Don’t let Notre Dame’s record fool you. Irish stars will demand Boise State’s ‘best’

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Boise State football faces the mammoth task this weekend of traveling to No. 21 Notre Dame in an attempt to take down last year’s national runner-up in its own backyard.

The Broncos (3-1) enter the week as 19.5-point underdogs, and head coach Spencer Danielson knows he doesn’t need any of his players putting on a Superman cape if Boise State is to pull off the upset.

“My biggest focus for our team is ‘your best is enough and your best is required,’ ” Danielson said Monday. “That’s going to be my message for them all week.”

The prospect of showing up at the 80,795-seat Notre Dame Stadium and spoiling the day for the home crowd is an exciting one for the Bronco staff and players, but Danielson readily admitted that he “doesn’t know” what will happen Saturday.

What he does know is that no one should be sleeping on the Fighting Irish, who enter the game with an unusual 2-2 record. Notre Dame started the season 0-2 thanks to a pair of losses to Miami (27-24) and Texas A&M (41-40), with those schools ranked No. 3 and No. 6, respectively, in the most recent Associated Press Top 25.

Since then, the Fighting Irish have smoked Purdue 56-30 and Arkansas 56-13. Combining those results with the fact that Notre Dame lost by a combined four points against two top teams, the Fighting Irish have already demonstrated that they’re still among the best teams in the country, despite their record.

“They have grown week in and week out. Hats off to Coach (Marcus) Freeman and their staff, because they have,” Danielson said. “They are playing at an elite level offensively, they’re playing at an elite level defensively … and they are on the attack on special teams.”

What’s so scary about Notre Dame?

The Fighting Irish’s success comes as little surprise, as they returned 11 starters from last year’s squad that lost 34-23 to Ohio State in the national championship game; five on offense and six on defense.

Among those returners is star running back Jeremiyah Love, who leads the team with 341 rushing yards and five rushing touchdowns on 66 carries. He also has a team second-best 13 receptions for 149 yards and three touchdowns. He recorded a career-high 157 rushing yards against Purdue just over a week ago and then had a career-high 70 receiving yards against Arkansas.

“Jeremiyah Love is going to get his,” Danielson said. “You go into a game with elite football players, there’s not a schematic call that all of a sudden is going to take Jeremiyah Love out of the game.”

So if the Broncos can’t completely stop Love, what can they do? Defensive coordinator Erik Chinander admitted it’s becoming increasingly difficult to practice live tackling in practice as players sustain more injuries throughout the season.

However, fundamentals taught to the defense throughout the season — tackling low and as a unit — will be more critical than ever against Love.

“We have to target low. We have to try to take (Love’s) motor out,” Chinander said. “We have to get multiple people to the ball. So it’s going to be about effort. It’s going to be about doing things the right way and proper leverage, I think, more than anything.”

However, it’s not just Love that the Broncos need to be worried about. Danielson says redshirt freshman quarterback CJ Carr is a future first-round pick in the NFL Draft and has been impressed with the 20-year-old.

Carr took the reins at Notre Dame this offseason. He has completed 68.3% (71-for-104) of his passes in a Notre Dame uniform for 1,091 yards, nine touchdowns and two interceptions. He also has one rushing touchdown to his name this season.

“For a freshman, I’m extremely impressed with his decision-making,” Danielson said. “He gets the ball exactly where it should be, on time, where it should go. He runs a pro-style offense that has a lot of shifts and motions and complications to it, and he operates at a very, very high level.