All right, Brian, in part four today's show here on the Irish Breakdown podcast,

brought to by our friends over at Fandul.

We're talking the keys to victory for Notre Dame's defense in their noon matchup this

Saturday against the Pittsburgh Panthers, 22nd ranked team in the country,

inside of Accraure Stadium.

Now, Notre Dame's defense has really found a groove.

And over the last five games, I put an article out earlier this week talking about how dominant they've been.

And it's comparable to some of the other perceived or the actual top defenses in the country.

It's right up there with them.

And in some cases, better depending on what numbers you're looking at.

But like we said with the offense, this is going to be your final big test of the regular season.

I don't care what this defense does against Stanford. I don't. I just want them to come out and play a clean game. I don't care what this defense, especially now with Steve Van Jelliop. I don't care what they do against Syracuse. And Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame under Marcus Freeman, has been extremely dominant in senior day games.

This performance right here is the closest thing that you're going to get to

playoff level competition before you actually get to the playoffs.

Has to be a big week for the defense.

You know, it's funny how things change of the course of a long season because, I mean,

we were talking about NC State, you know,

like this is the show me game, right, to a degree. And then USC was that way. Like, I really

need you to show me against a really good offense. I think this defense has done enough against

Arkansas and Boise State and NC State and who hung like 30 something on Pitt, by the way.

You saw what they did to Georgia Tech a couple weeks ago, right?

I mean, yeah, they lost to Duke, but they scored a bunch of points in that game.

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