Entering last season\u2019s matchup with Ohio State, no one knew what Notre Dame\u2019s identity on offense was. That included Notre Dame.<\/p>\n
With a new head coach, a new quarterback and the leading receiver and leading rusher from the prior season gone, Notre Dame didn\u2019t know what it could do well. It showed on Sept. 3, 2022, in Columbus, Ohio<\/a><\/strong>. The Irish managed 253 total yards and were shut out after halftime and they lost 21-10.<\/p>\n \u201cI think going into last season, you had some questions on what was our identity,\u201d Irish head coach Marcus Freeman<\/a><\/strong> said. \u201cThis is game one, right? What was our identity on offense? Similar to this year, game one. You don\u2019t know until you face an opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n This year, with the Buckeyes coming to town, Freeman, offensive coordinator Gerad Parker<\/a><\/strong> and company know what they\u2019re capable of.\u00a0<\/p>\n Having a quarterback of graduate student Sam Hartman<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s caliber helps. The over-the-top passing game is a much larger part of the offensive attack than it was last season. But thanks to strong run blocking on pro-style gap concepts and junior running back Audric Estim\u00e9<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s refusal to get tackled, the name of the game for the Irish isn\u2019t one play or another right now.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a hurry-up, air raid system, and it\u2019s not a Big Ten West-style, \u201c3 yards and a cloud of dust\u201d slog, either. It is, as Freeman puts it, complementary football.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not gonna go rapid speed,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cI don\u2019t wanna go up tempo and go as fast as we can. \u2026 We\u2019re not gonna throw deep balls every play, right? It\u2019s complementary football.\u201d<\/p>\n Hartman\u2019s presence is a huge factor in Notre Dame\u2019s ability to do that. As Parker said earlier this week, \u201cIt all starts with the quarterback.\u201d But that quarterback, as he often does, pointed to the strengths around him as reasons the offense found an identity that works four games in.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have an unbelievable O-line that I have a lot of confidence in,\u201d Hartman said. \u201cOur running backs have all been playing incredibly well. Tight ends have been doing great, and outside, I mean, we\u2019ve shown we have some explosive capabilities and the ability to spread the ball around when we need to and be able to run the ball when we can.\u201d<\/p>\n Notre Dame has shown the ability to adjust its game plan as necessary, as it did in Week 2 against NC State.<\/p>\n The Irish came out looking to run the ball, but the Wolfpack played extremely aggressively and loaded the box to stop it. On third-and-long early in the game, created by unsuccessful run plays, NC State blitzed and Hartman had no chance.<\/p>\n Parker adjusted, spreading the team out and passing more on early downs. Later, once the Wolfpack backed off, he went back to the run. When NC State rekindled its aggressiveness, Hartman threw 3 touchdown passes off of play action.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at offenses and look at things as seasons grow, you hope you put on tape for our group and our players put on tape the ability to develop strong tendencies,\u201d Parker said. \u201cYou want to keep building strong tendencies and then, of course, grow because of our tendencies and still make it hard enough for people to fit us properly, cover us properly and all those things it takes to get through a year successfully. \u201c\u00a0<\/p>\n Notre Dame will look to make it as difficult as possible for an extremely talented Ohio State defense to lock onto a single tendency and make life difficult for Hartman and\/or Estim\u00e9. If the first four games are an indication, the Irish can do that.<\/p>\n Tonight, they have a chance to prove it.<\/p>\n The post How Notre Dame found its offensive identity in time for Ohio State<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Entering last season\u2019s matchup with Ohio State, no one knew what Notre Dame\u2019s identity on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}