{"id":101959,"date":"2019-12-13T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T14:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=101959"},"modified":"2020-08-24T11:09:10","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T16:09:10","slug":"uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/","title":{"rendered":"USCHO GAME OF THE WEEK: Struggling Notre Dame looking to get back on track against Penn State"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cale<\/a>
Cale Morris saw his senior season at Notre Dame delayed due to injury, but is 5-5-2 in his 12 starts in 2019-20 (photo: Omar Phillips).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With one more opportunity to end a losing streak before the holiday break, Jeff Jackson doesn\u2019t want his Notre Dame team to be fixated on results.<\/p>\n

Notre Dame hosts Penn State this weekend for its finals Big Ten series of 2019. The Irish started the season hot, going 7-0-1, but have dropped their last five contests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started with the lack of five-on-five scoring, then it progressed into pressing a bit too much offensively, and that was what was getting us into trouble at the other end,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to try and work hard offensively, try to keep things the right way to score goals, and not get three guys caught low and give up odd-man rushes and breakaways. That just boils down to having a process mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson said he hoped the team had \u201cbottomed out\u201d after last Sunday\u2019s 6-1 loss to Boston College. The Irish were outscored 10-1 by the Eagles in the home-and-home series.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the pressure of where we are, it caused us to break down on Sunday,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s the first time that\u2019s happened, and maybe that\u2019s why I said we maybe bottomed out. We threw our execution of the system out trying to score goals and that certainly made things tougher on the other end of the ice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the results haven\u2019t been there as of late, Jackson said he\u2019s been impressed with the team\u2019s attitude and effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one area that we have to be better and more committed to is simplifying our game and executing, and that\u2019s been the focus in practice this week,\u201d he said. \u201cFor us, it\u2019s baby steps right now. We have to start doing the little things well before we can concern ourselves with the outcome or the result. It\u2019s always about the next shift and staying focused on the details of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also doesn\u2019t want to team to forget that it was undefeated and near the top of the rankings not that long ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou try to remind them of that,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been playing high-quality teams, too, which has made it tougher. We just have to be able to break the game down to its simplest form. We know we have the ability, we just have to not try to win the game the first shift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not to make excuses, but Notre Dame might be slightly road-weary. After the Irish swept Ohio State at home, they played consecutive road series at Wisconsin and Michigan State. Home-and-home series with Bowling Green and Boston College followed. The team was able to charter to Madison and Boston, but the miles racked up on land and in the air are hard to ignore.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not so much the travel as it is the drain that comes along with the travel from a mental perspective,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cGetting home at late hours, you\u2019re getting less sleep Saturday or Sunday nights. You feel it personally. The week is shortened because you\u2019re leaving early so you have three days to prepare both academically and personally as well as the hockey side of it. Then you magnify that by, the last two weeks prior to final exams, school amps up in a big way here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson credited his leadership group for keeping the team even-keeled, even though many of those players are also going through tough times with their own game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel bad for them, just because some of our seniors are not producing the way they were the first month of the season, so you tack on the frustration,\u201d he said, adding that he\u2019d love to see players like Cal Burke, Mike O\u2019Leary and Cam Morrison catch a break and knock in a goal soon. \u201cI\u2019m just grateful that we have some mature guys that can handle that. It\u2019s not just the pressure of the leadership role, it\u2019s the pressure of personal expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goaltender Cale Morris has also struggled, to his own standards, after the start to his season was delayed by injury. The senior has a 5-5-2 record, .890 save percentage and 3.07 GAA but is 7-2-1 in his career against Penn State.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little different with goaltenders, like a pitcher in baseball and the quarterback in football,\u201d Jackson said of Morris. \u201cHe needs to get that swagger back that he has had in the past. He\u2019s not a cocky kid, but he\u2019s a confident kid. I expect he\u2019ll recover and respond. He\u2019s too good of goaltender not to.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knows how Penn State plays and how they get the puck to the net. He certainly has the maturity to be able to deal with it. For him right now, it\u2019s just the confidence aspect of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With classes having ended on Thursday and exams not starting until Monday, Jackson hopes that everyone can take advantage of a home series with fewer distractions this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to work on winning shifts and periods and not get so focused on the result,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cIf we do that, then we can peck away and try to play the way that we have to play to have success against teams like Penn State.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson said he sees similarities between Penn State and Boston College. After the Irish failed their exam against the Eagles, they\u2019ll gladly take a redo against the Nittany Lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a challenge when you play them — they\u2019re a good hockey team and they\u2019ve got good depth,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re balanced across every position, in some ways they remind me of Boston College right now. We didn\u2019t handle (Boston College) overly well, but it\u2019s a new week and we haven\u2019t had to get on a bus or a plane, so maybe that\u2019s going to be a helpful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With one more opportunity to end a losing streak before the holiday break, Jeff Jackson doesn\u2019t want his Notre Dame team to be fixated on results (photo: Omar Phillips).