Outside Notre Dame Stadium where the Fighting Irish will return Saturday for the first time since last December.

He is Drew Mintock to my right, Tim O'Malley to my left.

I'm John Bryce.

This is Irish Illustrated's instant analysis brought to you by the RV Manufacturers Hall of Fame

and Northern Indiana event center in lovely Elkhart, Indiana. T.O. will start with you. We visited today with Mike Mickens and a quartet of players, one of those being Jaden Greathouse, didn't have any catches in the last game. One target was a momentous play in that contest. What did Jaden Greathouse say about game one and how the team has picked up the pieces? Yeah, I kind of asked him, you know, how do you approach it when you don't have a catch in a game? And what was it like during the contest? How do you not let frustration mount? And he said, you know, we're bouncing things off each other. The receivers talk to each other first, what they're seeing. In game number one, they're seeing stuff. You don't always plan for what you can't plan for everything you're going to see in game

number one from some coverage, some things, individuals going against you. He said, we bounce it off each other first. We could bring it to Coach Brown. Sometimes Coach Denbrock will come over and say, all right, is there anything we need to adjust here? They didn't really think there's a lot they had to adjust. It was he credited Miami for doing a good job, but he felt like it's not going to be a

situation for him in going forward where he is shut out in that situation. So I brought up the one where not that play necessarily, but where he was open on a slant route and the balls batted down. He's like, hey, balls get batted down. It's not some crazy thing. I didn't have to say anything to cj he's calm he's cool he's collected

he said in the huddle he was not shaken at all and that's what he was pretty happy to see that he said when he was a freshman i asked him when he's walking away he said oh i was jumping all over the place yeah we've got some more on cj car and his calm demeanor in in the pocket and in the huddle and on the sidelines from that game.

But Drew, I want to talk to you next.

Leonard Moore, you spent quite a bit of time with him. in the pocket and in the huddle and on the sidelines from that game but drew i want to talk to you

next lernard moore you spent quite a bit of time with him what were your takeaways from visiting

with notre dame sophomore all-america cornerback yeah i mean i think a big thing we're just hearing about

how he's kind of responding i mean he isn't he talked about he's not used to getting to being on a double

move he talked about kind of how he evaluated it that given the circumstance in 16 seconds or so on the clock there's no reason to even bite on that move because you know it's going to the end zone it's not coming short so he talked about evaluating that but also using that as somebody who's really emerged as a leader on this team even though as a sophomore that's something he can can use as a guy who is the freshman defensive player of the year. It's like, here's a mistake I made. Here's how I'm learning it. Learning from it, here's how I'm bouncing back. So I think really just how he's carrying himself and what he's taking back from a game where you're just not used to seeing him make those kind of mistakes and he feels like he's getting better for it. It was insightful because he was asked, hey, when's the last time you were beaten on a double move? Were you there for that? Do you remember what he said? I think he said never. Yeah, exactly. He said not last year. I can tell you that. And he said maybe in high school, but he did not act like he had ever been beaten on the double

move. I thought it showed a depth of coaching when he was said, well, technique-wise, what could you

have done better on that play? He's like, it's not about technique. It's about having the

awareness and the knowledge of saying, hey, there's only 16 seconds left, and they don't even have a

timeout. Make the tackle in the middle of the field and let the ball keep going. So, T.O., you also

spent some time with Mike Mickens, Leonard Morris coach. What were your takeaways from Coach Mick? And especially the teaching point he's driven home to a Don Shuling. Yeah, before I get to that one, I want to go to the double move because he made a great point on Malachi, Tony, in the slot. he said that's a double move, only it's horizontal, and that's

a tough thing to cover as well. And you also have more space, because not only is there a double move going horizontal, well, that little hitch might go vertically, too. So you actually have three ways you're covering. He said, we're going to learn from it, we're going to cover that better. We have it handled. He was asked multiple times. He finally ended with, we have that handled so I would expect to see maybe a

schematically you say you got to get a little bit more on the guy of that one

Don Schuller is an obvious question to ask. What's your coaching point for Don Schuller? Play the ball. You play through it. You're going to be aggressive. You're going to go get everything. That is probably the least of anybody's concerns watching Notre Dame Safeties play last week. So we asked what the concerns were, and I just wonder how much they're going to rotate. I know you have to rotate over 16 games. I asked Chris Ash before the game started, or before the week of practice started, how much can you rotate on the back end? He said, well, they wouldn't be in there if they couldn't call the game. I agree with that, but I think actions will speak louder. Their actions spoke, they rotated. Will they continue to rotate that much at home where it's not as hot against Texas A&M? I'm not sure you'll see quite as much safety of rotation. Not as hot, no, but you did see Tay Johnson even in the game late. You saw Mark Zachary have to play a play when Christian Gray was dinged up. They obviously rotated among the safeties quite extensively. I got to visit some with Judarian Price. I do want to share a couple of things from our time with him. Number one, I asked him, I'd heard that he had a great camp in terms of ball security. And I said, Janarian, correct me, if I'm wrong, I think you had one or no fumbles in fall camp. He said, yeah, I didn't fumble the ball in fall camp. Just luck of the draw. He knew that he said the guy just made a play on it. He said, look, they practiced that. He didn't get a helmet on it. He punched it out. I have to be better. I know that. He said, the ball is the program. That's their mantra. The ball is the program. You can't drop the program. Drew, I don't know. Did you get to visit any with

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