What Miami University coach Chuck Martin said about Notre Dame

Miami University head coach Chuck Martin knows Notre Dame very well. He was an assistant on Brian Kelly‘s staff in South Bend for four seasons from 2012-13.

Martin, whose RedHawks (0-2) visit South Bend this Saturday for a 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff against the No. 17 Fighting Irish (2-1), was expectedly very complimentary of his former stomping grounds in his Monday press conference.

Perhaps even more than anyone could have imagined, though.

Here’s everything Martin said about the Irish.

On how playing two power conference teams prepared Miami for Notre Dame

“Biggest thing we talked about yesterday is just our execution on O, D and special teams. There is a lot of good on O, D and special teams. We did a lot of good things on defense. But there are things we have to clean up. We lost leverage on a 60-yard run that was a huge play in the game in the fourth quarter. We can’t lose leverage on that play.

“There’s details in fundamentals that you’re still fighting for the consistency that we want. Defense is a little bit closer than the other units. We did a lot of good things on ST, but obviously we had a critical error on ST. So it negates a lot of the good things we did. You have to play clean football.

“Then offensively, the unit by far right now — there was a lot of really good stuff. We did a lot of really good things. Three-hundred and 80 yards. We got good explosives. But man, there is so much that we can do more. There are so many opportunities. There’s a block here, there’s a throw there, there’s a route here, there’s a mistake here that we’re leaving so much on the field. We watched the tape and you’re saying, hey, if we execute, it could have been 500-plus yards against a Power Five opponent. Now you have 30-some-odd points and you probably have yourself a victory.

“Again, some of it is credit Cincinnati for making plays, some of it is just our mistakes in key situations. Made a good check late and we had an easy route against cover zero, we didn’t run the right route. That could have been a touchdown. It was second to last offensive play of the game. We’re consistent. We’re inconsistent. It’s Week 2. That’s normal. But we’re fighting for — we don’t know what play is going to be a big one. You look back on Sunday and say, ‘Man, that turned out to be a big play in the game.’ We didn’t know. It was play 27. It was play 62. We didn’t know. It was a ST play. We didn’t know.

“Just fighting to be consistent in everything we do. Against good opponents it gets magnified because sometimes you don’t take great footwork against a great opponent and you might get away with it a little bit, and then we have a couple third and shorts and we take bad footwork and we don’t get away with it. The play is over. It’s not a like opponent. Everything gets magnified.

“When we play the schedule we play, there is a good and bad to everything. Do I want to start out with Big Ten, Big 12, Notre Dame? No. You’re on a suicide mission. But as I tell my team every day, everything e do that we do well really is something we should keep carrying because if we’re doping it well right now against these guys, it’s probably a strength of ours and you always want to play to your strengths. If you’re not doing. something well, that gets exposed immediately. I mean, immediately.

“You can not do it anymore, but you got a long season left. So it’s more like, ‘Hey, how do we get better?’ Know what I mean? Sometimes it’s not terrible but you get exposed because there is a really high-end talent guy on the other side of the ball. You look at a couple short yardage situations, it’s just bad footwork. And I’m not saying if we have good footwork it works out perfect, but I know with bad footwork the play was over before it got started. You watch the tape and say if you played somebody lesser than you maybe you’re creating bad habits early in the year and it’s going to get exposed later.

“Obviously with our schedule, we’ll know early, if we do things good we’ll know what we’re good at. If we don’t do things well, we won’t get away with that. It’ll be on tape immediately. Bam, right in our face. It’ll cost us dearly. There is always a pro and con. The nice things is you get two weeks against a physical Northwestern and then you have a really physical, twitchy, explosive, athletic Cincinnati team.

“For new guys, hey, this is the speed of the game at this level. It’s not high school. This is how it looks. It’s over like this. You got split-seconds to make decisions and put force on people. Or you don’t leverage their tailback, guess what, he’s really fast. That thing was over in a hurry. It’s a split-second decision and we are just a little bit late with our eyes. All of a sudden, yeah, you don’t get away with that. At Cincinnati, the Ohio State transfer can roll. That’s probably the biggest thing for us.”

On getting Miami’s feeble running game going against Notre Dame

“We have to. We have to. We like to run the football. Both the Northwestern and Cincinnati game, there was some positive stuff there. But it’s so inconsistent. There were times when the Cincinnati D-line got after us. But a couple key situations it was a tight end missed block. A couple key situations it as a tackle’s missed block, a guard’s missed block. Another situation is we blocked up, and our back’s gotta hit the hole. Another situation a receiver misses a block. When you run the ball it’s everybody. It’s running backs, O-line, tight ends and receivers.

