3 reasons Texas A&M football wins the day vs. Notre Dame: Crowd leads to ND miscues
As I mentioned at the beginning of the week, the Irish are 0-10 since 2006 in front of crowds greater than 90K, and 0-8 in front of crowds greater than 100K (hat tip to Luke Evangelist of Texags for that one). The Aggie head man predicts nearly 108K to be packing Kyle Field for this opener.
Not to return to the well too often here, but it doesn't take a football expert to know that crowd noise can be a huge issue for a line with so few career snaps. Much less a new quarterback in a new offensive system, still hoping to develop chemistry with the receivers around him.
Last weekend, we saw Haynes King constantly slapping his hands over his helmets' earholes so that he could hear his coaches via the new in-helmet communication system just legalized this year. And that was in Ireland, with a soccer stadium only just over half-full with Florida State fans. In other words, a full-power Kyle Field could present some issues on this front to Leonard.
Freeman himself acknowledged some of the struggles the Irish have had with procedural penalties in his time as head man in South Bend. If there's any environment that could exacerbate those struggles, it's the one that this Irish team is walking into in just over 24 hours.