Instant Reaction | Notre Dame 28 Virginia 3
As soon as it seemed certain that Brennan Armstrong was not going to play in this game, one of Notre Dame’s more challenging games immediately became significantly less so.
Then it was announced that Notre Dame would be without Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa and Drew White. The Irish would be down them and Kyle Hamilton against a Virginia offense that still has plenty of talent and I didn’t know what to expect.
I should have known better. Somehow this team finds a way and they more than did that against the Cavaliers. They had a tight grip on the game from start to finish. The 25-point victory didn’t truly reflect how Virginia was never really in the game.
Dominating doesn’t feel like the right word to describe it. Controlling feels more appropriate. The Irish were always in control and won easily on the road under circumstances that should have been a lot tougher than they looked.
- Three players got their first start of their careers on defense. That’s not exactly how anyone would want to script it against a top-10 offense, even if that offense was missing their quarterback.
But they stepped up in a big way and for the second week in a row the defense never allowed the opposition to believe they could win the game. Marcus Freeman dialed up more blitzes than we’ve seen from them and that could have been risky considering their wide receiver group.
True freshman Jay Woolfolk played admirably, but he wasn’t ready for all of that. They finished with a 25% Havoc Rate and two of those new starters, Bo Bauer and Ramon Henderson, led the way for the defense.
Bauer was present in so many ways and right from the start of the game. The range from Henderson on his interception wasn’t something we’ve seen from any other safeties other than Hamilton.
- I knew it was probably going to be a rough outing for Virginia when they came out on the first drive and were super conservative with the play calls. I don’t believe they took a deep shot until that Henderson interception and it was obvious why.
Woolfolk isn’t on the level of Armstrong in that area yet.
- If you wanted to sum up this game in two plays it would be the 4th and short converted by Notre Dame instead of kicking the field goal compared to the 4th and long fake field goal attempt by Virginia.
What was Bronco Mendenhall thinking with that call?
- I don’t think anyone should get carried away with anointing Henderson and Xavier Watts as the safeties of the future starting next year based on a very small sample size, but feel free to get excited that both showed some great things.
It was nice to see Watts get some playing time and that tackle he made in the open field on the zone read play was outstanding. He got caught going one way and then recovered enough to make a great play.
Prince Kollie looked a lot more unsure out there at Will linebacker than Watts did at safety, but I think it’s important that Notre Dame gave these players opportunities. Those reps are going to help a lot.
- I’ve haven’t mentioned the the offense and I know many are disappointed by the lack of a killer instinct. It would have been nice for Notre Dame to put more points up on the board and the decision to run the clock out at the end of the half rather than try to score more points when Virginia was set to get the ball back after halftime didn’t make much sense to me.
The quarterback sneak on the 4th and a long one-yard wasn’t the smartest decision either.
That can be fairly criticized while acknowledging that there was a lot to be excited about as well.
I thought Tommy Rees did a good job adjusting to not having Avery Davis by using more 22 personnel and playing Kyren Williams and Chris Tyree together more. The added element of Lorenzo Styles and Braden Lenzy as runners on the perimeter made up for the lack of explosive plays in the passing game too.
Look at the number of players who contributed big plays on offense. Almost everybody seemed to get a taste and any time that can happen, that’s a good thing.
- People will remember that Logan Diggs hurdle, but don’t overlook him evading the tackle in the backfield first.
Diggs is showing why I thought he was underrated as a recruit. He’s going to keep on getting better and better.
- At 9-1 with only two regular season games to go, it would be a lie to say that style points don’t matter. They can help and beating a team 42-3 rather than 28-3 wouldn’t be a bad thing to assist Notre Dame in the eyes of the College Football Playoff committee.
We don’t know how any of this is going to play out, though. And style points are a lot easier to come by when the team is much healthier than the Irish are currently. The fact that Notre Dame is even in the conversation at this point of the season when they looked far from it after the Cincinnati game is something that the coaching staff and players deserve more credit for than we’ve given them.
They are two wins away from finishing 11-1 with the tougher part of their schedule in the rear view mirror. After all of the adversity they have faced with as many injuries to key players as I can remember from a Notre Dame team, there isn’t enough discussion about how impressive it is that more and more players continue to find a way to step up.