SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore said the Irish are on a “revenge tour” after being excluded from the College Football Playoff last fall, and players aren’t shying away from talking about the importance of their Nov. 7 home game against Miami as part of it.
Moore said last year’s 27-24 season-opening loss to Miami used to keep him awake at night, but so did the Week 3 loss to Texas A&M — an 0-2 start that ultimately kept the Irish out of the CFP.
“We’re on a revenge tour now,” Moore said. “We got to get back. We got to make it right from last year.”
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Quarterback CJ Carr, who is entering his second season as the full-time starter, conceded it’s “impossible” not to think about facing the Canes at home this year.
“Watching that tape, it was probably the worst first half of football our offense played all year, and to be in that game in the end and the second half we put together was special,” he said. “It’s hard to watch. … There was some resilience shown in that game that’s going to help us this year. We’re excited for them to come into town and see what this team’s got.”
When told of his players’ candor during an interview in his office on Tuesday morning, coach Marcus Freeman smirked.
“We spend too much time daydreaming about Miami, we’re going to lose to Wisconsin,” he said of Notre Dame’s Sept. 6 season opener. “You’ve got to focus on the task right at hand. That’s no different than saying, can we go back to the national championship? If we want to focus on the national championship, we’re going to lose the opportunity we have right here. It’s my job to make sure I’m directing the focus where it needs to be. That’s an everyday message, an everyday reminder to struggle. Struggle has to be hard mentally and physically and to sacrifice and put Notre Dame in front of yourself.”
Moore said the defensive backs shouldered a lot of the blame for the loss to Canes, as Miami quarterback Carson Beck completing all but 10 passes (20 of 30) for 205 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
“That’s what used to keep me up at night,” Moore said, “just thinking about maybe one or two plays in that game that I could’ve made that would’ve changed the course of the season. That and the Texas A&M game, just as a DB room, we put that all on us.”
Following the loss to Miami, Moore said Freeman was blunt in his assessment of the secondary.
“He told us we was weak, we was soft,” Moore said, “all that type of stuff. It’s serious to him, too. That’s something he’s not used to seeing from us.”
This year, Notre Dame’s secondary should be one of its biggest assets on a defense that returns nine of its top 10 tacklers, including safety Adon Shuler (53) and Moore (31).
Senior linebacker Drayk Bowen, who was wearing pads on Tuesday morning’s practice for the first time this spring since his offseason hip surgery, said Freeman showed the team video of their reaction on Selection Day. The loss to Miami, though, wasn’t the only mistake over the past few years.
“… There’s always one little thing we didn’t do, maybe at the beginning of the season or the middle of the season,” he said. “There’s always something where we could have been better. Going through four years of it now … we understand everything from now until the time we either get voted in or don’t get voted in, everything’s important.”
In each of the past four seasons under Freeman, the Irish haven’t been able to finish September undefeated, losing at least one or two games each year. He said the team has to start faster, and that’s “not just a last year deal.”
“We’re going to play good teams early because of conferences, we have to get the teams that are willing to plays that in conferences early,” he said, “but it’s no excuse to not be as close to your best as possible. We’ve got to do a better job of making sure our teams is prepared in playing and executing in a better sense than what we’ve been in the past.”
Carr said the team continues to use last year as motivation but also has to move forward.
“You can sulk and you can blame and you can point the finger or you can say, ‘alright, we got punched in the face, we’ve got to get back up,'” Carr said. “We’ve got to go back to work. We’ve got a new team coming in. We’re going to be really good. We have draft picks all over the field. We have a chance to be really special.”
