learned, hopefully from the lessons this last year taught us, from the lessons of this year, and we were able to go out and perform and get the job done. 

“At the end of the day, we are evaluated, win or not. Did you get it done? We found a way. We’ll go back. We’ll clean it up as we go into the bye week, look at the areas of improvement, have a plan and attack them. 

“We know we got to improve. Seven guaranteed games, I told them. We’re going to need everybody. Have to continue to get better, but it’s a great feeling going into the bye week with a big win over a good Louisville team.”

On the message to the guys after Louisville recovered the opening kickoff:

“You got to reload. That’s coaches and players and things happened within a game. Your frustration, you want to get mad and scream, and the player feels like crap, but you got to reload, and you got to refocus on the next play.

“That’s why this game is so important. The ability to win the plays between plays is what’s really, I think, makes great teams great. That’s a message I’ve always said, ‘No matter what happens the last play, take the emotion out.’ You don’t control probably the first thought, but you control the second thought. Your first thought is to be upset and feel sorry for yourself, and the second thought is the most important, and that’s to reload and refocus.”

On how the defense’s performance dictates the way they call the game:

“It does. Again, when you feel like — when you have confidence, I have confidence we were going to make the fourth-and-2. I think we had two fourth-and-1s that we were successful with. 

“You know, we have a plan going into the game of, ‘Hey, what’s the yardage that we want to be aggressive and go for it.?’ At that moment, it was two yards. I was really confident how the defense was playing, and they played well afterwards.

“A guy made a 56-yard field goal. That’s a heck of a kick. So, again, hindsight, you don’t make it. I want to continue to be aggressive. I want our team to be aggressive. We have to be aggressive, an aggressive mentality. That was a reflection of that.”

On what he takes away from Notre Dame executing in clutch moments and the confidence it gives him moving forward:

“Yeah, we played lights out in the first half, especially offensively. I want to go back and — again, it’s hard when you’re out there trying to stay focused on every single play. I want to go back and see. It was good. We were aggressive, threw some deep balls, had success in run game and passing game. 

“Second half we weren’t as successful. Punt, punt, turnover on downs, and then J-Love (running back Jeremiyah Love) has a great play. That’s something we worked on all week. That was a big screen. Then we knew after this first down, after the time out, we were going to call that. 

“Again, let’s evaluate it, continue to be aggressive, both sides of the ball, but especially offensively. (Quarterback) Riley (Leonard), man, he had a great week and performed really well.”

On when he knew they would have to go to freshman Leonard Moore to start at CB:

“Yeah, Christian (Gray) was going to try to go. He had a shoulder sprain and was going to try to go.  Thought he was going to be able to go. 

“After the pre-game warmup just wasn’t ready. Wasn’t going to be able to get the job done that we needed. We went to Leonard, and we have a lot of confidence in Leonard and he played really well.”

On using Max Hurleman on punt return:

“The decision came about in practice this week when we were game planning against our punt unit. We wanted to be aggressive and we knew we could probably get the opt time to be affected by our aggressiveness, and we thought (Jordan) Faison would give us the best chance to maybe get back there and block a punt. 

“But Max has shown us that he’s reliable, will catch the ball, and will be aggressive. He did a really good job stepping up today.”

On Boubacar Traore’s injury status:

“Lower leg, knee injury I think. Don’t know. They just told me he was out for the game. Hopefully, I’ll have more information here soon.”

On the defensive backs readiness to play different roles and how much they’ve worked on that as an emergency Plan B:

“You have to have a plan for Plan B, C, and D. We didn’t have a lot of practice reps, I’ll tell you that, with expecting Christian to try to give it a go. So we didn’t have a whole bunch of practice reps. 

“It happened. You know, B-Mo (Benjamin Morrison) goes down in the second half. We knew if that happened, we were going to put Jordan Clark at corner. He did a good job. You got to have a plan. ‘Okay, hey, we’re going to move this guy.’ (It) happens to have been at corner(back) this year, but has previous to the corner position. So here is our game plan if he has to go to the corner position. 

