Sometimes, the broader college football situation is complicated. There are opinions and metrics and scenarios and as many as thousands of subjective and objective moving parts. How does the health of Travis Hunter affect the prevailing opinion of Colorado and therefore the media narrative surrounding the strength of Oregon’s win over the Buffs, and how does that affect the College Football Playoff committee’s perception of that win, and what does that mean as far as which losses Oregon can and cannot afford?
Sometimes, the college football playoff situation is simple.
Notre Dame needs to win.
This was the case in Durham last Saturday night, Notre Dame tasked with rallying after one of its most gutting losses in memory to escape a tough, ornery, belief-filled Duke team. This will be the case in Louisville this Saturday night, Notre Dame tasked with maintaining focus between an emotional loss, an emotional win, and an emotional game against its biggest rival which should offer one of the final says in whether this edition of the Fighting Irish is the best of the last thirty years or merely a good team that couldn’t get over various historical humps. Once you zoom out even a little, there is so much noise. If you avoid zooming out, the situation is simple.
Notre Dame needs to win.
They say that the reason marathoners sometimes shit their pants is that when the human body is under stress, it slowly cuts off functions, in order from least essential to most. This can lead to runners blacking out—even memory eventually deemed inessential by a stressed human brain—but first, it leads to blood being diverted away from the intestines. The intestines can wait. A lot of things can wait.
Notre Dame reached this point in the fourth quarter down at Duke. They didn’t shit their pants—and to be clear, it never looked like that would be the description of the game, a loss would have been more a crumble than a flop—but things like Sam Hartman’s stats and Jordan Botelho’s Week 6 availability and just how good Ohio State really is faded entirely from the consciousness. Notre Dame needed one thing, and that was to win, and Notre Dame achieved that one thing. In the process, they created one of the most memorable single moments in recent Irish history, right up there with Jeff Samardzija’s catch and run against UCLA in 2006. Sam Hartman’s fourth down run—a tuck and straight-line sprint that almost never works across such yardage but somehow* succeeded in keeping the drive and the season’s dreams alive—was that moment. It was not the only thing, but it was the biggest thing, and to allow the noise to enter the picture for a moment, it was the thing which could be the turning point when this team moved from the style points scoreboard over to old-fashioned winning and losing. Notre Dame needed to win. Notre Dame won.
*The somehow was Hartman managing to evade that Duke defender and get the final two yards. That was how that play defied the odds.
This week, the situation is the same. Notre Dame needs to beat Louisville. It doesn’t matter how it happens. It doesn’t matter who’s left standing going into USC. It doesn’t even matter who Louisville is, though that vague regional rivalry is worth a case study sometime. The playoff picture and Hartman’s Heisman campaign and what the game film tells us about the progress the receivers are or aren’t making can all wait. Notre Dame needs to win.
College Basketball Practice Has Begun
I’m not sure exactly what day it started, but we’re one month from the beginning of college basketball, which means official practice has been underway for a week or so. Still not much news on that front, but the calendar is turning. The world is starting to ramp up to the Shrewsberry Era.
It’s worth a reminder of what’s coming within that Shrewsberry Era, since we’re getting a lot of, “Who’s the new basketball coach, again?” Shrewsberry is an Indiana guy, and by that I mean the state, not the school. He grew up in Indianapolis, played his college ball at Hanover, and coached at Wabash, DePauw, IUSB, Butler, and Purdue before a stint with the Celtics under his close friend Brad Stevens. His head coaching jobs have been at IUSB and Penn State, and while the Penn State one tells us more about him as a coach, the IUSB one tells us something important about him as a person: The man, again, is an Indiana guy, and that includes South Bend. He didn’t choose Notre Dame and tolerate the South Bend part of that. He chose Notre Dame and South Bend as one. That’s what happens at Notre Dame’s best these days.
As a coach, the high-level things to know about Shrewsberry are that he’s a wizard of an offensive mind and his teams’ performance at Penn State exceeded their talent, something that’s going to be crucial given Notre Dame’s current recruiting ceiling in men’s hoops. A Jerian Grant can happen under Shrewsberry, and a Pat Connaughton can happen under Shrewsberry. They’ll look different—his style is different from Mike Brey’s, less laissez-faire and more surgical—but that’s the level of talent development and performance maximization we’re expecting.
The first year is not expected to be pretty. The entire roster had to be rebuilt, which is part of why it was time for Brey to move on. But somewhere between hope and expectation lies this path where Notre Dame gets better as the year goes on and starts making a little ACC noise down the stretch. A winning record will be tough to achieve, but reaching that double-digit wins territory where the record isn’t actively unsightly is doable, and will probably set the table for optimism in 2024–25.
Quick(er) Hitters
Jayden Thomas and Jaden Greathouse are expected back tomorrow, which is a relief. Tight end Eli Raridon is also expected to make his season debut after tearing his ACL last year, but his is currently thought to be a small role. All of that should help the passing game, but the run game’s ineffectiveness was concerning against a Duke defense whose strength is not against the run. This is not serious analysis, but the hope is that the offense can find its groove again after things have looked very difficult two weeks in a row. More on that below. Matt Salerno and KK Smith are expected to be out for the year, but if you had to make the trade…
Linebacker Nolan Ziegler might be making his season debut after missing the first six games with something Marcus Freeman described as being related to mental health. Obviously, it’s most important that Ziegler’s ok, but on the football side it’s a good time to get a reinforcement in and around the front seven. Fresh bodies are helpful right now. Ziegler isn’t listed on this week’s depth chart, so hopefully he won’t be needed beyond a special teams role.
