Notre Dame Notebook: Marcus Freeman Talks Slow Starts, Drew Pyne, Offensive Analyst And More

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman discussed how his offense can start faster, Drew Pyne's week of practice after his worst start last week, adding an offensive analyst and more

NOTRE DAME, Ind. - Notre Dame and Marcus Freeman will try to climb back above the .500 mark Saturday afternoon when they host UNLV. It will be the first meeting between the two programs, but that’s not what’s important for the Irish.

Getting Off To A Fast Start

Whether it’s Tyler Buchner or Drew Pyne at quarterback, the Fighting Irish have had a difficult time getting the offense going this season. They’ve scored points on two opening drives this season, with field goals against Ohio State and BYU. But those six points on two field goals are the only points they’ve scored in the first quarter through six games this season.

Freeman said this week that his team has to have the right “mindset” and “mentality” coming out of the locker room to start the game on the right foot.

"We've got to give our offense some confidence, play some easy drive starters, some plays where there (aren’t) multiple decisions, right,” Freeman stated. "There's going to be one thing we want you to do and we have to try look for easy completions, be able to run the ball and establish the run play and really have no self-inflicted wounds. You see how we started last game with a penalty to start the game and then the second down we had some miscommunication. We can't start the game that way. We’ve got to start the game effectively. We’ve got to practice those plays often and make sure our guys know exactly what we plan to see and what we're going to do as an offense.”

Keeping It Simpler (Sort Of)

Freeman discussed at length the idea of keeping things a little simpler for the offense to make things easier for them. But he also doesn’t want to make things so simple that it’s easy for defenses to know what’s coming.

“You can't put your offense at a disadvantage because of how much you want to simplify,” Freeman explained. “We're going to simplify in terms of maybe not as many options for the quarterback, you know, hey, you’ve got two reads here. We want to hand the ball off here, we're not going to use it as RPO. But what we're not going to do is put our offense at a disadvantage and that's what I want to make sure that we don't do. What I've challenged our coaching staff and what I've seen them really do this week is work to eliminate or minimize any of those mental errors that we've had and they've been doing a lot of different things in terms of, one was to as I said, consolidate the game plan so that our players don't have to know as much. 

"But, two is, I see him in practice, and (offensive coordinator) Coach (Tommy) Rees is really doing a good job of changing the way we do a little bit of our team periods in practice and he's almost calling it like a game and that our players don't have a script to say okay, here's the script let's memorize it," Freeman continued. "He's doing a good job of saying okay, they have to look to the sidelines, get the signal they don't know exactly what the call is going to be. See sometimes you script practice where I'm going into the game, I know these are the three plays I’ve got. We're going to challenge them a little bit to get the calls from the sideline, not know exactly what they're going to do and be able to react and they're doing a good job of watching. I saw them in there the other day, they're watching parts of practices. They're watching seven on seven periods to make sure there's one voice, everybody's on the same page and you're being held accountable to your teammates. And if you make a mental mistake, well, you know what, you're going to have some older guys that aren't making mental mistakes. Want to know why? You're held accountable, not only to your coach, but to your teammates.

"So it's been good to see the enhancement I think as an offensive staff and in terms of not just saying, hey, continue to trust the process we'll be better, we're going to be better we're going to execute better, but let's find ways to enhance our process,” Freeman continued. “Let's find ways to fix it. I know I saw Coach Rees on the field the other day early in practice, instead of in the meeting room, he's going through the script tape or through the practice script with the quarterbacks and kind of walking through it and going through, hey, this guy wasn't open, this guy's not open. What would you do here, go to the check down. Those are all different ways to enhance the execution part of what we want to see. It's not just going to be say, okay, run these three plays, you're not giving your offense a chance to have success by running very limited plays and giving them limited options. But options are going to be executed at, hopefully, a higher a higher rate because of the way we're prepared.”

Drew Pyne’s Week

After three starts that saw him complete 73%, 70% and 78% of his passes, Drew Pyne had the first real clunker of his career last week against Stanford. The junior completed just 13 of his 27 attempts for a tepid 48% clip.

He was locked in on tight end Michael Mayer all night, especially on third downs, and never came close to the kind of groove he was in that began in the second half against Cal and lasted through the win over BYU.

Freeman saw a good response from his quarterback this week.

“Early in the week, it's a confidence blow,” Freeman began. “I met with Drew one on one for a while and, you know, I could tell early in the meeting he felt like he let the team down and that's what makes Drew Pyne Drew Pyne. We need more individuals that look at themselves and say, hey, I didn't do my job. That's from the head coach, on down to the starting quarterback, on down to the scout team guys. Drew continues to be reassured of the confidence we have in him, the confidence that his team has in him. I believe he's an extremely talented quarterback that was playing really, really well and didn't have the game that he wanted to.

“But, what we can't do is let that have any impact on his mentality or his mindset going into this game versus UNLV,” Freeman continued. “Drew's had an extremely good week of practice. The biggest focus with Drew has been be confident. You're never going to be perfect, move on to the next play and Drew...he's, he's tough on himself. He's his toughest critic. Sometimes when you're tough on yourself, it's hard to move on to the next play. My biggest thing with Drew has been move on.”

The Team’s Response

The Stanford loss was far from just on Pyne’s shoulders. There was plenty of culpability, from the head coach on down. Freeman hopes he, his staff and his team can put last week behind them, but he also used the setback as a learning experience.

“As the leader you’ve got to get up here and say we've got to turn this negative situation into a positive one,” he explained. “This has to somehow, some way help our program move forward. Then part of it is me getting in front of the room and saying this had to happen. Right, this had to happen for us to get better. The only way we're going to get better is to learn from it. The only way we're going to get better is to fix the issues that you see happening. That whole adage of just trust the process and it's going to get better, that's not the way we're going to do things we're going to evaluate and fix the process. We're going to fix things and you know what, I believe it was a great week, a great two days of practice and today is, hopefully, going to be another good day of practice and let's build on the corrections and the good things we've done in the past in hopes that Saturday we go out and we execute when we do a better job (and) we play better.

“But this really has made this group rally together,” Freeman continued. “Like stay together, trust each other. Do not listen to anything anybody has to say positively or negatively about you outside of these walls. Be honest with yourself, coach each other up coaches, coach the players, coaches help each other. Let's use this as a time to really evaluate what we're doing and make sure, you know, we've got to make sure not to hope and pray and not you know, keep our fingers crossed, but make sure that we're better and we perform better on Saturday when it matters the most.

A Job Opportunity

Tommy Rees was asked this week about whether there was an offseason suggestion from Freeman to add an experienced offensive analyst to help the staff. Rees shot the notion down, but did say there is a current vacancy for an analyst if anyone’s looking for it.

“I don't think it's a vacancy as much as we're always looking for ways to enhance our program and bringing on and offensive analyst was something, additional offensive analyst, was something we were looking at prior to the start of the season,” Freeman said. “But it had to be the right fit had to be the right person and just a couple avenues we looked at and just talked to wasn't going to be what's right for us and what's right for those guys that maybe we had talked to and just kind of feel out.

“So it's not a vacancy,” he continued. “We're looking to fill it. We're always looking for ways to enhance and guess what, if that's one, two or three analysts on either side of the ball, special teams, if it's going to enhance our program, we'll definitely continue to look into it. But we're not just looking for a number. We're not looking for just anybody to fill a spot to help us continue to enhance. It has to be somebody that truly fits this staff and really the direction we're going.”

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