One report said high ankle sprain, but I thought ESPN said broken Tibia?? Would hate to see his season end that way.

Worst offensive line I’ve seen with this talent. Brutal. Sickening. Embarrassing.

@Eric Hansen and I will go live on YouTube at 7 p.m. EDT for the next edition of "Football Never Sleeps." Throughout the season, we will plan to be live every Monday at 7 p.m.

We'll discuss head coach Marcus Freeman's Monday press conference, examine how Notre Dame can improve following a 21-14 win at Duke, look ahead at Saturday's game at No. 25 Louisville and answer questions from viewers.

Football Never Sleeps is sponsored by Legacy Heating & Air.

We hope you join us live with questions or submit some ahead of time. Hit the bell to set a reminder to get notified when we go live.

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If you'd like to submit questions, make sure you click through so you're watching on YouTube's site or in the YouTube app if you're on mobile. You can do so by clicking the headline at the top of the embedded video above. So where it says "Football Never Sleeps: ..." Or there should be spot that says "Watch on YouTube" in the bottom left.

Then to submit questions, there's a chat box to the right of the video on desktop or below the video on mobile.

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From 2025 four-star quarterback commit Deuce Knight’s X page on Monday evening:

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Notre Dame’s 2025 recruiting class currently sits No. 3 in the Rivals 2025 team rankings with 709 points. The Irish only trail Alabama and Georgia.

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Assuming SC wins next week, when was the last time we played 4 ranked and undefeated teams in a row?

When Thomas and Greathouse return, that should be about it for Merriweather this season, he has a guy beat deep and goes back and pulls the defender for offensive pass interference, in that situation was terrible.

I think this might have come up in a thread over the weekend but wanted to bring proper attention to it. ND G.A./linebackers coach Max Bullough is his grandson.

I'm not dealing with a hamstring issue, but I am a little delayed in getting this ready for Notre Dame-Duke.

We will use this game thread as the primary home for game commentary from now until after the game. We have some rules we'll ask you to follow, which will be included below.

If you're not following the rules and do not respond well to reminders, we'll remove you're posting privileges for the rest of the day. We have too much to do today to argue about it during the game. This doesn't happen often as we're pretty lenient in the game thread, but please keep that in mind.

@HotCarNut has disciplinary powers as a moderator. You can argue with him about the game, but do not argue with him about the rules.

Our game thread rules:

1. Use this thread until the end of the game for ongoing game commentary. We'd like to keep the conversation in one place. If something from the game merits a separate conversation of substance, go ahead and start another thread for that topic. When in doubt, post in the game thread.

2. Criticism of decision-making by coaches and players is allowed. But please avoid making it personal. Don't be malicious. Remember, that person's mother could be reading your post. If you cross the line, you'll lose posting privileges for the day.

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The latest:

From Rivals national analyst Clint Cosgrove ...

Shrader has an impressive leg and has done a nice job on kickoffs and gives us an option on long field goal attempts, but kills us with his accuracy (Captain Obvious, I know). Do we have other options - maybe a walk on that is accurate but doesn't have the leg strength? A guy we can use like 35 yards and in? Had Estime not broken from for that TD, the issue would be more glaring today. Curious if anyone knows more about the kicking room at ND.

Notre Dame was the more talented team but some how some way found a way to lose. Sam Hartman played like a coward. Sam Hartman cost ND the game. It’s the same old post 1993 Notre Dame. Coward coaches and players

My caffeine-aided ballot is listed at the bottom of this post. If you click on the link, you can find out how each pollster voted, including Lou Holtz. Coaches poll should be out shortly, with the AP poll dropping at 2-ish ET.




Hansen's Super 16 Ballot
(I still vote for 25 after decades of being an AP voter. Only the top 16 count in this poll).
1. Washington
2. Georgia
3. Texas
4. Ohio State
5. Florida State
6. Penn State
7. USC
8. Michigan
9. Notre Dame
10. Oregon
11. Alabama
12. Oklahoma
13. Washington State
14. Miami
15. Kentucky
16. Oregon State
17. Duke
18. North Carolina
19. Utah
20. Ole Miss
21. Maryland
22. Tennessee
23. LSU
24. Missouri
25. Louisville

Missed a bunch of holding calls on Duke. The offensive holding on Tobias was terrible as was the targeting call.
the acc refs clearly wanted Duke to win.
Tobias has all that speed, what a waste

Honestly, I'm sure he is a good kid, but ND has a couple players whose # of snaps each game far outgain their productivity. I think he stands at the top of that list. Maybe yesterday made sense due to a lack of receivers available, but I can't see how Braylon James could be any less productive than Tobias?? Maybe if he sat out a game and watched how hard the freshmen play, how smart they are at finding holes in the defense, how they fight for extra yards, how they fight for 50/50 balls. Maybe if he watched how hard Thomas plays regardless of whether he gets any targets? I'm not trying to be mean. I'm a big fan of the kid and would love to see him do what we all know he can do, but if not now, when . . . ?

