Notre Dame Head Coach reflects on the upsetting loss to Stanford
SOUTH BEND, Ind – The Irish suffer a loss to rivals Stanford in 36th meeting between the teams.
Not only did Notre Dame lose their third game of the season, they lost another home game to a team that they were expected to beat by two or more touchdowns.
When asking head coach Marcus Freeman what happened, he gave a response that we're pretty familiar with.
“We just have to execute better. And I know that gets a you guys get tired of me saying that,” said Freeman.
The team as a whole failed to execute.
The run game as been the bread and butter for the offense in their three wins this season.
Against Stanford, the Irish ran the ball 34 times for 150 yards and a touchdown.
“You go back and you say, okay, they're the game plan. You really look at North Carolina and BYU. The game plan wasn't that much different,” Freeman added.
Freeman wasn’t wrong.
Not having the run game caused quarterback Drew Pyne to struggle getting the ball to receivers in the 16-14 loss.
“You can have a plan to run the ball, if they stack the box and you're not able to run the ball, you got to spread it out and throw it. The thing about drew is, is he feels like he let us down, he let the coaches down, he let his team down. And we all let each other down, we all have to perform better. And we have to put him in positions to perform better,” Freeman mentioned.
The Irish are now 3-3 with six games left in the season and the next opponent is UNLV at home on Saturday.