Things We Learned: Past lessons alter Notre Dame game plan at Duke, give Irish enough at end for lessons anew

A former running back, a struggling sophomore and a promising freshman walked onto Tobacco Road, and the good news for Notre Dame was Duke’s offense was not as good as Oklahoma State’s was in 2021. The bad news was the Blue Devils’ defense was significantly better, largely stymying the Irish (5-1) in a 20-14 last-minute, Notre Dame victory on Saturday night.

It was an all-too familiar offensive limitation for the Irish, only four scholarship receivers healthy enough to play and the fourth of them being too inexperienced to actually play. Marcus Freeman’s head-coaching career began with this exact worry, his debut in the 2021 Fiesta Bowl maligned by Notre Dame having only Braden Lenzy, Kevin Austin, Lorenzo Styles and Deion Colzie available from the receivers room. Lenzy ran 70 pass routes that night, Austin and Styles had career nights, and Colzie was targeted exactly once.

As that fourth quarter turned into a shootout, the exhaustion caught up with Lenzy and Austin, in particular, Oklahoma State outpacing Notre Dame 23-7 in the second half to win 37-35.

There was no worry of the Irish receivers suffering exhaustion at Duke. Charitably, Freeman learned that lesson. Of the 62 total snaps — let’s exclude the clock-stopping spike in the final minute — sophomore Tobias Merriweather took every one of them, freshman Rico Flores ran 58 of them and senior Chris Tyree logged 42, buttressed by sophomore tight end Holden Staes playing 29 snaps. The most pertinent number may be that Merriweather ran only 32 routes, nowhere near Lenzy’s workload in that Fiesta Bowl faceplant.

That was by design, even if Notre Dame’s offense is optically higher-octane these days.

“What you see over the course of the game, you can’t rotate wideouts,” Freeman said Saturday night. “They get tired.

“I’m so proud of the gutsy performance that they did have out there. … But yeah, we’re thin.”

Long-term, this should hardly be a worry. Freeman said Monday both junior Jayden Thomas and freshman Jaden Greathouse (each dealing with a hamstring issue) will return to practice Tuesday and should play at Louisville (5-0) on Saturday at 7:30 ET on ABC. Sophomore tight end Eli Raridon is even cleared to return to action following an ACL tear last October, though perhaps exercise some caution on expecting him to contribute this month.

Then again, Saturday showcased exactly why receiver depth remains a long-term worry for Notre Dame. The Irish began the 2023 season with eight healthy receivers, preferring to have 10. Freshman Braylon James is not yet at a level he can be called upon to contribute, sixth-year former walk-on Matt Salerno is out for at least the next month and probably the rest of the regular season. That leaves six. Any injury in the second half of the season could alter Notre Dame’s offense anew.

Perhaps that will not be to the same extent as Saturday, given the Irish knew they were facing an excellent pass defense at Duke (4-1), though both Clemson and Wake Forest fare better against the pass than Duke does in terms of expected points added per dropback against. (The Demon Deacons' strength can be traced to their shoddy run defense; the Tigers simply have an excellent defense.) Nontheless, Freeman made some conservative coaching decisions in Durham counter to his season-long trends that reinforce the lesson learned two years ago: Shorten the game to lessen the workload on Merriweather and Flores.

Notre Dame did not try to manufacture an additional possession at the end of the first half with a couple timeouts. It punted from Duke territory twice in the first half and then again in the second half. And those choices paid off in the final minute, Flores catching what could have been a pivotal two-point conversion, and while this focus is on the dearth of receivers, it should be noted junior tight end Mitchell Evans played 59 snaps and caught a needed 3rd-and-10 conversion on the game-winning drive.

“For Rico to catch that two-point conversion, they continue to battle,” Freeman said. “... These last two games, Mitchell Evans is making plays.”

Even Tyree proved vital in that closing drive, otherwise held to two catches for 28 yards. When watching the game-winning touchdown, focus on No. 4, Tyree, and spot the block that sprung junior running back Audric Estimé loose.

The Irish would prefer to win going away, but in matchups with a slim margin for error, slowing things down to be fresher in the closing moments holds merit. Freeman needed to learn that lesson the hard way, but he learned it.

Just like Hartman learned not to risk the ball spot on a fourth-down conversion, thus keeping alive Notre Dame’s 95-yard touchdown drive to win Saturday, learning those lessons raises the Irish ceiling moving forward.

Notre Dame would prefer to learn those lessons without the losses — implementing a sideline signal to jump offside into a receiver the headline among them — but such is life in a sport contingent on a small sample size. For that matter, the Irish got away with a lesson in Saturday night’s final minute, Hartman visibly frustrated getting the final Notre Dame play call, gesturing toward the sideline for some urgency.

The Irish did not have a set signal to center the ball for a game-winning field goal attempt, Freeman explained Monday. That was the delay, Notre Dame getting to the line of scrimmage with only eight seconds remaining on the play clock in a situation where every second and every yard mattered, a closing moment in every way imaginable.

Irish junior running back Audric Estimé rendered that frenetic instance moot, scoring a 30-yard touchdown when perhaps a 29-yard gain would have been preferable, itself a lesson.

Notre Dame did enough when it mattered most at Duke that its lessons can now be learned with less pain, unlike the lesson learned in the Fiesta Bowl two years ago that directly influenced the Irish game plan on Saturday.

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