Five things Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said before Irish vs. Louisville

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman spoke to the media Thursday for the final time before the No. 10 Fighting Irish (5-1) take on No. 25 Louisville (5-0) in Notre Dame’s third-straight night game against a ranked opponent. Here are five things Freeman said about the Irish and Cardinals.

On Louisville’s cornerbacks

“They’re really good defenders. They’re physical. They have good length. They’re aggressive. You don’t see many balls caught on them. We told our wideouts it’s going to be a great challenge for us. We’re looking forward to a good battle with those guys. But they’re well-coached and really good football players.”

On Louisville’s running game with Jawhar Jordan

“Jordan is a home run threat. We’ve showed our defense the multiple explosive plays that he’s had. He has elite speed and ability. I’ve seen him break tackles and do some things like that. We have to tackle. They have two other guys that they roll into the game that are good players. [Isaac Guerendo] is more of a bigger back that transferred from Wisconsin.

“They got a talented running back room. You’ve seen them have a lot of success running the ball. Our challenge is to make sure that they become one-dimensional. We have to stop the run. That’s going to be so important. And then when we force them to throw the ball, we got to be good. Got to limit the explosive plays. And we have to tackle. Those have been the two things we’ve talked about all week. We got to tackle, and we got to really limit their explosive plays. Those are our keys to success.”

On where Notre Dame is as a tackling team right now

“The actual live tackling that you tackle guys to the ground, you can’t do that [in practice]. We’ve been going seven weeks straight and all fall camp. We have to be smart in terms of the way we practice. There are fundamentals to tackling. It’s not just live tackling. We are constantly working on it and looking at new ways to continue to attack it in practice.

“We’re always trying to improve as a tackling team. There is no perfect tackling team in the country. One missed tackle is too much. So how do we continue to work on the fundamentals of tackling? Is it a tracking issue? Are we tracking in the right way? Is it a footwork issue? Is it a leverage issue? All those different things that we see from the game, we have to continue to attack in practice and continue to work on it. We’re constantly improving. It’s not perfect. But we are definitely addressing it in practice.”

On Notre Dame’s plan at Vyper without Jordan Botelho (targeting) available for the first half

“Both Junior [Tuihalamaka] and Josh [Burnham] have done an extremely good job this week in practice. Josh will start the game off and they’ll rotate, I would say, 50 percent of the time. You’ll see both of those guys in there. And then Jordan will be back the second half. Those guys have been playing well all season in their opportunities. I’m excited to see what they do with these opportunities now being able to go out there and play majority of the first half. We’ll see exactly the situation for the second half. Obviously, Jordan will be back. I’m excited to see those two guys go out there and play at a high level this first half, for sure.”

On Notre Dame cornerback Benjamin Morrison

“I think he’s built tremendously off of his freshman year. I don’t know exactly what the stats would say but I know the production he has for our defense in terms of doing your job, a lot of times being matched up vs. a lot of great receivers that he’s had to go against this year. He’s not perfect, he knows that. He’s the first one to tell you. But he’s constantly working toward that perfection and making sure you continue to learn your craft.

“That’s where the next step is now for him. Last year was continuing to learn our defense and what it takes to play at this level. Now you see the growth and the technique. The ability to recognize routes and splits and things like that. He’s really, really developed into an elite corner and has done a great job for our defense.”