Notre Dame football has solved the post-bye week blues
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Notre Dame football has solved the post-bye week blues

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SOUTH BEND — Jaylen Sneed smiled at the question.

A third year rover for Notre Dame football, Sneed has come to appreciate the many benefits of a bye week, especially when it comes to self-care.

“Honestly, just recovery,” Sneed said this week ahead of Saturday night’s home game against struggling Florida State (1-8). “Recovery has been a big thing for me this year because when you ride six days in a row, your body doesn’t feel good on the seventh day.”

Even coming off his best game of the season in the Oct. 26 win over Navy, Sneed took full advantage of the chance to exhale and reset for the stretch. Going on the 10thTh-ranked Irish continue to roll through their Nov. 30 road date with USC, a ticket to the first 12-team College Football Playoff appearance likely.

That could mean as many as four more games if Notre Dame advances to the CFP Championship on Jan. 20 in Atlanta.

“Recovery has been the biggest thing for me,” Sneed said. “Just getting in the training room and doing the necessary things I need to do to get my body back on the field, healthy and ready to play.”

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The delicate balance of the bye week at Notre Dame football

Pausing the rhythm of a college football case can be risky if not handled properly. Especially in the nascent era of multiple bye weeks, the specter of coming out flat cannot be ignored.

“It seems like forever since we played,” Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock mused after Tuesday’s practice.

Winners of six straight games since a Week 2 upset loss to Northern Illinois, Notre Dame blasted Stanford 49-7 last month after the first bye week. A slugfest, emotionally and physically, in the 31-24 win over Louisville preceded that gap between contests.

“We had to rebound,” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said on Oct. 7. “Our guys were upset and we had to be smart about how we prepared and improved, but also actually rebound at the same time.”

Three weeks later, leading up to the Navy game, Freeman reflected on the differences between Bye Week 1 and Bye Week 2.

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“I really liked how we prepared the previous bye week, and the structure of our practices will be similar,” Freeman said. “For me, the challenge will be how do we make sure we improve in that bye week, maybe have conversations about the future, but also find a way to really take care of this team right now and try to get to the full the potential.”

Should the Irish (7-1) perform as expected as 25-point favorites this weekend against Seminoleswould they improve to 5-0 after the bye weeks during Freeman’s head coaching tenure.

Notre Dame topped BYU 28-20 in Las Vegas two years ago, then rebounded with ACC foes Pittsburgh and Wake Forest by a combined 103-14 in 2023.

Going back to 2010, Notre Dame has lost just twice in its last 19 games after a bye. Brian Kelly’s 13-2 mark included a 2019 rout of No. 19 Michigan (45-14) and a 31-17 home loss in 2011 to No. 23 USC.

“We’re so proud of that because we know we got the week off,” Sneed said. “We know we have to come out firing and start fast and play fast throughout the game.”

Extra time, extra dangerous

Counting season openers (2-1) and bowl games (2-1), Freeman and Co. are a combined 8-2 so far when given more than a week to prepare. Those two losses came early in the Freeman era: 37-35 to No. 9 Oklahoma State in the 2021 Fiesta Bowl and 21-10 in the no. 2 Ohio State the following year.

Saturday night, Notre Dame can secure its ninth straight win under an extra prep scenario. It can do both under a CFP format that includes at least a 10-day break for first-round winners and then gaps of at least eight and 10 days for those who survive the quarterfinals and semifinals.

“There is no magic formula,” Freeman said on Oct. 7. “Every bye week is different: where it is in your season, what injuries you have going on, your upcoming opponent. There are a lot of different things that you have to focus on during that particular bye week.

“We’ve got another bye week in three weeks coming up, and what we do in that bye week, while the overall focus will probably be similar, the specifics of what we do in that week will change, just being where it is during the season and the upcoming opponent after that.”

Each break comes with a degree of nuance, one that Freeman’s program seems to handle well.

“The most important thing is that you have to evaluate your team during this period that you get the bye week,” he said. “You can’t just say, ‘This is what we did last year.’ Let’s just throw this in this window and do it this year.’ “

Kris Mitchell: “Procrastinate last week, fix it today”

The losses piled up during Kris Mitchell’s four seasons at Florida International, whether they followed bye weeks or not.

A cumulative 9-32 mark from 2020-23 included blowout losses after the bye week on the road against Middle Tennessee State (40-6), New Mexico State (34-17), Western Kentucky (73-0) and Texas State ( 41 -12).

The graduate transfer wide receiver has enjoyed the change in fortunes since arriving at Notre Dame, including how the Irish are getting closer to having extra days between games.

“On a bye week here, we get after it even a little bit more,” Mitchell said of the practice routine.

Off the practice field, Mitchell noted, his bye week routine with his former and current programs is “pretty similar in terms of working on ourselves. We don’t have an opponent, but our opponent is still ourselves, so we work on our games to make sure we’re still doing everything we can do so on Saturdays we get the result we’re looking for.”

Playing in Conference USA, Mitchell experienced the challenge of accordion-style game weeks. In 2022 alone, the Golden Panthers had a pair of six-day turnarounds along with eight- and nine-day breaks between games.

How much advantage is there in terms of preparation to even have an extra day to get ready for an opponent? How much more can one learn?

“A lot more,” Mitchell said. “Even in special teams, you have an extra day to mess up or correct mistakes. It helps us a lot. Instead of messing up today and fixing it tomorrow, we mess up last week and fix it today. It’s always better.”

When a full two weeks (or more) pass between games, familiarity with an opponent’s plan and personnel becomes deeply ingrained.

“Just watching even double the film time, seeing what their plan is,” Mitchell said as he prepared to face Florida State. “All (Tuesday) morning we just went through their coverages. That’s how we can learn, so we know what to expect from certain personnel, certain formations. Just things like that.”

In Mitchell’s case, the ditch route has become a favorite for him and quarterback Riley Leonard, the Duke transfer. That requires Mitchell to read how the safety reacts to the slot receiver, and for Leonard to know where Mitchell is going based on that moment.

“(Leonard) is on the same page with the people around him,” Denbrock said. “You could see it after the (first) bye week, but it’s been a process where he’s gotten a little bit better every week. And I saw that in the bye week. He threw the ball with a lot of confidence.”

In the hands of an experienced group, extra time to prepare can make a big difference.

Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.

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