Irish 7 1/2-point favorites Saturday night at Louisville, per betonline.ag

College Football Week 6 lines are subject to change. Here’s the direct link to real-time spreads: https://www.betonline.ag/sportsbook/football/ncaa.

College Football Week 6 Lines

Note: Games with FBS vs FCS will be posted later in the week. Any game highlighted, currently doesn’t have a spread.

Wednesday, October 4, 2023
· Jacksonville State @ Middle Tennessee (-4)
· Florida International @ New Mexico State (-6)

Thursday, October 5, 2023
· Sam Houston @ Liberty (-17½)
· Western Kentucky (-6½) @ Louisiana Tech

Friday, October 6, 2023
· Kansas State ((-10) @ Oklahoma State
· Nebraska @ Illinois (-3½)
Saturday, October 7, 2023
· Oklahoma @ Texas (-5)
· Maryland @ Ohio State (-19)
· LSU (-7) @ Missouri
· Boston College @ Army (-3)
· Western Michigan @ Mississippi State (-21)
· Rutgers @ Wisconsin (-13)
· Toledo (-19) @ Massachusetts
· Marshall @ NC State (-5½)
· UTSA (-13½) @ Temple
· Central Michigan (-2½) @ Buffalo
· Washington State @ UCLA (-3)
· Virginia Tech @ Florida State (-25½)
· Nebraska @ Illinois (-3½)
· Alabama (-3½) @ Texas A&M
· Syracuse @ North Carolina (-8½)
· Purdue @ Iowa (-3½)
· Wake Forest @ Clemson (-20)
· North Texas @ Navy (-5)
· Texas State @ Louisiana (-1)
· Ball State @ Eastern Michigan (-2½)
· Bowling Green @ Miami (OH) (-11½)
· Kent State @ Ohio (-26½)
· Northern Illinois (-3½) @ Akron
· Vanderbilt @ Florida (-19½)
· UCF @ Kansas (-3)
· South Florida (-2½) @ UAB
· Arkansas State @ Troy (-16½)
· UConn @ Rice (-10½)
· Tulsa @ Florida Atlantic (-3)
· Colorado (-4½) @ Arizona State
· Kentucky @ Georgia (-14½)
· South Alabama (-11) @ UL Monroe
· Old Dominion @ Southern Miss (-2½)
· Michigan (-19½) @ Minnesota
· Notre Dame (-7½) @ Louisville
· Arkansas @ Ole Miss (-11½)
· Georgia Tech @ Miami (-17½)
· Fresno State (-5½) @ Wyoming
· Texas Tech @ Baylor (-1)
· TCU (-6) @ Iowa State
· Colorado State (-1½) @ Utah State
· San José State @ Boise State (-8½)
· Oregon State (-8½) @ California
· Arizona @ USC (-21)

He seems to get better every week. He's a poor man's Aaron Donald. If he just had a bit more size, he'd be a surefire NFL stud.

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Notre Dame 2024 safety target Davis Andrews will announce his commitment next Monday at 9 p.m. ET.

Andrews is coming off an unofficial visit to the Irish for their game against Ohio State and will decide between Notre Dame, BYU, UCLA and Utah. He took official visits to all four schools in the summer and also visited BYU and Utah for game day visits earlier this season.

On The Heat Index, Inside ND Sports lists the American Fork (Utah) recruit as extremely hot.

Notre Dame currently has three safeties committed in the 2024 recruiting class — four-star Brauntae Johnson, four-star Kennedy Urlacher and three-star Taebron Bennie-Powell.

According to Rivals, Andrews is a three-star prospect and ranked as the No. 8 player in Utah for the 2024 class. His primary recruiter has been defensive backs coach/safeties Chris O'Leary.

Andrews intends to take a two-year Mormon Mission and enroll in the 2026 class.

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MITCHELL EVANS

How did the mentality change for you knowing the offense was down receivers tonight?

