SOUTH BEND — Adon Shuler, starting at safety as a redshirt freshman for Notre Dame football, had a momentary blip late in the first half of Saturday’s win over Miami (Ohio).

Drawing a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, Shuler dismissively flipped the ball at a RedHawks player after a key stop on third-and-11. Television cameras caught Irish coach Marcus Freeman lighting up Shuler with an angry lecture, and All-America safety Xavier Watts addressed the situation with Shuler as well.

“Obviously, he’s young,” Watts said after Tuesday’s practice. “Emotion is running high during the game. You just tell him you can’t do that, especially at the end of the half when we have a chance to get some points on the board.”

Notre Dame was leading 14-3 at the time and stood to regain possession near midfield. The Irish went on to win 28-3.

“He’ll learn,” Watts said of Shuler, a 6-foot, 200-pound product of Irvington, N.J. “Sometimes you have to go through mistakes to learn some things. Hopefully he won’t do that ever again. You tell him, ‘That’s not OK. We have to be better. Be smarter.’ “

Tied with Watts for second on the team with three pass breakups, Shuler has made eight tackles while averaging more than 40 defensive snaps a game. In the opener at Texas A&M, he grabbed the first interception of the year for the acclaimed Irish defense.

What impressed Freeman as well as Watts was the way Shuler immediately took ownership of his mistake.

“It’s definitely a good trait to have as a player: Own up to your mistakes instead of saying, ‘Ah, coach is yelling at me for no reason,’ those types of things,” Watts said. “You won’t ever grow as a player like that.”

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On Monday, Freeman shared a story about receiving a text from his father, Michael Freeman, who retired after 26 years in the Air Force.

“He said, ‘Man, you kind of got into No. 8 (Shuler),’ “ Freeman said. “But I told my dad, ‘I don’t know if they saw what happened after that.’ ”

After initially losing his temper, Freeman was pleased with Shuler’s reaction.

“The first thing he said was, ‘Yes sir. I own it. I shouldn’t have done it. My bad. It won’t happen again,’ “ Freeman recalled. “When you own your mistakes, now we can fix it. If you make excuses and you say it’s somebody else’s fault, it’s hard to fix that until you own it. And he owned it.”

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Running to the halftime locker room, Freeman let Shuler know all was good.

“I said, ‘I appreciate you owning it. I love you. Let’s learn from it and let’s reload and get ready to come back in the second half,’ “ Freeman said. “I love him. He’s a great young man. I hope I would treat my son the same way.”

As for the angry outburst, Freeman said he couldn’t let the lapse in discipline go unchecked.

“When you make a mistake sometimes that you need a reminder of a selfish action you made, it’s not always going to be lovey and kind,” Freeman said. “Love sometimes is tough. That was an example of tough love. But he owned it.”

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 safety Adon Shuler showed accountability after gaffe