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On Saturday, theNotre Dame football program improved to 3-0 on the 2026 college football season with a comfortable 27-10 home win over the Michigan State Spartans. While this game was a bit closer than expected throughout the first half, the Fighting Irish still did what they needed to do to hold onto their number three ranking for at least another week.
Still, head coach Marcus Freeman wasn’t thrilled with how his team performed, particularly with regard to an unsportsmanlike conduct call that cost the team 15 yards at one point in the game.
“I saw a ref throw the flag because we were celebrating and we shouldn’t have been doing it. We’ve got to be smarter than that. They were doing a dance or whatever and the ref threw the flag, so do that on the sidelines. It’s uncalled for. We’ve got to be smarter than that,” he said, per Talia Baia of ABC57 on X, formerly Twitter.
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It’s certainly better to learn such a lesson in a comfortable win than in a tight loss where 15 yards could have been the difference.
Overall, Notre Dame has been impressive so far this year, not at all resembling the disastrous 0-2 start they got off to last year that ultimately cost them a spot in the college football playoff despite finishing the season with 10 straight wins.
While the Fighting Irish haven’t exactly faced a murderer’s row of competition so far, there’s still something to be said about taking care of business, and Freeman seems to have his team prepared on a weekly basis, and the players are sure to hear about the penalty mistake in practice over the next few days.
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