“Obviously, our room kind of had to step up. Same with the running backs. I feel like we all kind of did that. Holden [Staes] was taking on more and a different kind of blocking role than what he’s done before in the past and executed. We were doing a bunch of 22 personnel with two running backs and two tight ends out there because we had to. But even in the receiver room, Tobi [Tobias Merriweather] and Rico [Flores Jr.] stepped up and had to take a surplus amount of reps for that. They kind of knew that, and they stepped up.”

Was this was one-handed catch better than last week’s?

“I don’t even know. I was, again, not expecting it, because I was doing my reset. I turned and it was there. I don’t even really know what happened. Did he tip it? I don’t even know. Did he tip it? Did I tip it?”

You tipped it to yourself.

“I did that? Wow. OK. Well, I should have caught it the first time then. I don’t know. I guess, maybe.”

What does it feel like to make that third-and-10 reception on the last drive?

“We’ve executed pretty much every two-minute drill that we’ve had this season. And we practice it a lot. We do it every Wednesday. Our two-minute mentality is we feel like we can execute whatever we have to, whatever look comes at us, because they were throwing everything at us there at the last second. But we didn’t panic. We didn’t flinch. We weren’t scared. We didn’t back down. Sam ran on what was it like fourth-and-16 or something like that? That’s pretty sick. Do what we had to get the fricking first down.”

Why didn’t you panic or flinch on that last drive?

“Our mentality: champions respond. That’s kind of the role we took on this week. We didn’t back down, and we didn’t give up.”

What did Duke’s defense do to make it tough to run in the second half?

“They had a good defensive front and box. They were stout guys. They were doing a lot of stems with the D-line — stemming left, right, whatever. They were throwing a lot at us. Especially when we were doing our back blocks and our inserts, they were spilling them. They were just a good defensive line front. They game planned like we game planned.”

How are you feeling at the end of the game? What does it take to have the stamina to come through after playing so much?

“Tired. Sam’s out there. The O-line's out there. The defensive line’s out there. They’re playing a lot of snaps too. If you’re asked to do that, you gotta do it. That’s what the offseason’s for. You gotta train, you gotta train, you gotta train. Because you could play 40 snaps, you could play 60 snaps, you could play two. You gotta be ready for every snap you take.”



AUDRIC ESTIME

Coach Freeman said you should have went down on the one-yard line. Were you even thinking about that in the moment?

“Not going to lie: I wasn’t. I just saw it. I saw the opportunity and took it.”

How did it feel to run that one in?

“It felt great. That was a result of the whole offense staying down until we come up. We knew it was going to be a four-quarter battle. We just hit it when we needed it, when it mattered the most.”

Did you have any expectation that play could spring for a touchdown?

“Yeah, honestly. We knew that we had them. We knew that something was going to pop. We just had to stay strong. We knew it was going to be a fourth quarter game. We knew it was going to come down to the end. We just executed. The offensive line blocked perfectly and I saw the lane and I hit it.

What can you say about your defense keeping you in the game and Howard Cross III specifically?

“Our defense played great. We knew they were going to play great. We knew it was going to be a tough game. They knew that. They knew their quarterback was going to be able to run the ball, but they handled him well. We had a great week of practice Monday-Friday pushing each other, offense and defense going at it. They did really good, and they responded back well.”

How was the game plan adjusted with wide receivers out?

“We needed some guys to step up, young guys to step up. We knew we were going to be in more 11, 12 personnel. But that was a challenge that me and the rest of the running backs were willing to take on. That’s what we did.”

Where did that touchdown rank for you in terms of football memories?

“I’m not going to lie. I never put a game out like that. I never scored with a couple seconds to go. I think that would be one right now, honestly.”

How much is the confidence at the end of the game related to Sam Hartman being at quarterback?

“Yes. Sam’s one of the best in the business. When the pressure’s on, he’s at his best. Him converting on that fourth down was huge for us. Honestly, without that play, we wouldn’t have been able to have the opportunity to score right there. That’s just a result of the player Sam is and the teammate he is. He’s doing whatever it takes to win the game for this team.”

How do you stay patient and not get frustrated when the holes aren’t opening up?

“Especially games like this, you can’t jump to the next quarter. You gotta take one play at a time. That’s what we did. Honestly, it wasn’t pretty. But we got the job done. We knew that team was going to bring everything they got. We brought everything we got back at them. It was going to be a four-quarter battle. That’s what we did. We finished in the fourth quarter.”