Instant Reaction | Notre Dame 52 Florida State 3
If anyone was concerned about Notre Dame’s initial ranking by the College Football Playoff committee, they realized by the end of the noon games that those first rankings mean nothing.
The pressure is on now for CFP contenders and everyone is starting to feel it. After so many close calls, Miami finally went down to Georgia Tech and now their spot in the ACC Championship game is in jeopardy. Georgia had flirted with losing a second game and then it happened today with Ole Miss beating them and suddenly jumping back into the CFP mix.
Three years in for Brian Kelly and it will be three years with no CFP for him at LSU. They’re essentially eliminated after getting beat at home by Alabama. No one in South Bend will be crying about that.
Indiana survived and advanced against Michigan, but it wasn’t pretty. Army did the same against North Texas. Pitt and Iowa State officially proved they were pretenders with losses that should take them out of the rankings.
These teams felt the pressure and most couldn’t handle it. Maybe Notre Dame felt a bit of pressure as well, but it certainly didn’t last long. Florida State is too bad of a football team to put any kind of real pressure on Notre Dame despite having some opportunities to do so.
On a night where Notre Dame had its moments where they looked vulnerable, they still managed to beat down FSU by a score of 52-3. That says a lot about Mike Norvell’s team and just how terrible they’ve been this season. It also says plenty about a Notre Dame team that is still evolving.
- Probably the biggest way that Notre Dame has evolved on offense is that they didn’t need the same type of efficiency in order to have success. Riley Leonard had his most uneven day as a passer in a long time. He didn’t look as comfortable in the pocket and just seemed off in many respects as a passer on many dropbacks.
He still was his normal dangerous self as a runner, though. That and the fact that the Irish found more success with explosive passes than they have all season made up for the other issues.
Notre Dame had only averaged four plays of 20+ yards from scrimmage per game this season. They had eight tonight and six came in the passing game. Those plays and the two big play touchdown runs from Leonard and Jadarian Price were huge when it came to producing points.
- To have that long Price touchdown along with Mitchell Evans winning on a slot fade in addition to a pair of explosive receptions each from Jaden Greathouse and Jayden Harrison in this game showed that the offense can still find success on a day when Jeremiyah Love doesn’t have a big day.
I don’t think a lot of people would have believed the Irish scored this much if Love only had 32 yards from scrimmage.
- Howard Cross spraining his ankle isn’t what anyone would want coming out of this game and we’ll see what kind of impact it will have in the next couple of weeks, but the immediate response by Rylie Mills after was exactly what was needed. Mills took advantage of some bad guard play from FSU and the pass rush in general overwhelmed with eight sacks and constant pressure.
Only completing two of 10 passes for 23 yards in the first half and averaging -0.97 EPA per dropback for the game was a direct product of that. Everyone should have ate against this hodge podge that FSU cobbled together up front and they did.
- I don’t think anything sums up how lost FSU is as a program right now than Mike Norvell deciding to kick a 23-yard field goal on 4th and goal after already converting two 4th downs on the first drive of the game. It was a tone setter for the game.
The nail in the coffin for FSU was the timeout on 4th and 10 that turned into a 12 men on the field penalty and a 22-yard completion to Jordan Faison on top of it. The next play was the Evans touchdown.
Though it was probably already game over after the Price touchdown, the sequence of events at the end of the half pretty much set up the first drive of the second half for FSU. Brock Glenn was intercepted by Jordan Clark and then the Irish scored another touchdown right after.
- Good football teams beat bad football teams just like the way Notre Dame did tonight.
They expose their weaknesses (bad guard play and bad linebacker play). They win on special teams. FSU punter Alex Mastromanno came in averaging 49.35 yards per punt, which was second in the country. His net punting average was 46.1, also second in the country. Even if Notre Dame didn’t get the clean punt blocks they wanted, they got a piece of three of his punts and Mastromanno only averaged 40.9 yards per punt despite having two that went over 50 yards.
Notre Dame out played Florida State and out coached Florida State the way they should have against a 1-9 team. They did that rather than laying an egg like many others did today.
It’s the first step with three more left to make sure they get invited to the dance. And if they continue to perform like this while others squeak by, then they’re going to put themselves in a pretty favorable position at the end of the regular season.
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