UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 15, 2022

Houston Griffith

Press Conference

Notre Dame 14, Stanford 16

Q. Houston, how tough is it to -- when you guys are rolling like you were, three-game winning streak, you think you had it going, and then you come out here and that happens. What does it do to the locker room? What was the mood in there like just now?

HOUSTON GRIFFITH: I'll tell you one thing, it's a loss. One thing we've got to do is learn from it. We've got a bunch of guys, they're team guys. It's a tough loss. It's a rivalry. But at the end of the day, we've got to take this L and just learn and improve. We've got a lot of games left this season. We've just got to keep working.

We can't hold our heads down. We've got a bunch of leaders. There's a bunch of guys that came back here for a reason. We've got a bunch of guys that are ready to keep on finishing this season and just go out the right way. We can't dwell about this game. We've got to be able to move on and be able to improve and get ready for next week.

Q. And for the guys that you speak of that came back to ultimately try to win a national championship, you guys have never had three losses at the midway point like this. How can you guys take something that you've never faced like this and try to be better for it and move past it?

HOUSTON GRIFFITH: I've been at Notre Dame a lot of years and just knowing adversity occurs. And, you know, being around Coach Balis, it's our culture. We learn how to attack adversity. And at the end of the day, we're going to learn how to improve, watch the film, get better. And we've got to just move on. We've got to just move on and just know that the rest of the season, like, we dictate it. We can't let teams come in here and dictate the game.

We've got to be better on defense, better on offense, better on special teams. It's a team. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows we've just got to improve and just be better as a whole unit. Everybody, we're going to talk about it on Sunday -- like Monday, Sunday, we're going to talk about it, review the game and put it to rest. At the end of the day, that's what it's got to be, put it to rest.

Q. Houston, we always talk to you guys and coach after the games. We focus on the postgame message. What was the conversation at halftime? What was Coach Freeman's message at halftime today?

HOUSTON GRIFFITH: Go get it. Finish the game. Finish the job. That's all it was. Nothing else to it.

Q. Houston, there was a number of near fumble recoveries for you guys today. How does that impact the defense when you think you may have created a turnover and then it doesn't actually happen?

HOUSTON GRIFFITH: It didn't happen, so it don't impact us at all. At the end of the day, we've got to finish the job. Coach Golden, he preaches it to us. We talk about T and T. We talk about tackles and turnovers. And that's what we preach. So at the end of the day, we didn't get a turnover, so that don't impact us at all. We've just got to learn how to finish it. Get the ball back for our offense and help them go make a play.

Q. What kind of stress did the Stanford offense create for you defensively that maybe was troubling to stop at certain times?

HOUSTON GRIFFITH: I'm not going to say there was stress. They're a good team, good opponent. It's a rivalry. We can't look at their record and just short play them. At the end of the day, they came out here and played, and we've just got to get better.