This wasn’t about Sam Hartman not being able to shake ghosts from his Wake Forest past in a stadium full of recent haunting memories.
The thread that ran throughout 10th-ranked Notre Dame’s 33-20 thunderous upset loss at No. 26 Louisville Saturday night at sold-out L&N Stadium in Louisville, Ky., was the Cardinals setting up their defense and playing like they were facing one of ND’s evacuee QBs from last season instead of a sixth-year veteran and one of the most statistically impressive quarterbacks in college football in the transfer portal era, in Hartman.
And not only did they get away with it, they set a template for every other team on Notre Dame’s remaining schedule to mimic. That is, until second-year head coach Marcus Freeman and first-year offensive coordinator Gerad Parker figure out and execute a counterpunch.
Of which there was none Saturday against a Louisville team (6-0) that ended the Irish 30-game, regular-season win streak against ACC competition.
Freeman made perhaps the worst coaching decision of his 21 games as a head coach by going for it on 4-and-11 from ND’s own 35, down 24-13 with 9:42 left. And yet it likely wouldn’t have mattered if the Irish (5-2) had converted it.
Not the way Louisville dominated both lines of scrimmage.
The Cardinals outrushed the Irish 185-44, sacked Hartman five times and forced five turnovers, including three interceptions from Hartman, the first three he’s thrown since his last one in a Wake Forest uniform.
Hartman had six turnovers and Wake eight overall when the Demon Deacons came into Louisville last November and left with a 48-21 loss.
Notre Dame’s elimination from College Football Playoff consideration isn’t even close to the top concern for a team that fairly or not will have its toughness come into question. Certainly it’s X’s and O’s were lacking.