“We’ve played good opponents and really good fronts, but there is still stuff out there we can do. We control. Some run plays we can take. Cincinnati got after us. OK. There are other plays when there is stuff there and we’re not executing. It comes down to our inconsistency and our passing game and our run game is not to the level we need to be the best team we can be let alone beat these teams. But yes, we got to get going.”

On playing at Notre Dame Stadium

“It’s an awesome opportunity for us and a really cool experience to go to any type of venue like that. My personal opinion, we’re going to the greatest venue on the planet. I’ve been a diehard Notre Dame stan since probably the first thing my parents taught me. You got to go to school and learn, and this is Notre Dame football. This is Notre Dame basketball. This is the only team that matters on the planet, and I didn’t know there was professional sports. I’m old enough that e didn’t have cable. We watched the game Sunday morning on review. Harry Kalas is a big person in my life. I didn’t even know he announced for the Phillies for years. I just thought he was the Notre Dame personal announcer. I didn’t know he was a big Phillies guy.

“I think it will be a great experience. Any time you get these big-time venues, it’s an awesome opportunity. You’re going to be on national TV and you get to show the whole world what kind of player you are and you get to show the whole world what kind of team you are and you get to a place that’s really cool and the environment there is amazing. It’s like any of the other big games that get scheduled, but I think this one is more special because it’s a better place than everywhere else. That’s just my personal opinion.”

On the challenges Notre Dame presents

“I watched the first half of the Purdue game. Came home from a tough loss against our bitter rival. Then I just watched the first half of the Purdue game and I thought, OK, in life you get what you deserve and we didn’t get it done today. We didn’t play or coach as well as we needed to to get it done. So, OK, you get to go home and sit on your couch and just watch Notre Dame manhandle a Big Ten opponent. This day just keeps rolling along. This is the way it should be. This is what I deserve.

“They are insanely physically gifted. Not even close to our first two opponents. And our first two opponents were a Big Ten team and a Big 12 team and really, really gifted. We didn’t play MAC teams. This team ain’t — they’re nothing like those teams. Nothing. They’re insanely talented. They’ve done a great job recruiting. They play really hard. They know what they’re doing.

“They got a great secondary. They put immense pressure. With a bad secondary I don’t think the quarterbacks have enough time to throw the ball. By the end of the first half, I felt bad for the Purdue quarterback. I don’t even know the kid. his can’t be any fun. It can’t be any fun. Here’s out there competing and late in the half he’s trying to switch the ball. At first I thought he threw a crazy hook shot. Then I saw on the replay, he was just fending for his life the whole time. He was trying to switch the ball and the guy hits and it and flies. That’s part of being in the arena. Some days it ain’t your day. It wasn’t Purdue’s day and Notre Dame obviously coming off a week when they didn’t play their best football.

“Offensively, their tailbacks are amazing. Amazing. Their quarterback is like a tailback. Purdue couldn’t tackle him. Then you watch the tape from last year and guys in the ACC couldn’t tackle him. He’s so athletic but he’s so strong and breaks so many tackles. He’s fast. They’ve got some really high-end receivers. They have some, I mean Notre Dame’s always got tight ends. Their O-line, they lost a really good player in preseason and they lost two more last week so they’re a little beat up up front, but I coached there. Backups at Notre Dame are pretty good players. They do fine in our league. The guys who are playing, they won’t have taken any visits to the schools we compete against in a couple weeks. But unfortunate for them because they lost three.

“But they’ll be a handful. They’re good. You’re going to have to play really well every snap to give yourself a chance. If you take your foot off the gas. They’re up 35 to nothing with 40 seconds last week. They complete a ball and it was a big play but there was holding. I was like, they’ll probably just run the clock out. There was like 14 seconds left and they were backed up wherever. They just ran the ball to run the clock out and that guy went 70 yards for a touchdown.

“It’s immediate. We know. We’ve played good people already this year that, like we said, mistakes will get exposed. You’re a little late to the party, you won’t be at the party. Party will be over. Will have an extra point or field goal blocked and you’ll be running your defense back out there.

“It’s an awesome challenge One I know our kids are super excited about. Three weeks in a row, our kids will be juiced up and excited to play, we just got to get them ready mentally and physicall. We played two really, really physical games. Health-wise we’re doing great, but our guys are pretty dang sore right now. We got to get ready for that because it’s going to be a pretty physical battle. They got great depth and they use their depth on both sides of the ball.

“Their boundary corner, you can’t complete a ball against. Somebody told me, yeah, I thought we could complete a slant on him. You can complete a slant on anyone. That’s it? That’s all you got? Maybe you can get him on a slant? Hard to win a game that way throwing slants at their boundary corner. But they’re a really gifted group and they do a great job and it will be a great opportunity.”