What Tennessee State coach Eddie George said about Notre Dame football after Irish win

Tennessee State coach Eddie George was blunt about what happened at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday. He admitted Notre Dame kicked his Tigers’ asses, which is the exact phrasing he used. But he also admitted it’s happened before, and he had no shame in it occurring on the road against one of the top teams in the country this time around.

“That’s one thing I’ll never say, that I’m embarrassed about anything, because they put in the work,” George said. “Our team put in the work. We’ll learn from it. For people on the outside looking in, they can take their shots. And that’s fine. But for the most part, when you step in the arena and know what it’s like to face that competition, you understand there is a process to this.

“When you play against teams like Notre Dame, those upper echelon teams, you find out, ‘OK, that’s what we want our team to be.’ And you learn and go from there.”

Here is everything else George said about Notre Dame after a 56-3 Fighting Irish victory.

Opening statement

“What a great environment, one. Notre Dame is a first class institution and program that treated us well all week long for the time we spent here. We knew on the field the task at hand was a tall feat. We accepted the challenge. I’m really proud of our young men. I told each one of them I loved them. Our bigger goals are ahead.

“We will learn from this and grow from this one way or another. There are a lot of good things we can grow and build on. A lot of missed opportunities. You play against a team like that, you have to take advantage of a lot. That’s a battle-tested group. Senior-led group. Great deal of leadership. That’s what we want to look like at some point in time. That’s what excited me about the future.

“We’re going to look at the positives. We’re not going to hang our heads. We’re going to look at the positives, and we got to grow over the next week in order to come out with a victory in the Heritage Classic.”

On getting a fumble in Notre Dame territory on a kickoff

“I was like, ‘OK, OK. This is really happening.’ We get the ball on the 13 yard line with a turnover. We preach that. We got to learn how to punch it in. That’s how resilient that group was over that. We wind up missing a field goal on a block.

“I felt really good. We didn’t come in wowed or wide-eyed. We knew it was going to be a hard-fought battle. We knew when we had our opportunities to strike we had to. We just didn’t execute in those moments.”

On not scoring on that chance

“Like any good defense, they are going to man up. We tried to get the ball into the end zone. We didn’t. Hopefully we can get the game to 7-6, try to put points on the board, and they did a good job of blocking it, and that’s kind of where the tables turned a little bit. They turned it up.”

On what he told Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman after the game

“I just said, ‘Hey, go win it all. I think you have a hell of a group.’ Sam Hartman was surgical. We saw his presence in the pocket. Unflappable. The guy is just a magician back there. He’s played a lot of football. Just their skill people were really good. Running back, it felt like they had 50 of them back there. They all ran the ball really well.

“But again, our told our boys no matter what we are going to continue to fight. We’re going to continue to play hard. No matter how it looks, continue to play hard. It will pay off for us.”

On an HBCU playing Notre Dame

“Hopefully we get to see more opportunities like that. Not just us, but other HBCUs to play brands like this. It’s great exposure, It’s a great environment. This is something our kids will talk about for a lifetime. To come to this stadium, I believe it was sold-out, to play Notre Dame in September, it’s something they will talk about for a lifetime. The outcome was what it was, but they played hard and never gave up. That’s something they can take for the rest of their life.”