2. Do not blame this loss on the defense
If you are going to blame one side of the ball it should not be the defense. The Notre Dame offense did the defense no favors for much of the afternoon.
The Irish defense was able to keep them in the game. The defense really helped spark Notre Dame as a whole with that strip-sack in the second half to set the Irish up with great field position.
The score really could have been a lot worse but Notre Dame was able to keep the Bearcats offense out of the end zone on a few occasions which was huge.
The defensive unit will tell you they did not play well enough, especially on the deep balls to extend drives. But for the most part in my opinion I believe the defense played well and was on the field way too much on Saturday.