What they’re saying about Notre Dame’s 33-20 loss at Louisville
Notre Dame’s College Football Playoff hopes are out of the equation after a 33-20 setback against Louisville, dropping the Fighting Irish to 5-2 on the season.
In this article, we’ll take a look around at what the media is saying about Notre Dame’s loss against the Cardinals, including Blue & Gold’s Mike Singer and Tim Hyde giving their instant reaction in a postgame YouTube live show. You can watch the replay of the show in the video player below.
Make sure to subscribe to the Blue & Gold YouTube channel here and tune in to The Mike Goolsby Show, which will be live on the page Sunday at 7 p.m. ET.
Tyler Horka, Blue & Gold: How third down woes loomed large in Notre Dame loss to Louisville
Notre Dame junior left tackle Joe Alt said the Fighting Irish lost a little bit of confidence throughout their loss to Louisville. Never was that more evident than when the offense was on the field for third down.
Notre Dame only converted 3 of its 13 third down attempts. The Irish were 0-for-3 when needing three yards or less.
Alt is one of the best tackles in the country. Junior tailback Audric Estimé is one of the nation’s most bruising, punishing running backs. And yet, the first time Notre Dame only needed one yard on third, the Irish tried a fake toss counter to senior wide receiver Chris Tyree. Graduate student quarterback Sam Hartman fumbled the exchange with Tyree. Louisville recovered.
In his postgame press conference, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman made it sound like Notre Dame was treating the situation as four-down territory. If that’s true, then imagine facing third and one and thinking about fourth down.
Yikes. Painfully appropriate.
Notre Dame only needed one yard on third down a little earlier, but junior right tackle Blake Fisher was flagged for a false start. On third and six, an end-around to freshman running back Jeremiyah Love only gained three yard. That forced Notre Dame to line up in put formation.
Jack Soble, Blue & Gold: Why Notre Dame was doomed from the start in loss to Louisville
Early in the fourth quarter, on the kickoff after Louisville redshirt junior running back Jawhar Jordan’s second touchdown, the Cardinals’ kick coverage team was too fired up to slow down. The kick was a touchback, but they kept running to the right corner of the end zone and motioned the nearby fans to get loud. The fans, watching their team put Notre Dame away, obliged.
That was the passion and inspiration Louisville played with all night. Notre Dame never found it.
Worse, by head coach Marcus Freeman’s own admission, the Irish were unprepared to play.
“Our guys weren’t prepared, for whatever reason,” Freeman said. “We got to take a deep dive and figure out what it was.”
It was apparent from the opening kickoff and into Louisville’s first offensive drive, which began after graduate Irish quarterback Sam Hartman’s first interception of the season. The Cardinals, led by Jordan’s 6 touches for 37 yards, looked faster than Notre Dame. They routinely beat the Irish to the edge, or to whichever spot they needed to go.
Louisville looked like it came ready to play. The same cannot be said for Notre Dame. The shock of that first series, graduate linebacker JD Bertrand believes, was difficult to overcome.
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Andrea Adelson, ESPN: No. 25 Louisville ends No. 10 Notre Dame’s 30-game regular-season ACC winning streak
When No. 25 Louisville brought native son Jeff Brohm home, it was for moments like Saturday night: A historic 33-20 win over visiting Notre Dame, snapping the No. 10 Fighting Irish’s record 30-game regular-season ACC winning streak.
Brohm, who grew up in Louisville and went on to star at quarterback for the Cardinals, now has Louisville 6-0 in his first year as head coach. After Louisville completed the upset over the Irish, fans stormed the field, and singer Jack Harlow could be seen standing next to Brohm shouting, “He’s the s—!”
“It’s a great win,” Brohm said in his postgame news conference. “And yeah, I like big games. Our team likes big games. If you can’t get up for those, this maybe isn’t the sport for you. But you’ve got to come ready to play, and you’ve got to do all the small things. You’ve got to be aggressive.”
That is exactly the way Louisville played the Irish, coming after quarterback Sam Hartman from the start. It was reminiscent of the way Louisville played Hartman last season when he was the starting quarterback at Wake Forest and had six turnovers in a loss to the Cardinals. On Saturday’s opening drive, Hartman threw an interception — his first of three on the day.
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman
Opening statement in his postgame press conference…
“Obviously, just disappointed in the performance. We have to take ownership as a coaching staff first, right? And as the head coach first — that our guys weren’t prepared, for whatever reason. We got to take a deep dive and figure out what it was.
“You can point your finger at any person, any specific unit, but the reality is, we’ve got to point the finger at ourselves and figure out what were the issues that led to the lack of execution. So, we obviously know we have to take care of football. You can’t turn the ball over five times and expect to win.
“Everybody’s going to point the finger at Sam (Hartman). You better point the finger at us. At me. We got to protect him. We have to do a better job protecting our quarterback and putting him in situations to have a higher percentage of success.
“A lot of self-reflection. We’re gonna have to do a deep dive into exactly where the shortcomings happened. We got to get this thing figured out. We got to turn it around because we’ve got USC coming in next weekend. So we don’t have a lot of time to feel sorry for ourselves. We better get back to work and start preparing for this next upcoming game.”
