Greg McElroy praises Notre Dame’s offensive improvement, ‘response’ since NIU loss
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Greg McElroy is a big believer in what Notre Dame has accomplished since its Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois.
Since that embarrassing defeat to the Huskies, the Fighting Irish have gone undefeated and appear to be on the road back to a potential College Football Playoff berth. An 11-1 record would likely result in the Irish claiming 1 of 7 at-large berths in the CFP this season.
McElroy acknowledged the difficult in evaluating Notre Dame’s résumé given that eyesore of a loss from back in September.
“Everybody right now is having a really hard time evaluating Notre Dame,” McElroy said on the latest episode of Always College Football. “I get that. I watched the NIU game. I saw them get pushed around in the NIU game and it was a difficult game to unsee when it comes to evaluating who Notre Dame is and what Notre Dame can be.
“But since that game, you almost have to just remove it and evaluate the response.”
McElroy also noted Riley Leonard’s improvement down the stretch. After struggling mightily in the first few weeks of the season, Leonard — and Notre Dame’s offense in general — appears to have hit his stride in October.
Over Leonard’s last 4 games, he’s completed almost 70% of his passes for 775 yards, 7 touchdowns and just 1 interception. He’s also rushed for 217 yards and 5 more scores over that same span.
You look at how he’s played down the stretch, and he’s been a whole lot better,” McElroy said. “Now the stats are never going to be eye-popping throwing the football … It’s just not who he is. And his offensive personnel and their offensive identity is not going to lend itself to 400-yard passing games.”
As a whole, Notre Dame’s offense has been significantly better over the past few weeks as Leonard has continued to get healthier and the offense has adjusted to new OC Mike Denbrock. McElroy said the improvement is coming at the perfect time.
“The offense is starting to take the strides that would have you thinking they could maybe be a contender when the Playoff arrives here in a few weeks,” he said.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
