Mike Denbrock is proud of Notre Dame’s fight

Notre Dame’s offense had to be tough Friday night as Indiana brought one of the best defenses in the country to South Bend.

In fact, the Hoosiers arrived at Notre Dame Stadium with the best rush defense in the country, and Irish offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock knew things would be difficult at times. Denbrock’s message to the team was to keep pushing, knowing Indiana would win many battles, especially in the trenches.

When the dust settled, Notre Dame ran for 193 yards at 5.5 yards per tote, with Jeremiyah Love managing 108 yards and a touchdown on just eight carries.

“I thought we had our moments and I thought they had their moments,” Denbrock said. “It’s a testament to a very well-coached defense and some players who are veterans in the system they run. They can be really, really diverse.

“I thought they won some battles, but thank God we won some of our battles too.”

Love set the tone with his 98-yard run that scored Notre Dame’s first score on the game’s second drive. It was a safe decision from Denbrock as the Irish were backed, but when you have elite players they shine in the brightest light.

And it wasn’t just Love, as several players, including freshman left tackle Anthonie Knapp, got crucial blocks to get the sophomore running back to the rim.

“You’re backed up on your 1.5-yard line and you’re calling something that you hope is guarded on the edges,” Denbrock explained. “The boys understand it and are doing a good job of executing it, and here comes No. 4. Anthonie Knapp did an incredible job. I found the tight ends did a good job of wiping the front.

“We’ve done a good job of building a wall on the back, which we’ve put a lot of time into over the last two weeks, and if you give this guy an inch it’s going to take him a mile and God bless him for that.”

Denbrock also had to be patient in the passing game, as Indiana plays primarily in the zone and has limited shooting games most of the year. Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard attempted only two passes of 20 yards in the game, but the only completion was a huge one as he hit Jordan Faison for 44 yards, effectively ending the game.

Aside from putting the ball down for an interception, Leonard showed patience in the pocket and with his eyes as he didn’t force the ball and took what the Indiana defense gave him, which was more than fine with Denbrock.

“With their insurance system, they force you to be patient,” said Denbrock. “I thought we tried to really program in the preseason that we came up with the idea that we needed to utilize the backs and the tight ends and drop the ball to take what they allowed us to do. When the time comes, we need to be able to make some shots down the field and fortunately the game really turned out that way.”

A somewhat significant change that Denbrock made early in the game was to use more pistols as he felt it gave Notre Dame an advantage due to some tendencies they had seen in Indiana’s defense all year .

When Denbrock finished the game he was not disappointed with the result but noted that the plan and execution needed to be improved.

“Their scheme was kind of based, at least from our film study, on where you put the backside relative to the tight ends and where you move the tight ends and how you move and different things,” Denbrock said. “We tried to throw them off a little bit by going more to the pistol and not having a clear answer as to which side we were going to throw the ball to or what type of scheme we were going to use. We used fairly different schemes with both the pistol and shotgun.

“I thought it gave us an opportunity to be a little more versatile and maybe take some of their stunts and moves out of the game, which wasn’t the case. That was obviously a miscalculation, because they continued anyway.

“Proud of the guys on offense and proud of finding a way to do enough and do enough, obviously with the support of an incredible defensive unit that supported us throughout the day.”

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