Everything coach Marcus Freeman said after Notre Dame's 33-20 loss to Louisville

On Saturday night, No. 10 Notre Dame (5-2) lost to No. 25 Louisville (6-0), 33-20, at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium. Here’s everything Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said in his postgame news conference.

Opening statement:

“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.”

On the interior offensive line rotation:

“Yeah, we had made that decision throughout the week. Again, we have to be better at the guard position. And that was something that was evident last game, and we said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna roll some guys at the guard position.’

“We got to do a better job at protecting our quarterback. We’ll have to go and watch the film and see how each guard did. But we didn’t protect the quarterback when we needed to.”

On the rushing and passing performances:

“They did a good job. A really good job. We didn’t run the ball well, and they pressured the quarterback.”

On if a team has pressured Notre Dame like Louisville:

“Nobody’s affected our quarterback quite like Louisville did. So, you have to give them credit. They were stacking the box and saying that we’re gonna refuse to let you run the ball. That means we have to make some plays in the passing game. We didn’t. We got to make sure we can not let this happen again.”

On Louisville RB Jawhar Jordan:

“Good player, good player. We missed a tackle when he scored that long touchdown. Good player.”

On going for it on 4th-and-11 on Notre Dame’s own 35-yard line down 11 with 9:49 to play:

“Two-score game, right? So, we played the … ‘Hey, we either got to get a three and out — we punt the ball.’ Hopefully, we get enough time to have two separate possessions.

“Or you try to convert right there and play the percentages of, ‘Okay, even if you don’t convert here, (they) go three and out, (they’re) forced to kick the field goal.’ So, it was still a two (possession game). That went into my decision.”

On Notre Dame’s third down play calling:

“It was a play we worked on in practice, right? It wasn’t a jet sweep. We took the toss and kind of ran a counter. They pressured it, and it wasn’t executed — they pressured it, and we didn’t get the guy blocked and obviously caused the fumble there.

“It was a situation where I think, I can’t remember exactly, but I think we were going to go if it was within one or two yards. So that’s probably why we decided to do that play at that moment.”

On Notre Dame’s run defense against Louisville:

“I’ll have to go and see. I don’t know how long that one run he had was for a touchdown. But I know that contributed to a lot of yardage. I thought our defense battled for the most part. (They were) put in some bad situations late in the game.

“For the most part, I thought they did a pretty good job. The third series of the second half, right, was the long touchdown run. Then we get them off the field on third down, and we get the penalty. That hurt. You can’t have that, man. You finally get them off the field, we get a facemask I think they had on Marist (Liufau), and then they drove.

“We missed the tackle in the hole, and he scored again. We so got to clean up every aspect of it, not just a touchdown, but the plays that led to the touchdown.”

On helping the players getting over the loss mentally:

“You don’t have much time to feel sorry for yourself. That comes from me as the head coach and our leaders. I’m gonna really count on our leaders to make sure these guys understand that we got to learn from this game, and then we got to move forward and get ready for USC.

“We cannot sit here and mope and feel bad for ourselves. We have to move forward. So, this will be a true test of our leadership, starting with me and our captains.”

On why Thomas Harper did not play:

“Yeah, he was out with a concussion. And so he’s in concussion protocol. He wasn’t ready to return to play. So C-Lew (Clarence Lewis) did a good job stepping in there, and Cam Hart had some nickel reps. Obviously, you don’t want to lose a great player like Thomas Harper, but expect him to be back next week.

“We have a lot more work to do.”