SOUTH BEND — Jaylen Sneed smiled at the question.

A third-year rover for Notre Dame football, Sneed has come to appreciate the many benefits of a bye week, especially as it pertains to self-care.

“Honestly, just recovery,” Sneed said this week ahead of Saturday night’s home game against struggling Florida State (1-8). “Recovery has been a big thing for me this year because when you’re going six days in a row, your body doesn’t feel good on that seventh day.”

Even coming off his best game of the season in the Oct. 26 win over Navy, Sneed took full advantage of a chance to exhale and reset for the stretch drive. Should the 10^th-ranked Irish keep rolling through their Nov. 30 road date with USC, a ticket to the first 12-team College Football Playoff likely awaits.

That could mean as many as four more games should Notre Dame advance to the Jan. 20 CFP championship in Atlanta.

“Recovery has been the biggest thing for me,” Sneed said. “Just getting in the training room and doing the necessary things I need to do to get my body back on the field, healthy and ready to play.”

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The delicate balance of bye week at Notre Dame football

Pausing the rhythm of a college football fall can be risky business if not handled correctly. Especially in the nascent era of multiple bye weeks, the specter of coming out flat cannot be ignored.

“It seems like it’s been forever since we played,” Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock mused after Tuesday’s practice.

Winners of six straight games since the Week 2 upset loss to Northern Illinois, Notre Dame blasted Stanford 49-7 last month coming off the first bye week. A slugfest, emotionally and physically, in the 31-24 win over Louisville preceded that gap between contests.

“We had to recover,” Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said on Oct. 7. “Our guys were banged up, and we had to be smart in terms of how we prepared and improved, but also actually recover at the same time.”

Three weeks later, leading into the Navy game, Freeman reflected on the differences between Bye Week 1 and Bye Week 2.

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“I really liked the way we prepared the previous bye week, and the structure of our practices will be similar,” Freeman said. “For me, the challenge will be how to make sure we enhance during that bye week, maybe have conversations about the future, but also find a way to truly take care of this team right now and try to chip away at reaching that full potential.”

Should the Irish (7-1) perform as expected as 25-point favorites this weekend against the Seminoles, they would improve to 5-0 following bye weeks during Freeman’s head coaching tenure.

Notre Dame outlasted BYU 28-20 in Las Vegas two years ago, then came back with home pastings of ACC foes Pittsburgh and Wake Forest by a combined 103-14 in 2023.

Going back to 2010, Notre Dame has lost just twice in its past 19 games coming off a bye. Brian Kelly’s 13-2 mark included a 2019 crushing at No. 19 Michigan (45-14) and a 31-17 home loss in 2011 to No. 23 USC.

“We take so much pride in it because we know we got to rest the week before,” Sneed said. “We know we have to come out firing and start fast and play fast throughout the entire game.”

Extra time, extra dangerous

Counting season openers (2-1) and bowl games (2-1), Freeman and Co., are a combined 8-2 thus far when given more than a week to prepare. Those two losses came at the start of the Freeman era: 37-35 to No. 9 Oklahoma State in the 2021 Fiesta Bowl and 21-10 at No. 2 Ohio State the following year.

Saturday night, Notre Dame could secure its ninth straight win under an extra prep-time scenario. That could bode well under a CFP format that includes at least a 10-day break for first-round winners and then gaps of at least eight and 10 days for those who survive the quarterfinals and semifinals.

“There is no magic formula,” Freeman said on Oct. 7. “Every bye week is different: Where it occurs in your season, what injuries you have going on, your upcoming opponent. There are a lot of different things that you have to focus on during that specific bye week.

“We have another bye week after three weeks coming up, and what we do during that bye week, although probably the overall focus will be similar, the details of what we do during that week will change, just being where it’s at in the season and the upcoming opponent after that.”

Each break comes with a degree of nuance, one that Freeman’s program seems to be handling well.

“Most importantly, you have to evaluate your team at this certain period that you get the bye week,” he said. “You can’t just say, ‘This is what we did last year. Let’s just throw it right here in this window and do it this year.’ “

Kris Mitchell: "Mess up last week, fix it today'

Losses piled up during Kris Mitchell’s four seasons at Florida International, whether following bye weeks or not.

A cumulative 9-32 mark from 2020-23 included post-bye week blowout defeats on the road against Middle Tennessee State (40-6), New Mexico State (34-17), Western Kentucky (73-0) and Texas State (41-12).

The graduate transfer wide receiver has enjoyed the change of fortune since arriving at Notre Dame, including the way the Irish approach having extra days between games.

“On a bye week here, we get after it still a little bit more,” Mitchell said of the practice routine.

Off the practice field, Mitchell noted, his bye week routine with his former and current programs is “pretty similar in terms of working on ourselves. We don’t have an opponent, but our opponent is still ourselves, so working on our games to make sure that we're still doing everything we can do so Saturdays we get the outcome that we're looking for.”

Playing in Conference USA, Mitchell experienced the challenge of accordion-style game-week schedules. In 2022 alone, the Golden Panthers had a pair of six-day turnarounds along with breaks of eight and nine days between games.

How much benefit is there in terms of preparation from having even one extra day to get ready for an opponent? How much more can be learned?

“A lot more,” Mitchell said. “Even in special teams, you have an extra day to mess up or correct errors. It helps us a lot. Rather than messing up today and fixing it tomorrow, we mess up last week and fix it today. It’s always better.”

When a full two weeks (or more) pass between games, the familiarity with an opponent’s scheme and personnel becomes deeply ingrained.

“Just watching even double the film time, seeing what their scheme is,” Mitchell said as he prepared to face Florida State. “All (Tuesday) morning we went over their coverages only. That’s so we can learn, so we know what we're expecting on certain personnel, certain formations. Just stuff like that.”

In Mitchell’s case, the dig route has become a go-to for him and quarterback Riley Leonard, the Duke transfer. That requires Mitchell to read the way the safety reacts to the slot receiver, and for Leonard to know where Mitchell is headed based on that split-second look.

“(Leonard) is on the same page with the people around him,” Denbrock said. “You got to see it after the (first) bye week, but that’s been a process where he’s gotten a little bit better every single week. And I saw that over the bye week. He was throwing the ball with great confidence.”

In the hands of an experienced group, extra time to prepare can make all the difference.

Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame football has solved the post-bye week blues