Quick-hitters: Marcus Freeman on Syracuse offense, Steve Angeli, staying urgent

Notre Dame plays the first of three ACC opponents in a four-week stretch Saturday when it takes on No. 16 Syracuse (6-1, 3-1). Head coach Marcus Freeman began game week with his usual Monday afternoon press conference. Here are some topics he discussed.

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On how much he follows the ACC

“Really just crossover games. I was right in the middle of watching the Syracuse-Clemson game. You try not to look at the other team, but we know we play Clemson afterwards. I was watching the entirety of the game and watching both sides of the ball. You pay more attention as you get closer to that game week, but with our schedule and all the different conferences we play against, it’s hard to just focus on one league.”

On Syracuse RB Sean Tucker

“Man, is he a good running back. He’s talented. He’s a home-run type running back. He can be a threat in the pass game. you saw him catch a couple balls against Clemson too. He’s talented, tough, you see him just run through guys. He’s a physical running back.”

On Syracuse QB Garrett Shrader

“The quarterback is special. He’s a veteran guy, played two years at Mississippi State, in his second season here. The one thing you see, I saw a stat he had been with four different coordinators. He understands the game of football. He’s not just a one-system guy.

“He can extend plays with his feet. He can run. He has a good arm, makes good decisions. It’s going to be a huge task when you’re talking about a quarterback who can run it, throw it, makes good decisions and takes care of the football.”

On Notre Dame RB Logan Diggs’ mindset after 28 carries

“We take pride in using three running backs and sharing the bulk of those carries. We were at practice yesterday and Logan was the first guy when we were running in our warmups — ‘I’m hurting, but I have to put the work in.’

“That’s the maturity of that room and that young man. We have to be a team that continues to use multiple running backs. We’re not going to be a one-running back team. You can’t. Not against the teams we play, the physicality, how many times we run the ball.”

On how Notre Dame RB Audric Estime has responded to three fumbles in four games

“Not well. He’s tough on himself, as are we on him. He has high expectations for himself. He understands the reality of how important it is to make sure we have possession of that ball. At the same time, we have to find ways to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“Whichever ways we can do that — I know [running backs coach Deland] McCullough works on ball security — we can’t liven up practice [with more contact] right now going on Game 8.”

On the importance of getting backup QB Steve Angeli ready

“We don’t have an option. If something happened to Drew Pyne, Steve is going in the game. We have the utmost confidence in him. One thing I spent a lot of time on with [offensive coordinator Tommy] Rees is what’s our package we have for Angeli?

“We’re not going to ask him to do everything we ask Drew Pyne to do. But we have to give him enough that he has a chance to be successful, but also make sure it’s small enough that we’re not asking him to be confused and do things he’s not capable of doing.

“We have the utmost confidence in him. I think he had confidence in himself. I was joking with him yesterday, ‘You sure you’re ready to go?’ He goes, ‘Come on coach, I was in for one play and we scored a touchdown. I’m ready to go.’ His second response was, ‘It wasn’t too hard to hand the ball off. Next time let me throw it.’”

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On the jet sweeps with WR Braden Lenzy

“He does a good job running some of those jet sweeps. I count the jet sweeps we run with Braden as a run. I know the stats don’t count them as a run, that’s a run in my head. The ability to run the ball 22 times and get two touchdowns is really impressive, the way we finished the game.

“To complement running the ball inside downhill with some of those lateral running plays, the defense is going to pack it in tight, put multiple layers in the middle so they can’t continue to run up the middle. Then you keep them honest by running some of those jet sweeps.”

On keeping the sense of urgency after a win

“It’s not urgency to start the game, it’s urgency through the entire game. At halftime, [it was] 30-7. We were up pretty big at halftime, and you look at the second half, we ended up tying them. A sign of a dominant football team is no matter what the series is, what the score is, you’re able to really be effective in what you’re doing. We have to progress toward improvement and progress toward being a dominant football team.

“You look back at that game and say we did have a sense of urgency. How do we continue to have that throughout the game? When you lose, everybody has a sense of urgency. We’re all looking at things with a critical eye. Do we have that same critical eye this week? We have to. That comes from the top down. Every critical thing we looked at last week, the sense of urgency we had, we have to increase that.”