Instant Reaction | Notre Dame 24 Cal 17

It was a first quarter that might have turned the casual fan off of watching football for the rest of the season. If you like offense, this game wasn’t for you.

Each team managed only one play of 30-yards and neither quarterback managed to throw for over 200 yards.

But it doesn’t matter how ugly it was to watch at times. It only mattered that Notre Dame was the better team and won the game.

Marcus Freeman needed this win. The players needed this win. I can’t even imagine what it would be like for them if they didn’t win, especially when they were the better team today.

The Irish leaned heavily on what was supposed to be their strengths heading into this season: the offensive and defensive lines. Those two groups were the biggest reason why Notre Dame took control in the second half. They averaged 5.4 yards per play to Cal’s 3.1 after halftime and came out with the first win of the Freeman era.

- The O-line needed to take control of the game because Notre Dame had no shot to win this if they didn’t.

To call Tommy Rees’ game plan conservative would be an understatement. The first quarter had a box score that made it seem like the Irish were playing in a hurricane and the start was atrocious all the way around. Drew Pyne looked like a shadow of the player who threw a touchdown pass against Wisconsin and then did the Connor McGregor celly.

It looked like his confidence and the confidence of the offense as a whole was hanging by a thread.

But magical things can happen when you can run the football. With a steady dose of Chris Tyree and Audric Estime and some timely passes to the backs mixed in, the confidence grew little by little. The offense did enough.

If anyone would have told me that Lorenzo Styles and Michael Mayer would combine for 39 yards receiving on the day, I would have given the Irish no chance at winning. They found a way to do it with very little from the passing game and they ran the ball on 67% of snaps in the second half.

- Notre Dame isn’t winning games like this the rest of the year if they don’t do more in the passing game. Pyne completed 74% of his throws, but managed only 6.5 yards per attempt. That’s primarily because they never even bothered to attack downfield.

I’m sure that was intentional as Rees knew he couldn’t put Pyne in a position to lose the game. I doubt his average depth of target was more than five yards.

When Notre Dame was in 3rd and 4 or less, they converted on 3 of 4 attempts. When it was 3rd and 5 or more, they were 0 for 8.

They can’t continue this and hope to win against North Carolina. How they build off of this will be important going forward. They need this to be their version of crawling before you can walk.

- Six sacks. That’ll do.

The defensive line got after it and they absolutely dominated the matchup they should have dominated with the Irish defensive tackles versus Cal’s guards. Four sacks, two from Jacob Lacey and two from Jayson Ademilola, came against those guards.

It has to be especially satisfying for Lacey who only played 10 snaps last week and came through in a big way.

The pressure was relentless, but it wasn’t just the pressure. They never let Cal’s freshman star back Jadyn Ott get going either. He came in averaging 6.5 yards per carry and only managed 2.5 today.

- No one wants to give up those runs to the quarterback that Notre Dame did to Jack Plummer, but those are things you are willing to give up if the results in coverage are as good as they are. He only managed 5.0 YPA and even some of the biggest completions of the game for him came on great catches (or not catches) more than great throws.

- The phantom offside call was obviously something in Notre Dame’s favor, but we didn’t get a shot down the line to know for sure if there was someone offside or not. Only that ref knows the answer.

Even if it was a bad call, Cal had the benefit of the two catches that could have been called back go their way and Notre Dame wasn’t immune to taking penalties. I wouldn’t say it was a huge factor in the game given how much game was left. I’m sure Cal fans feel different.

- 16.1% Havoc Rate isn’t elite by any means, but considering that Notre Dame had their first interception taken off the board, it’s pretty good. It was a lot more of what the defense needed.

That JD Bertrand penalty was…not smart. Brandon Joseph trying to intercept the ball on a Hail Mary rather than knock it down was also…not smart.

Notre Dame can’t afford to be not smart in those situations. They were fortunate to not have those burn them.

- Woo, that kick from 47 was clutch for Blake Grupe in a spot where things could have went sideways for Notre Dame. I hope people recognize how critical that was in addition to how fantastic Jon Sot has been punting the football.

- Speaking of clutch, Isaiah Foskey needed that fourth down sack as much as Notre Dame needed it. What a huge moment for a player who had played really well and deserved to hit home.

- I could point to a lot of mistakes made by Notre Dame in this game and if you just focused on the first half, it was about as ugly as it has looked for Notre Dame football for some time. There were moments where I could see things spiraling in a way where it would be tough to imagine them getting out of it and not just for this game, but for the rest of the season.

They still have a lot of work to do and they can’t win ‘em all this ugly, but they just needed to win the first one no matter how they got it done.

It doesn’t mean they are on a path to 10-wins. It doesn’t mean they are ready to rip off a nice little streak quite yet. It does mean they have something to point to where players stepped up when needed and that can be invaluable when they get into more of these tight games that they are sure to be in the rest of this season.

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