Things We Learned: Offensive development from Notre Dame’s receivers and offensive line accelerates Pyne’s growing confidence

In-season development need not spark retrospective regret. It should incur heightened expectations for the seven games remaining for Notre Dame (3-2) this season, not lamentations about losses in the past.

Taking the latter approach risks wishing Irish junior quarterback Drew Pyne would not have so efficiently led the way to a 28-20 win against BYU in Las Vegas on Saturday. Warping his development into an indictment of decisions made months ago serves only to shortchange Pyne’s progress.

Pyne threw for 262 yards and three touchdowns on 22-of-28 passing not because he should have begun the season as Notre Dame’s starting quarterback, but because he has found confidence once thrown into the role three games ago after sophomore Tyler Buchner suffered a season-ending shoulder injury.

“That comes with confidence,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said Monday. “When you start making the right decisions, you take care of the football. Now you’re seeing him start to make plays.”

Talk to Pyne, now or before he started against Cal in mid-September only to play so poorly in the first quarter as to turn his offensive coordinator into a meme, and it is clear he never lacked confidence. That does not mean he could not find more or find tangible justification for what he already had.

“I look at the first half of the Cal game, and really maybe the first quarter, it wasn’t a lack of confidence. It was a lack of execution, and that really messes with your confidence,” Freeman said in the immediate aftermath of beating the Cougars in front of a raucous, split crowd. “Drew Pyne is always ready to go.

“Now what you’re seeing is the execution starting to be there, so the confidence is starting to rise.”

Pyne could not have played much worse in