“So you have to have Plan B, C, D ready to roll. They did a good job.”

On where the focus will be during the bye week:

“Yeah, we have to get better. That’s the most important thing. Part of this week will be out recruiting. You know, we have to continue to recruit and go see some guys. 

“But the main emphasis of this week is how do we improve. Part of improving will be to get healthy. (We) got to get healthy in areas that we can. 

“Got to look at schematically where can we continue to enhance. We have to get better. I’m confident we will.”

On how Louisville’s defensive game plan late affected Notre Dame’s decision to run QB Riley Leonard:

“I think five minutes left in the game, and they had no timeouts. We said we have to be smart. If it gets to third down, let’s be aggressive and try to throw it. 

“If (tight end) Mitch(ell Evans) wasn’t open, said, ‘Hey, let’s keep (the) ball in bounds. Do not throw it away. We have to utilize those 40 seconds. Every second matters. That’s the thing you learn as a head coach, is that a play that happens with four minutes left in the game is going to affect the end of the game. 

“Again, it wasn’t beautiful because we didn’t get a first down, but we ran 120 seconds off the clock, which was crucial. Then as you go to punt, you’re able to take off another 40 seconds. 

“We would’ve loved to have been able to finish the game with the ball in our offense’s hands, but we were really looking at time management right there.”

On what it says about the team to respond after fumbling the opening kickoff and surrendering a touchdown:

“Yeah, we knew going into this game, you know, Louisville, I think, under (Coach Jeff) Brohm, is top in the country in terms of opening drives — opening drives on defense. I don’t think they allowed an opening drive touchdown since he’s been there. 

“And then on offense, they got top five in terms of scoring rate. That was an emphasis for us: start fast. Started with a fumble. It was great to see our guys reload and our offense to be able to go out there and drive 75 yards down the field and score. 

“It was huge. We were aggressive. We were aggressive, and we handled adversity all in the first quarter.”

On how fine the line is to stay with Riley Leonard, knowing there are things that limit him offensively or if a two-score lead and the defense dictated the approach in the second half:

“Yeah, after the first half, I think we were up 24-14. I thought our offense played lights out the first half. There was no even consideration of changing quarterbacks going into the second half. 

“We didn’t have a lot of success in the second half, and I always say, ‘You are going to blame the quarterback.’ That’s what you do. You’re supposed to do. You’re going to blame the head coach. That’s what you’re supposed to do. We will go back and see what decisions Riley made in the second half that weren’t good. 

“Damn it, he played really well in the first half. Our whole entire offense didn’t play great in the second half.  It’s easy to point the finger at Riley, but I’m proud of the way he performed today and led our offense to victory.”

On the insight into the conversation with offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock in the second half:

“Hey, we got to get a first down.  What we’re doing right now is not working. Let’s try something else. That’s about it.”

On if Riley Leonard was physically compromised in the fourth quarter:

“He’s banged up. We ran him. We knew we were going to have to run him. Tough, tough guy.  He is tough. Sacrifices his body. I think he might have got kneed in his thigh or something like that. I don’t know exactly what it was. He said I’m good to go. I want the ball in my hands. It’s the competitor he is. He’s a tough, tough person, man.”

On why Sullivan Absher went in at left guard:

“No, that was injury decision with Sam (Pendleton). He got, I think, rolled up on or something like that.”

On if the first offensive drive represented the quarterback they want to see:

“That’s the offense I want to see. That’s a perfect drive on offense. It’s not just about Riley. We ran the ball well, too. 

“Thought our whole entire offense did really, really good job on the first drive.”

On the emotion at the end of the game between the Notre Dame and Louisville players:

“I didn’t see it. I just ran to shake coach’s hand. I’m sure they’re competitors, everybody is competitors. You know, I’m sure they talk a little mess to each other between both sides of the ball. Nothing I was aware of.”