Notre Dame Notebook: Marcus Freeman On Practice, Eli Raridon, Tobias Merriweather

A week ago at this time, head coach Marcus Freeman and his Notre Dame football team had their feet firmly planted in Ireland in preparation for their season opener against Navy. The Fighting Irish were adjusting to the time change after the long Wednesday flight to the Emerald Isle.

The team got back to campus on Sunday and this week has been about getting back to business as usual in the lead-up to this Saturday’s home opener against Tennessee State. Freeman made little tweaks to practice this week, but nothing major.

"I took maybe one or two periods off of the entire practice,” Freeman said on Thursday. "I did not take away from those scout team periods that we need to be prepared for a game. But I think the overall value for the game, I think we saved maybe 10 minutes on Tuesday and maybe five minutes on Wednesday. But that doesn’t take away from the preparation for Tennessee State.

"I feel like our guys truly have bounced back (from the travel),” Freeman continued. "We had a really spirited Tuesday practice. I challenged us all as coaches to, you know, I want Wednesday to be even better than Tuesday in terms of the execution and the urgency we have to have on the field and I told them on the field after practice, man, that was probably the best Wednesday practice we’ve had here in a while. I was really pleased with those two days of physical work and we’re going to have one more good one today.”

On Tobias Merriweather

Tobias Merriweather seemed like a lock to surpass last year’s production of one catch for 41 yards in last week’s opener. Merriweather went from reserve heralded freshman to starting sophomore over the course of the last 12 months. He didn’t have a catch last week but Freeman sees no reason to believe it won’t happen soon.

"I think he’s been really good in practice,” Freeman gauged. "He’s been, to me, vying to have more of a role after last season. So, he’s done a great job in the preparation, and you know what, I know he didn’t score a touchdown, but he did some really good things in the game. Sometimes a stat sheet doesn’t show that but we were pleased with what he did in the game, and we really look forward to him having another great opportunity to have a big game this week.”

On Jordan Botelho

Senior defensive end Jordan Botelho had a strong debut against Navy. He had just three tackles, but was assignment sound and caused havoc on the edge throughout the game. Freeman’s key word for Botelho’s play this year is “maturity”.

"When I was the defensive coordinator two years ago velocity was never something Jordan had a problem with doing,” Freeman explained. "Jordan was a guy that is violent. He plays the game fast, but maturity is into, hey, the details of playing the position we’re asking you to play. You can’t just go as hard as you can and play with velocity but also not understand the details of the position and that’s where I’ve seen the most growth is his understanding of what exactly we need him to do in his position within the defense. 

"So, that has built trust between Jordan and (defensive line Coach Al Washington) and Jordan and (defensive coordinator Al Golden) and he’s really practicing at a high level and he’s performing at a high level in the game, the one game we’ve played this year, but what I really like about Jordan is he’s practicing with a sense of urgency but with a maturity that he hasn’t really practiced with in the past.” 

Eli Raridon Update

Fighting Irish tight end Eli Raridon is still not quite ready to play in a game after tearing his ACL last October. Raridon tore in the previous December during his senior year basketball season at Valley High School in Des Moines, Iowa. Raridon has practiced with the team since the start of fall training camp, but they are not in a rush to get him on the field on game day considering his two tears the last two years.

"He still hasn’t been fully cleared yet,” Freeman explained. "He’s still working his way back. We hope in the next couple of weeks he’ll be 100% cleared.

"It’s just being cleared to truly play in a game. It’s just a progress for him from being where he’s at now to being able to be game ready. So, hopefully in the next few weeks he’ll be at that point.”