Notre Dame’s offense apparently does not like late nights. It prefers to go to bed early. When the sun goes down, the No. 10 Irish want to be done for the day.
For the third straight week, Notre Dame (6-1) sputtered in primetime, and at No. 25 Louisville (6-0), the Irish defense could not hold up long enough for the offense to find its way. The Cardinals used two explosive rushing touchdowns from running back Jawhar Jordan and multiple short fields to rout Notre Dame, 33-20, on Saturday night in front of the biggest crowd in Louisville football history.
In retrospect, the coming Irish struggles may have been clear from the first drive of the game, sixth-year quarterback Sam Hartman throwing an interception on the fourth snap of the night. He opened 3-of-3 for 29 yards and two first downs before Louisville dialed up a blitz, beating junior left tackle Joe Alt and forcing Hartman to throw up a jump ball toward receiver Rico Flores Jr. The freshman may not have even known the pass was on its way until Cardinals cornerback Quincy Riley had the interception.
In theory, Hartman was trying to throw away the ball in a productive manner, trusting his receiver to at least make a play on the ball in man coverage. Perhaps he’d catch it; most likely it would be an incompletion. But a freshman does not have the experience to recognize the pass is arriving prematurely when the opposing cornerback goes up to make a play on the ball.
Quincy Riley picks off Sam Hartman! pic.twitter.com/nej8l8t8rU
— Cam Mellor (@CamMellor) October 7, 2023
Louisville turned that into a touchdown, putting together its only sustained touchdown drive of the night, the other two scores coming from outside the red zone, partly courteous of bad tackling angles by Irish defenders. But a big play or two was to be expected from the Cardinals; it is their bread-and-butter. Hartman throwing three interceptions was a shock given he had not yet thrown one this season.
That pressure never left Hartman alone for long. Louisville racked up five sacks and hassled him plenty more than that, forcing three interceptions in the same stadium that Hartman threw three picks a year ago while still at Wake Forest. The Cardinals scored 10 points off Hartman’s turnovers.
“That’s why we won the game,” Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm said to ABC immediately after the win, surrounded by red-clad fans on the field. “Anytime you win the turnover battle, that’s why you’re going to win. ... We got to the quarterback, we affected him like we wanted to. That’s why we won the game.”
Hartman finished with 254 yards on 22-of-38 passing, his sole competitive touchdown pass surprisingly going to reserve freshman receiver Jordan Faison, better known for his expected future lacrosse exploits. Hartman’s second touchdown — Notre Dame’s second touchdown — came only once already down three possessions.
IRISH ANSWER.
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) October 8, 2023
What a time for your first collegiate touchdown @Jordan6Faison 💪#GoIrish☘️ pic.twitter.com/n343bcdJKC
“Everybody is going to point the finger at Sam,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said. “You better point the finger at us, at me. We have to protect him, we have to do a better job of protecting our quarterback and putting him in situations to have a higher percentage for success.”
Notre Dame knew it may have a protection problem this week, hatching a plan to preemptively shuffle some offensive linemen. That is not exactly an endorsement in any of sophomore left guard Pat Coogan, fifth-year center Zeke Correll or junior right guard Rocco Spindler, all getting swapped out for a couple drives for sophomore guard Billy Schrauth and fifth-year center Andrew Kristofic.
“We had made that decision throughout the week,” Freeman said. “We have to be better at the guard position. That was something that was evident last game (at Duke), so we said we’re going to roll some guys at the guard position. We got to do a better job protecting our quarterback.”
Suffice it to say, those rotations did not work and quite possibly served counter to their purpose. In addition to Hartman getting sacked five times, Notre Dame ran for just 81 yards on 23 carries (sacks adjusted), a paltry 3.5 yards per attempt average that is even being generous. If removing a Hartman scramble for 12 yards on a 3rd-and-19 — so very much a failed rush — and a 13-yard rush from freshman running back Jeremiyah Love to start the second Irish drive, they otherwise averaged 2.7 yards per carry.
“I don’t think they were physically more dominant than us,” Alt said. “I think we just got on our heels a little bit with our confidence level.”
If that was the case, the confidence dwindled particularly quickly in the third quarter. A 7-7 halftime tie looked about to tilt in Irish favor when fifth-year cornerback Cam Hart forced and recovered a fumble on the first play of the second half. When Notre Dame took over, junior running back Audric Estimé was immediately tackled for a five-yard loss. He entered the weekend averaging 112 yards per week, No. 9 in the country, only to gain all of 20 yards on 10 carries at Louisville.
His first three carries all gained first downs. He did not gain another the rest of the night. On a 2nd-and-2, he gained one yard. On a 3rd-and-3, Estimé lost a yard. After going 3-of-15 on third downs in last week’s dramatic win at Duke, the Irish went 3-of-13 against the Cardinals.
Notre Dame faced third-and-three (or less) four times against Louisville.
— Pete Sampson (@PeteSampson_) October 8, 2023
It lost yardage in all four scenarios.
