“We’ve got a really good team, but we’re entitled to nothing, and we’re going to earn everything we get.”
AUSTIN, Texas — With 31 seconds left, the kick heard around college football went through the uprights at Notre Dame Stadium, giving the upstart Northern Illinois Huskies a 16-14 lead over the then-No. 5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, a lead that held when NIU blocked a desperation 62-yard field-goal attempt in the final seconds.
The upset was all the more shocking because the Fighting Irish had just gone into College Station the week before and beat the Aggies, 23-13.
It was the type of big early-season win Notre Dame had previously been unable to achieve under third-year head coach Marcus Freeman.
“This is the first time in my three years as a head coach that we have won the big game early in the season. Two losses to Ohio State and then all of a sudden, we win and everybody says, ‘Hey, you’re going to the playoff. You’ve got an easy schedule.’ We all hear it, and I think we started to believe that,” Freeman said.
“There is a physical approach to preparing for a game, and I think physically we prepared the right way, but there’s also a mental approach and a mindset that you have to have every single week, and I think that’s where we failed.”
It’s the exact type of mental letdown that Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian wants to avoid after Saturday’s 31-12 win over then-No. 10 Michigan in Ann Arbor, so on Monday morning the Longhorns tried to learn some lessons from the Fighting Irish because “human nature is human nature,” as Sarkisian put it during his Monday press conference.
“I walked them through the Notre Dame scenario of them going into College Station a week ago and winning that game and being anointed a top-five team and in the College Football Playoff and a week later losing to Northern Illinois. So I showed that clip of the field goal and I showed the clip of Northern Illinois storming the field this morning,” Sarkisian said.
In January, Sarkisian started to emphasize the extent to which complacency is the devil — a neglected culture begins to deteriorate, a poor mental approach during practice turns into a poor mental approach during a game, and that in turn leads to upsets of the kind that Saturday’s opponent UTSA would love to pull off as a huge underdog.
“We are entitled to nothing. We’re capable of anything — we’ve got a really good team — but we’re entitled to nothing, and we’re going to earn everything we get. We’re going to have to earn the victory here Saturday,” Sarkisian said.
Fundamentally, it’s about the standard Sarkisian has established with the Longhorns.
“We try to hold ourselves to our standard,” Sarkisian said. “We have a saying around here — the standard is the standard and a jersey, a helmet, a stadium doesn’t dictate how we prepare. We dictate how we prepare.”
What exactly did happen to Notre Dame?
The Fighting Irish received poor quarterback play as Duke transfer Riley Leonard threw two interceptions that led to two field goals for the Huskies in the two-point loss. Notre Dame’s passing game also didn’t produce enough explosive plays as Leonard averaged 5.2 yards per attempt and was unable to complete a pass of longer than 19 yards.
With the Notre Dame offense bogging down, the Fighting Irish converted just 3-of-10 third-down attempts, rendering Mike Denbrock’s offense unable to sustain drives. But the issues went deeper than just third downs — Notre Dame faced an average distance of 7.9 yards on third downs compared to just 4.2 yards for Northern Illinois and averaged just 3.9 yards per attempt on first-down passes.
Freeman’s defense didn’t play well enough, either, allowing an 83-yard touchdown reception in the first quarter and giving up 190 rushing yards.
Fortunately for Texas, the team has a group of leaders who understand the threat of complacency.
“It’s what happens when you don’t hone into the details and you don’t really prepare the right way for an opponent. We try to take a week by week and we’re going to prepare for UTSA the same way we did for Michigan, the same way we did for Alabama last year. It’s a 1-0 type season,” Texas senior tight end Gunnar Helm said.