Notre Dame Football: Position report card for Irish in week 3
By Jacob Wilson
Notre Dame’s special teams performance could’ve fell anywhere between a B and a C. In the return game the Irish couldn’t muster much despite forcing multiple punts. Chris Finke put himself in some sticky situations by fielding questionable punts over the first two games but tightened things up in this game.
However, Notre Dame was constantly beat down the field on punts and gave Finke little time to do anything other than call for a fair catch. The Irish didn’t take anything out on kickoffs, with all five of Maximilian Schulze-Geisthovel’s kicks going for touchbacks.
The ever reliable Tyler Newsome was kept busy in the first half and finished off the game with a 46.1 average. Newsome has been getting plenty of action over the last couple of weeks but Kelly will do his best to make sure he keeps the majority of his punting reps on the practice field.
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An interesting development in this game was the use of true freshman Jonathan Doerer on kickoffs. The Irish coaching staff had talked about using him in an effort to give kicker Justin Yoon some rest, and they finally put him into action against Boston College. Doerer was outperformed by Yoon, but it will be interesting to see if this storyline continues after today.