What to make of the many Notre Dame mistakes in win over Duke

Notre Dame didn’t have much room for error. The Fighting Irish tested it anyway.

Backed up on his own five-yard line with 2:35 to go against Duke, sophomore wide receiver Tobias Merriweather flinched a little early and was flagged for a false start. His slight knee bend and arm waggle cost the team 2.5 yards of immensely valuable real estate. The entire offensive operation backed up 7.5 feet closer to the clamoring crazies they call the Wade Wackos in the Duke student section.

Notre Dame quarterback Sam Hartman was bull-rushed by a Blue Devil linebacker in the middle of his own end zone. When he slid to his right to evade the pressure, he was only a pace or two from the end line — and the end of the game. That false start — Notre Dame’s fifth of the game and 11th penalty overall — could have costed the Fighting Irish a chance to do the unthinkable and drive 95 yards to pay dirt for a comeback victory.

It gets wilder. That wasn’t even Notre Dame’s final penalty of the night.

Merriweather was called for offensive pass interference later in the possession on a play in which he clearly pushed off the defender to gain separation. That backed Notre Dame up from the plus 41 to the minus 44. Considering the Irish were only trailing by a point and they have a kicker with one of the strongest legs in the country, the change in field position resulting from yet another minuscule body movement was not insignificant.

Hartman bailed Merriweather out with a 17-yard scramble on fourth and 16. Then junior running back Audric Estimé scurried to the end zone on a 30-yard touchdown. Notre Dame won, 21-14, in spite of 12 costly penalties, eight on offense and four on defense.

“The atmosphere there was difficult, and it was loud,” Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. “And that’s no excuse. We have to make sure that we fix the mistakes that we had… Not just say, ‘We’ve got to be better.’ But, how do we fix it? That’s what we’ve discussed as a coaching staff.”

Graduate student center Zeke Correll was flagged for two false starts on Notre Dame’s very first drive. A team with championship aspirations can’t have one of its most veteran players, one of its most important players, inhibiting its chances of playing well in a hostile environment.

But even players who have played as much football as Correll need reps to acclimate themselves to different situations. Freeman said Correll wasn’t prepared for the Wade Wackos and the very well-coached Duke defense they root for, and that’s on the Irish coaching staff.

“We didn’t practice it enough,” Freeman said. “We have to practice it better…. We had crowd noise last week. We knew it was going to be loud. But did we ever shift on Zeke? Did we ever do the things that caused him to jump?”

Freeman needs to figure out why Correll jumped twice. Why Merriweather flinched. Why freshman wide receiver Rico Flores Jr. did the same thing as Merriweather earlier in the game. How the heck graduate student corner Cam Hart lined up offsides on a routine play and how defensive linemen Javontae Jean-Baptiste and Jordan Botelho were also offsides on separate plays as well.

The fix seems simple. Don’t jump on offense. Don’t line up over the line on defense. But behind closed doors, it will not be as straightforward. Notre Dame ranks tied for 116th in the FBS in total penalties taken with 39.

The Irish have a problem. A few encouraging words aren’t going to be a cure-all.

“If we just say, ‘Hey, Zeke, you know you can’t do that. Be better next time,’ you’re really not figuring out why he did it and you’re not really going to improve unless you figure out why each individual that made a mistake, why they did and then what do we have to do to have a better process to get the outcome we want,” Freeman said.

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