BlueandGold.com will release a countdown article highlighting a significant Notre Dame football statistic every day until the 2024 season opener at Texas A&M at 7:30 p.m. ET on Aug. 31 in College Station, Texas. Today, there are 72 days until the Irish and Aggies kick off at Kyle Field.
Notre Dame had one of its best seasons converting red zone chances into touchdowns in program history in 2023. The Fighting Irish scored on 72.2 percent of red zone entries, which was the third-best mark in 135 seasons of Notre Dame football.
Still, it could have been better.
The Irish’s mark of 72.2 percent ranked 16th nationally. Even in the third-best season in that statistic category in Irish history, teams like South Alabama, Rice, Toledo and Central Michigan — yep, the same Chippewas Notre Dame trounced 41-17 in South Bend in September — had better success scoring touchdowns in the red zone than head coach Marcus Freeman‘s team.
Notre Dame hit a rough patch in the middle of the season in the red zone. After scoring touchdowns on 86.7 percent of red zone opportunities (13-of-15) in the first four games of the season against Navy, Tennessee State, NC State and Central Michigan, Notre Dame only entered the end zone on 12-of-19 (63.2 percent) of red zone tries against Ohio State, Duke, Louisville and USC.
The Irish went 2-2 in those games and very well could have gone 1-3, with the only win being against arch rival Southern Cal, if not for late-game heroics against the Blue Devils. The irony in that is the game-winning score in Durham came from outside the red zone. Audric Estimé tallied the game’s deciding touchdown from 30 yards out in the final minute.
Freeman has said a few times that if he could change anything about the 2023 Notre Dame offense, one that piled up 5,619 total yards for the sixth-best mark in program history, it would be the way the unit performed against the better defenses on the schedule. Ohio State, Duke and Louisville had three of those better defenses, and the Irish left a lot to be desired against them on the offensive side of the ball.
New Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock is out to right the wrongs.
“It’s a combination of scheme — of course, you got to try to help them as much as you possibly can from a scheme standpoint — but you also have to have ‘that’ dude who can go up and make a contested catch when the game is on the line and somebody who can put the ball in the proper position when the game is on the line and an offensive line that can block when the game is on the line,” Denbrock said. “All of those things kind of fit together. But I think more than anything, when you’re playing against the best of the best that know how to play defense and they’re just as good at scheming as you are, it comes down to those situational plays within a framework of a football game that you got to win more than you lose. And if you do, you’re going to win the game.”
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