The Notre Dame Fighting Irish's defense has been a liability the past four weeks, giving up at least 30 points in each contest while allowing an eye-popping 42 points per game.
Saturday's opponent, the Northwestern Wildcats, rank just 114th in the entire nation with 322.7 yards of total offense per game. That includes a paltry 282 yards per outing during their current four-game losing streak.
Something has to give on Saturday.
"We understood coming into the year that we were a developmental group," Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith said, via Tom Coyne of the Associated Press. "We're so young and really just trying to get better. We're not surprised by the outcomes of the last four or five games of teams scoring 30 points. It's just about how can we eliminate that?"
For the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, step one in eliminating those problems might come in the form of the struggling Northwestern Wildcats. If the Irish can get right against them, perhaps the momentum can carry over for the remainder of the year.
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