Instant Reaction | Notre Dame 45 North Carolina 32

Notre Dame needed some good mojo heading into the bye week and a win over North Carolina was going to provide that.

How about a beatdown instead?

Yep, that’ll do the trick.

Everyone wanted to know how a bad offense would perform against a bad defense. Only one side looked bad today and it wasn’t the Irish. They put up 45 and it could have been more. They looked polished and poised. They dominated at the line of scrimmage and everyone got a taste of success today as they spread the ball around with big plays aplenty.

Don’t let one late mistake fool you into thinking the defense didn’t do their part as well. They played tremendous complimentary football and after a first drive that didn’t look so promising, they made the Tar Heels a one-dimensional offense.

This was exactly the kind of game Notre Dame needed heading into their bye. They delivered over expectations and from the middle of the second quarter on, the game was never in doubt.

- What a difference a week makes for Drew Pyne. He again completed over 70% of his passes, but he was unrecognizable compared to what he looked like last week in a good way.

Tommy Rees deserves a lot of credit for all of it because he had the pulse of what Gene Chizik was doing and had the UNC defense off-balance for the majority of the game. Every big play seemed timely because it was. He knew when to call everything.

Everything from the wheel routes to Logan Diggs, the play-action crossers to Michael Mayer, to pounding the Tar Heels into submission with a heavy-dose of Audric Estime hit the right note just about every time.

Notre Dame came into this game with only Navy, UMass, and Iowa producing less plays of 10-yards or more from scrimmage than them. The offense had 10 runs of 10-yards or more and seven passes of 15-yards or more in this game.

It was a clinic.

- It all starts up front and when a team can run the ball as well as Notre Dame did, everything becomes easier. The offensive line was terrific and all three backs were great too.

Each one of them had over 100-yards from scrimmage. I don’t know when the last time that happened was in a Notre Dame game, but I bet we’d have to go back to some old blowouts during the Holtz years to find similar numbers.

- Josh Downs had only 32-yards receiving. Their best guy was mostly a non-factor and one touchdown he had was on a pick play.

- It’s strange to say that Drake Maye had over 300 yards passing and threw five touchdowns, yet he didn’t play that well in this game. He definitely had a few awesome moments with some big time throws, but for most of the game he was under 50% completions and his running ability after the first drive was shut down.

He had 33-yards rushing on the first drive of the game. Including sacks, he had three-yards rushing the rest of the game.

I think sacks have to be included because part of the threat of him as a runner was him escaping the pocket. The Irish defensive line was less aggressive this game in an attempt to contain him and they did a good job of it with Marist Liufua spying him mixed in as well.

- UNC running backs were all bust and no boom. The Irish had a 40% stuff rate and gave up only one carry of more than 10-yards. It wasn’t just the offensive line that whooped UNC up front.

- There’s obviously some moments to pick from this game that Notre Dame would like to have back (that Hart screw up, giving up an 80-yard bomb on 3rd and 10, that Estime fumble during four-minute offense), but it’s undeniable that vibes are going to be good after a win like this.

Heck, Matt and Christian picked Notre Dame to lose. Honestly, a lot of people were thinking that the Irish would lose this game. They outgained UNC by 209 yards and outplayed them in just about every aspect of the game.

A performance like this takes everyone out of crisis mode for the moment and opens up possibilities. This was a must-win for this team and they did more than just win. They were dominant and in the process injected some hope back into the rest of the season.

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