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":108314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[935],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[855],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUSCHO GAME OF THE WEEK: Struggling Notre Dame looking to get back on track against Penn State - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With one more opportunity to end a losing streak before the holiday break, Jeff Jackson doesn\u2019t want his Notre Dame team to be fixated on results (photo: Omar Phillips).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101959\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"USCHO GAME OF THE WEEK: Struggling Notre Dame looking to get back on track against Penn State - College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With one more opportunity to end a losing streak before the holiday break, Jeff Jackson doesn\u2019t want his Notre Dame team to be fixated on results (photo: Omar Phillips).\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101959\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-12-13T14:00:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-24T16:09:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DSC-1897.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"699\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"466\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Drew Claussen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@USCHO\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Drew Claussen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/\",\"name\":\"USCHO GAME OF THE WEEK: Struggling Notre Dame looking to get back on track against Penn State - College Hockey | USCHO.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DSC-1897.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-12-13T14:00:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-24T16:09:10+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/fbf976132f97155e5f6e6487fbde73fd\"},\"description\":\"With one more opportunity to end a losing streak before the holiday break, Jeff Jackson doesn\u2019t want his Notre Dame team to be fixated on results (photo: Omar Phillips).\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DSC-1897.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DSC-1897.jpg\",\"width\":699,\"height\":466},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"USCHO GAME OF THE WEEK: Struggling Notre Dame looking to get back on track against Penn State\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/\",\"name\":\"College Hockey | USCHO.com\",\"description\":\"Men's and Women's D-I and D-III College Hockey News, Features, Scores, Statistics, Fan Forum, Blogs\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/fbf976132f97155e5f6e6487fbde73fd\",\"name\":\"Drew Claussen\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/4e1d9091eeac610709a57e965bd893f6\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f42f2ce3549e15735a085b06d411cbce?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f42f2ce3549e15735a085b06d411cbce?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Drew Claussen\"},\"description\":\"Big Ten Columnist Drew Claussen covers the Big Ten for USCHO.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/author\/drewclaussen\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"USCHO GAME OF THE WEEK: Struggling Notre Dame looking to get back on track against Penn State - College Hockey | USCHO.com","description":"With one more opportunity to end a losing streak before the holiday break, Jeff Jackson doesn\u2019t want his Notre Dame team to be fixated on results (photo: Omar Phillips).","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101959","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"USCHO GAME OF THE WEEK: Struggling Notre Dame looking to get back on track against Penn State - College Hockey | USCHO.com","og_description":"With one more opportunity to end a losing streak before the holiday break, Jeff Jackson doesn\u2019t want his Notre Dame team to be fixated on results (photo: Omar Phillips).","og_url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101959","og_site_name":"College Hockey | USCHO.com","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficialUSCHO\/","article_published_time":"2019-12-13T14:00:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-08-24T16:09:10+00:00","og_image":[{"width":699,"height":466,"url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DSC-1897.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Drew Claussen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@USCHO","twitter_site":"@USCHO","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Drew Claussen","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/","url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/","name":"USCHO GAME OF THE WEEK: Struggling Notre Dame looking to get back on track against Penn State - College Hockey | USCHO.com","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DSC-1897.jpg","datePublished":"2019-12-13T14:00:16+00:00","dateModified":"2020-08-24T16:09:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/fbf976132f97155e5f6e6487fbde73fd"},"description":"With one more opportunity to end a losing streak before the holiday break, Jeff Jackson doesn\u2019t want his Notre Dame team to be fixated on results (photo: Omar Phillips).","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DSC-1897.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/DSC-1897.jpg","width":699,"height":466},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2019\/12\/13\/uscho-game-of-the-week-struggling-notre-dame-looking-to-get-back-on-track-against-penn-state\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"USCHO GAME OF THE WEEK: Struggling Notre Dame looking to get back on track against Penn State"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/","name":"College Hockey | USCHO.com","description":"Men's and Women's D-I and D-III College Hockey News, Features, Scores, Statistics, Fan Forum, Blogs","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/fbf976132f97155e5f6e6487fbde73fd","name":"Drew Claussen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/4e1d9091eeac610709a57e965bd893f6","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f42f2ce3549e15735a085b06d411cbce?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f42f2ce3549e15735a085b06d411cbce?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Drew Claussen"},"description":"Big Ten Columnist Drew Claussen covers the Big Ten for USCHO.","url":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/author\/drewclaussen\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101959"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101959"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108315,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101959\/revisions\/108315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101959"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=101959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}