[2024] Notre Dame Fighting Irish Stories - Week 0 Prep

[LordLittlebutt]

This article was originally published April 17, 2024, in The Observer, a student run publication serving the University of Notre Dame, St. Mary’s College and Holy Cross College. Re-posted on delay as agreed to with co-editors J.J. Jameson, P. White, reporter L. Lane and photographer J. Olsen.  

 

Sing Her Glory and Sound Her Name

This is our second weekly installment covering the 2024 Notre Dame Fighting Irish football season. New head coach @LordLittleButt (LLB) has agreed to regular discussions with our writers to review and preview news and information related to the team, competition, and season.

 

TheO:    First off Coach, thanks for your time last week and agreeing to make this a regular slot on your busy schedule.

 

LLB:        My pleasure, thanks for creating this opportunity for insight into our season.

 

TheO:    Last week we talked about the offense and you introduced the scheme change.  What going on with the defense?
 

LLB:        The defense is solid, we’ve got a good collection on the D Line and some real talent in the backfield.  The linebackers do a good job, but that’s where we’re looking for a couple guys to maybe step up a little, but that seems like the case for a lot of teams out there.

 

TheO:    Can you tell us a little about your pre-game preparation process?

 

LLB:        Sure.  Like all the teams out there, we want to try and leverage all the resources we have.  The coaching staff starts by reviewing the opponent roster and evaluates talent on both sides of the ball. We’re looking for their strengths to try and minimize, and maybe a weakness or two that we could be in position to take advantage of.  We’ll take a look at that depth chart, see if there are any surprises in there – sometimes you want to get a couple players some more snaps to help development over the season, and we definitely check the injury report for any developments there. You might be surprised by how much of an impact a couple missed games could have.

 

TheO:    What is next in the prep process?

LLB:        Our OC is going to review the matchups to our offense, the types of plays we like to run and any tendencies that their defense might show in the statistics from early games.  Are they big blitzers? How deep is the quality in their secondary, are they stronger up the middle or on the edge?

 

TheO:    What will you do with that information?

 

LLB:        Oh, we’ll definitely modify our game plan – which formations we will use more often, where will we focus the run - on the inside, outside, left or right. Do we want more receivers on the field more often or less often? We might even manipulate our depth chart to get better matchups.

 

TheO:    And from the defensive point of view?

 

LLB:        We want to see where we might have any mismatches that the other side could exploit, and what we might want to do to counter that. And we, too, might want to slide in an underclassman to get some experience if we think it will work in the overall gameplan and shot at victory. The DC will review their offensive tendencies, compare it to their roster and depth chart to see how we want to line up against the formations they run, consider our blitzing options and if they have some standout talent, do we want to double team him? Sometimes teams are super successful with a certain play, so we might want to focus on defending that.

 

TheO:    You’ve got the opener against Navy, on the road coming up – how does this work out for the first game and what are the Midshipmen going to be like this year?

 

LLB:        Navy’s coming off a strong 9-4 campaign last year beating Army and Air Force which we know are two big games for them. While they lost to a top Bowling Green team led by @PoopyRhinoPickle in the end, I don’t think it will surprise anyone if they improve last year’s mark. So, @SyndaKyt has built are a good, solid team and we expect a tough matchup. They did have a preseason/exhibition game with Rutgers, who is also on our schedule this year. This might be a help with a preview of their offense, or they could just be trying different things out and we’ll get no advantage from that. They’ve got Lampkin, a fast, better than average running QB and Hui a true sophomore that is better suited to the passing game. Both played against Rutgers, so we’re not sure which way they are going to go this week. Overall, they’ve got a good mix of talent, with some young standouts, looks like they’re building well. This is a regular match up for us, as you know, and we feel okay about this week’s matchup, but the next couple of years may be a bit harder for us.

 

TheO:    Thanks for those insights, Coach.   Recruiting is a big piece of the puzzle as we know, what does that process look like this year?

 

LLB:        Definitely. I mentioned last week that we have some ground to make up in recruiting.  Like the gameplan, we want to try and use as much information as possible throughout the recruiting process.  I and the recruiting staff spend a LOT of time looking over the data on high school seniors. These kids have played their hearts out and are looking for a shot to continue to do that. Notre Dame is really focused on fit. We want real discussions with these families to be sure that we are offering what the player is interested in. Seems like everything becomes more and more sophisticated all the time. There are eval and recruiting services out there that have compiled information on thousands of potential recruits. The staff here pours over that information, works with our coaching staff to identify and prioritize our needs. From that we target quality players that really want to play for Notre Dame. We think that gives us an advantage and we’ll go hard for those fits, and at the same time invest in other players as the season progresses.

 

TheO:    What do you mean invest?  There’s a rich history of ‘rule-bending’, let’s say, in college recruiting…

 

LLB:        Oh, nothing like that. Invest in time. Recruiting is all about relationship building.  We’ll invest the time over the next weeks to be sure both sides agree that Notre Dame is the best place to play. Hey, some guys know this isn’t what they want, and that’s great. Other players are being courted by other teams, sometimes LOTS of other teams and they need to make the choice that’s right for them. In the end we invest the time and attention and with a bit of luck we’ll come out with a great class of recruits. Some of that Luck of the Irish is always great to have.

 

The O:   Coach I think that’s all we have time for, thanks for the great info!

 

LLB:        My pleasure Lois. GO IRISH!

Edited May 14 by LordLittlebutt