Marcus Freeman Is Confident In A Bounce Back From Notre Dame's Offensive Line

Since Sunday August 31, Notre Dame's offensive line has been under scrutiny for their performance against Miami. The signs of regression were cause for reasonable concern for Joe Rudolph's unit, especially when you consider two of the six team captains live along the offensive line. Nonetheless, Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman is confident that this unit will bounce back in their home opener against Texas A&M and it will begin with the leadership in the room.

“Billy Schrauth graded out as one of the highest players on our offense,” Freeman said about the leadership on the offensive line. “Aamil Wagner didn’t have the game he wanted to have or aspired to have. It’s important we don’t vote on captains based off of performance or based off of production. You’re named a captain because there’s a responsibility that comes with that title. That’s a responsibility to lead during all times, but especially tough times.

They have a responsibility to fix problems whether it’s your problem or not. You have a responsibility to continue to reinforce the vision and the voice of the head coach. I couldn’t be more proud of the way our captains led. I don’t want the title of captain to be associated with production. I want the title of captain to be associated with leadership and the influence you must have on the people that have chosen you to be captain. Those guys have led in a really good way.” 

Wagner and Schrauth are both returning starters from a season ago and were named team captains a few weeks prior to their week one opener down in Hard Rock Stadium. Their experience should bode well for them as they attempt to bounce back from a rough performance down in Miami Gardens. Their right guard situation, however, is a different conversation. Redshirt freshman Guerby Lambert and redshirt sophomore Sullivan Absher played their first snaps of meaningful football in their careers against the Hurricanes.

"Again, we were intentional about seeing both Guerby and Sullivan," Freeman explained. "Both did some good things and both did some things they need to improve on. They’re still ‘slashed’ for this week as we move forward. I’m not saying that we’re going to play both of them this week. We still haven’t made that decision just yet."

Regardless of who starts at right guard, the offensive line, as a whole, will have to play better when they line up against the likes of Cashius Howell, DJ Hicks, Albert Regis, T.J. Searcy and the host of Aggie defensive lineman who will be making the trip up to South Bend on September 13. The standard is to play at a championship level, and their head coach believes they'll get there.

“I thought, overall, they played well,” Freeman stated about the offensive line's performance against Miami. “The standard is to play higher. We know that. Part of it is credit to Miami’s defensive line. Sometimes you can get paralyzed because of movement. Their defensive line moved a little bit and did some different things. What we don’t want to do is paralyze the velocity and aggression that our offensive line plays with. You have to be able to collect some of that movement as you move vertically. At times, I thought we got too lateral in terms of how we want our offensive line to play. I’m as confident in that group as any guy on our team. They will be fine.”

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