For those concerned about Duke quarterback Riley Leonard who haven’t heard the update, his leg is going to be ok. He suffered a high ankle sprain and should miss a few weeks. No season-ending injury, and nothing so serious that it’ll have long term impacts. The one bitter taste from Saturday night—besides the stress of it all—was not necessary. Credit to Leonard for almost beating us and still being likable in the process. (The bit about his mom’s texts has gotten annoying, though. It’s fine the first time you watch Duke, but once you watch them a second time, it’s old.)
The full men’s basketball schedule came out last week, as did the women’s ACC schedule, but there were no surprises on either.
This Week
Louisville: 30th in Movelor, 29th in SP+, 27th in FPI. All three have this between a 5 and 7-point game, which matches betting markets’ perceptions. Louisville is an unknown to a lot of extents, untested and unproven, but everybody’s guess is the same.
The Cards are a little better defensively than offensively despite new coach Jeff Brohm being known for his passing attacks. Quarterback Jack Plummer has had some interception issues, but the passing game is averaging more than ten yards per attempt in FBS games, fifth-highest in the country. It’s the run game that’s been vulnerable, which will hopefully allow Al Golden to pick his spots on blitzes and let Notre Dame’s secondary sit back, forcing Plummer to make plays. On the other side of the ball, Louisville’s numbers are better against the run than the pass, but it’s hard to account for schedule in that. Overall? A solid team, not a great team, but definitely one that can knock off Notre Dame if Notre Dame allows it. There’s a lot of excitement around Louisville football right now. The crowd is going to be rowdy. If Notre Dame is physically ready, plays its game, and can get the penalties under control, it’ll be a good win, but Louisville is going to show up.
The men’s soccer team welcomes 14th-ranked Duke tomorrow night at home, having beaten NC State 3–1 on Sunday down in Raleigh. The Irish are up to 11th in the coaches poll and remain unbeaten in ACC play at 3–0–1.
The women’s soccer team beat Louisville 3–0 on Saturday and Boston College 3–1 last night, moving to 4–0–1 in the ACC. They are also ranked 11th in the coaches poll, and they’ll continue the homestand on Sunday against unranked Miami, who sits at 2–3–0 in ACC play.
The volleyball team lost in straight sets last week to both Louisville and NC State, the first of whom is a top-ten team and the second of whom is “receiving votes.” The Irish play Duke tonight in Durham and UNC on Sunday in Chapel Hill. Notre Dame is 2–2 in the ACC, both of those are 1–3. None of the three are receiving votes in the poll of record, nor are any in the top 60 of the current RPI.
Notre Dame hockey begins its season this weekend, hosting Clarkson for a two-game series tomorrow and Sunday. The Irish were ranked fourth in the preseason Big Ten poll (it’s a seven-team hockey league) and 20th in what appears to be the national poll of record. Clarkson plays in the ECAC and received votes in that national poll but was not ranked.
The men’s cross country team won the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invite, while the women’s team finished second to NC State. The men’s team was ninth in the coaches poll this week. The women’s team was fourth (NC State is ranked first). They’re off this weekend.
Sebastian Dominko lost in the round of 16 this morning at the ITA All-American Championships in Tulsa. It was a seed-line upset, but his opponent was also in the ITA’s preseason top 25. The men’s team is hosting an invitational this weekend, but the fall season seems to have more events that function like exhibitions.
The swimming and diving team is in Madison today for its season opener against the Badgers. The men’s team was ranked 14th in the SwimSwam preseason power rankings (the coaches poll isn’t out yet), while the women’s team was unranked. Wisconsin was in the teens in both the men’s and women’s rankings on SwimSwam.
The men’s golf team finished fourth in its own invitational Sunday and Monday. The women’s team is in action this weekend at the Evie Odom Invitational, hosted by Old Dominion. There is a long way to go in both those seasons.
Baseball and softball’s fall seasons continue, but it’s all exhibitions. The women’s lacrosse team is playing Vanderbilt, Cincinnati, Michigan, and Louisville in fall games this weekend at home. I believe those are exhibitions as well.
The Last Thing
We weren’t not going to include this, and no, we don’t care if you’ve already seen it.
Actually, the real last thing: For those saying Audric Estime should have gone down at the 1-yard-line, including Marcus Freeman…there is a difference between being tied and trailing. In a tie game? Sure. But when you’re losing, there’s no need to get cute.
If you’re interested in the math on this:
After Notre Dame took the 7-point lead, ESPN had the win probability at 99.6%. If you say Notre Dame had a 50% chance of converting the two-point conversion, that implies the win probability would have been 99.2% had Notre Dame failed on the two-point conversion. 99.2% if leading by five and giving Duke the ball back with three timeouts remaining and 31 seconds to go. It also implies that the probability was 99.4% at the moment Estime crossed the goal line.
Had Estime gone down at the 1-yard-line, was the probability of Notre Dame winning greater than 99.4%? Notre Dame would have had to kneel the ball three times, cleanly, and then successfully kicked roughly a 24-yard field goal. If each kneel and the field goal took five seconds (Duke had all its timeouts), they then would have given Duke two offensive plays to try to win the game. Spencer Shrader’s career kicking percentage on kicks of 25 yards or fewer, including extra points, is 99.2% at best (I can’t break out which kicks were of 26–29 yards). That alone is less likely than the 99.4% where Estime set the number.
The difference between leading, trailing, and being tied is a leading cause of bad football decision-making, but in this case, the touchdown was the right decision even if Notre Dame was tied. The possibility of a blocked kick and a return would still be too great to risk. This is inconsequential stuff, but it’s worth the practice of hashing out, especially for Freeman and his staff, who will face similar decisions in the future.