Blake Fisher false start (-5 yards)
Sam Hartman lost fumble (-2 yards)
Gi'Bran Payne run (-2 yards)
Audric Estime (-1 yard)
“We just need to come back as an offensive line and understand that’s the down we have to get, third-and-one is on our shoulders,” Alt said. “We have to look back and see where we’re falling short.”
That look back can cover three weeks. The loss to Ohio State and squeaker at Duke featured just as dreadful of offensive performances, ones glossed over in retrospect by the Buckeyes and Blue Devils being top-20 teams with respected defenses.
Notre Dame's first 4 games: 46.0 PPG, 3.8 gains/gm of 30+
— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) October 8, 2023
Notre Dame's last 3 games: 18.3 PPG, 1.3 gains/gm of 30+
Through the season’s first four games, Hartman had led 37 Notre Dame drives, turning 28 of them into quality possessions, 75.68 percent. The Irish averaged 5.82 points per quality possession.
In the last three games, excluding Saturday night’s garbage time, Notre Dame had 28 drives, 11 of which became quality possessions, 39.29 percent. The Irish averaged 4.09 points per quality possession. So they have been in scoring range about half as often and scoring nearly two points less per threatening moment. Putting together a weakened threat less often is not a recipe for further success.
Saturday night’s quality possession rate was merely 20 percent. As in, only twice did Notre Dame find itself in position where it was more likely it would score than not. A 1st-and-10 on the plus-39-yard line set up that kind of opportunity in the second quarter, and the Irish capitalized a play later with Hartman’s 36-yard pass to Faison.
Beyond that, Notre Dame’s only offensive success came when Louisville had the win in hand, Hartman finding junior Mitchell Evans for a fourth-quarter touchdown to cut the deficit to the final score with 1:35 remaining. That cosmetic touchdown could not cover up how much the Cardinals hounded Hartman, ultimately undoing every aspect of the Irish offense.
“Nobody has affected our quarterback quite like Louisville did, so you have to give them credit,” Freeman said.
Notre Dame's 30-game regular-season winning streak against the ACC ends as it began.
— Douglas Farmer (@D_Farmer) October 8, 2023
On the road, in a rowdy atmosphere, shooting itself in the foot over and over again.
Miami 2017 - Louisville 2023.
Many of the Cardinals’ late points were also cosmetic. A Notre Dame turnover on downs, an interception and a fumble gave Louisville the ball already in field goal range on three straight fourth-quarter possessions. The Cardinals did not gain a first down on any of those drives, simply kicking three field goals. Louisville did not need to mount a drive to score. The Irish offense had already gifted the Cardinals a scoring opportunity, the exact scoring opportunities Notre Dame could not find.
In many respects, it is easy to argue the Irish held Louisville’s explosive offense in check. It averaged 5.2 yards per play, converting just five of 14 third downs. On three trips into the red zone, the Cardinals scored only one touchdown, a season-long problem for the big-or-bust offense.
Jordan did provide two such big moments, part of his 143 yards on 21 carries.
“I thought our defense battled for the most part,” Freeman said. “Put in some bad situations late in the game, but for the most part, I thought they did a pretty good job.”
The Irish defense was just on the field earlier than expected, both after Hartman’s initial interception and throughout the night when Notre Dame repeatedly returned the ball to Louisville.
SCORING SUMMARY
First Quarter
6:05 — Louisville touchdown. Jamari Thrash 9-yard pass from Jack Plummer. Brock Travelstead pont after. Louisville 7, Notre Dame 0. (12 plays, 70 yards, 7:06)
Second Quarter
6:58 — Notre Dame touchdown. Jordan Faison 36-yard pass from Sam Hartman. Spencer Shrader point after. Louisville 7, Notre Dame 7. (11 plays, 88 yards, 5:45)
Third Quarter
13:18 — Notre Dame field goal. Shrader 53 yards. Notre Dame 10, Louisville 7. (4 plays, 4 yards, 1:35)
8:24 — Louisville field goal. Travelstead 44 yards. Notre Dame 10, Louisville 10. (9 plays, 48 yards, 4:54)
5:45 — Louisville touchdown. Jawhar Jordan 45-yard run. Travelstead point after. Louisville 17, Notre Dame 10. (2 plays, 64 yards, 0:43)
1:06 — Notre Dame field goal. Shrader 54 yards. Louisville 17, Notre Dame 13. (7 plays, 27 yards, 4:39)
Fourth Quarter
11:12 — Louisville touchdown. Jordan 21-yard rush. Travelstead point after. Louisville 24, Notre Dame 13. (11 plays, 75 yards, 4:54)
7:31 — Louisville field goal. Travelstead 45 yards. Louisville 27, Notre Dame 13. (4 plays, 7 yards, 2:18)
5:02 — Louisville field goal. Travelstead 32 yards. Louisville 30, Notre Dame 13. (4 plays, -4 yards, 2:18)
3:12 — Louisville field goal. Travelstead 35 yards. Louisville 33, Notre Dame 13. (4 plays, 8 yards, 0:22)
1:35 — Notre Dame touchdown. Mitchell Evans 6-yard pass from Hartman. Louisville 33, Notre Dame 20. (7 plays, 75 yards, 1:37)