Irish take one on the chin in home opener

Courtesy of The Pilot News. Photo by Maggie Nixon

SOUTH BEND — A week after an emotional opening night win at Texas A&M Notre Dame came home and had a “disappointing Saturday against Northern Illinois, falling 16-14.
Huskie senior running back Antario Brown made the most of his time on the big stage to have the biggest game of his career running for 104 yards on 20 carries and catching a pair of passes for 126 yards including Northern Illinois’s first score an 83-yard touchdown.
“Obviously disappointing. Disappointing in the performance,” said Irish head coach Marcus Freeman after the game. “You know, it’s our job as coaches to make sure these guys are ready to go. We’ve got to go back and evaluate the way we prepared and figure out exactly the mishaps that occurred in the preparation. I’ve always said performance is a reflection of preparation. We’ve got to figure out where we failed in preparation.”
The loss to an unranked opponent on their home field leaves the Irish reeling after the expectations of last week’s win. The frustrating performance of the Irish offense is another point of emphasis. The Irish could manage just 286 yards of total offense, just over 100 yards less than the Huskies 388.
Now starting the long road back up, Freeman was preaching accountability
“I said, we’ve got to own this,” said Freeman. “Every person in here (the locker room), every coach has to own it first, and not blame somebody else. That’s the only way to fix it is when every person, everybody outside of here will try to point the finger at some coach, some player, some person. It should be at the head coach. It’s my job.”
Notre Dame will be on the road next week against Purdue in a home-state rivalry game.