Two things can be true when you talk about the officiating and the amount of penalties last weekend when the Notre Dame Fighting Irish took on the Boise State Broncos. First, it was one of the worst officiated games I've seen in a very long time. Second, even if the game was called in a more favorable fashion for either squad, the Irish committed too many penalties. By the end of the game, Notre Dame accounted for 11 penalties for 112 total penalty yards. Head coach Marcus Freeman knows this is a top priority that will have to get cleaned up this week.
"We have to clean up some of the penalties,” Freeman explained. "That's something that sticks out. We had way too many penalties for the team we aspire to be, and I'm not talking about aggressive penalties. There's a difference between aggressive penalties and undisciplined penalties. The undisciplined ones have really been the ones we've been able to prevent the first couple games of the year. But false starts, offsides and late hits out of bounds, those are selfish penalties, undisciplined penalties that we can't have. We have make sure we clean those up with urgency and get back to work and find a way to improve for NC State."
That was a common theme from yesterday's press conference: the difference between aggressive and undisciplined penalties. One is something you can live with and the other is what has to get fixed before they take on NC State on Saturday.
"I shouldn't say selfish, undisciplined is the word I like to use," Freeman said when asked about selfish penalties. "There's aggressive penalties and undisciplined penalties. Undisciplined penalties are lack of focus. I don't think it's the flow of the game. It's just a lack of focus in that moment. If you false start, you’re just not locked in. If I jump offsides, I am not focused on what I'm supposed to be focused on that play. That's one of the great challenges."
Despite a very poorly officiated game and sloppy penalties, Notre Dame's offense managed to move the ball well posting 389 total yards of offense and 28 total points. There was a common theme on the drives that ended with points on the board and the drives that stalled.
"Every drive but that one that we didn't score, there were penalties or negative yardage plays, but mainly penalties," Freeman explained. "Every drive that we didn't have one penalty, we scored a touchdown. That's not the only reason, but that's a huge reason. We can't put ourselves behind the sticks because of a negative yardage play or a penalty. That's called beating Notre Dame. If we don't beat Notre Dame, we’ll be hard to beat. But we can't put ourselves behind the sticks because of penalties."
The Notre Dame offense is preparing to take on another defense that has been struggling this season, but Mike Denbrock's unit can't do anything to hurt themselves and put them behind the sticks like they did last Saturday. If they play clean operationally on Saturday, they'll resemble the offense we saw against Purdue and Arkansas more than what they looked like against the Broncos.
-------
Be sure to stay locked into Irish Breakdown all the time!
Join the Irish Breakdown community!
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown YouTube channel
Subscribe to the Irish Breakdown podcast on iTunes
Follow me on Twitter: @TTrow5
Like and follow Irish Breakdown on Facebook