Notre Dame Defense Misses Chance For A Dominant Performance, But It Was Close

Notre Dame's defense played far better than the final score, but a need to finish better remains

Rather than doing a traditional game observations of the Notre Dame defense following its 45-32 win over North Carolina, I felt the need to do something a bit different. What we saw today was a look at what this defense can be when it's right, and where it must continue to improve.

At the end of the day the Irish defense gave up 32 points, 367 yards and 6.1 yards per play to a team that came into the game averaging 51.3 points and 547.3 yards per game, and 7.6 yards per play. Only four times in the last three seasons (2020, 2021, 2022) has North Carolina gone for fewer yards, and one of those games was against the Irish back in 2020.

For much of the game the Notre Dame defense harassed North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye, holding him to a season low 53.1% completion percentage. The Irish dominated the Tar Heel ground attack, limiting it to just 66 yards and 2.4 yards per carry. North Carolina's running backs rushed for just 30 yards on 15 carries, and a good chunk of the success on the ground came in the first series when Maye scrambled his way to 33 yards on the drive.

Notre Dame's front four was punishing and for three quarters the Irish secondary largely blanketed the North Carolina pass catchers. 

Then came the fourth quarter.

In the first 45 minutes of the game (three quarters), Notre Dame held North Carolina to just 245 yards. Maye completed just 12-26 passes for 179 yards. In the final 15 minutes the fourth quarter the Irish gave up 128 yards, including 122 yards through the air and Maye went 5-6 for 122 yards.

Notre Dame's secondary blew an assignment for a 64 yard touchdown. The leaky pass defense began in the third quarter, as junior corner Clarence Lewis was beat for a 80-yard touchdown after the Irish had gone up 38-14. 

That was North Carolina's offense, big plays in the pass game. It shadowed what was at times a brilliant game by the Irish corners. They also allowed a 28-yard catch on the opening drive of the game and 43-yard catch in the second quarter that second up their second touchdown.

Take away four big plays in the pass game that accounted for 215 of the team's 367 yards and this was a truly dominant, dismantling performance of what is a potent offense.

That's the disappointing aspect to what was otherwise an outstanding Irish victory. For defensive coordinator Al Golden, the Irish defense staff and head coach Marcus Freeman this game provides them a unique pair of talking points to their defense.

"This is what you're capable of" they can say while showing 56 of North Carolina's 60 snaps.

"This is what we cannot do" while showing the four big pass plays.

It is the kind of game that you look at as a coach and say, "We have a chance to be really, really good .... if ...." while then focusing on what needs to be done to clean up what's left.

It was a step forward for Notre Dame in many ways, and they are much closer right now to being the defense they are capable of becoming than they were going into today. They made progress, and now the bye week needs to be a time to clean up what's left.

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