Instant Reaction | Notre Dame 49 USC 35
The only result that mattered for Notre Dame was getting a win. That was always going to be the case with so much riding on the outcome of this game.
A birth in the College Football Playoff and a home game was on the line for the Irish, but it was more than that. It was three months of hard work to prove that dominating inferior opponents wasn’t going to waste. It was about validation for Marcus Freeman and his coaching staff. It was about proving that this team was worthy of having a shot at a national championship despite the numerous injuries they’ve suffered.
There was all of that without even getting into the fact that this was a rivalry game and that USC has had a history of ruining these types of seasons when Notre Dame has traveled out to Los Angeles in the past. There probably was no other way for this game to go than the way it did.
I had about seven alerts from my Apple Watch warning me of an unusually high heart rate without doing activity. It was the first game for the Irish filled with a crazy amount of adversity since Notre Dame played Louisville at the end of September.
Turnovers kept USC in the game, Christian Gray had a day filled with more highs and lows than a day at Magic Mountain, and Jeremiyah Love was on his way to having an all-time great performance until he was knocked out of the game in the third quarter. All of that happened and yet Notre Dame never trailed for a single second.
USC was driving to tie the game in the fourth quarter and the pendulum swung the opposite way with back to back drives that ended in pick-sixes by Irish defenders. People might have been sweating through it and there weren’t many moments where any lead felt comfortable, but there wasn’t a more satisfying moment at any point this season than Xavier Watts running back his 100-yard interception return to essentially end the game.
Everyone could finally exhale. Notre Dame finished the job.
- It certainly wasn’t the cleanest game for Notre Dame’s defense and we saw an actual coverage bust that led to USC’s second touchdown of the game. That’s about as rare as seeing 75 degree weather in South Bend during the month of November.
Lincoln Riley had a nice plan, which included some wrinkles in the screen game and with slow mesh that USC hadn’t shown before. That combined with some brilliant moments from quarterback Jayden Maiava and USC’s skill talent led to several big plays in the passing game. And when Riley smelled blood in the water, he attacked Gray and kept attacking.
No one player encapsulated the performance on defense greater than Gray with a fantastic first series, an absolutely miserable last series of the half, and a couple of huge moments in the fourth quarter. The last being a spectacular interception and a 99-yard return for a touchdown.
Gray gave up plays. He also made them. He had four total havoc plays and that made up for his ones he gave up. In the end the defense got the plays it needed with a 20.8% havoc rate before the final garbage time drive and three big stops on 4th down.
- If I told someone that Notre Dame would be playing USC without Ben Morrison, Howard Cross, Jordan Botelho, Boubacar Traore, and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, I bet they would have predicted a far different outcome for the defense.
All of those players were missed today and Notre Dame would have been helped greatly by those pass rushers. Even thinking back to Louisville, Cross had a dominant game disrupting things from the interior and KVA came up with a big sack in the fourth quarter. Those are two players that they can hopefully get back for their first playoff game. They can make a difference.
This game also saw Watts and Jordan Clark go down and then return after being injured. The defense absolutely needs this time to rest and they are far better off not being in a conference so they don’t have to play next weekend.
- The offense has scored a lot of points during this 10-game winning streak, but they never had to feel the burden of carrying the team during any stretch of a game. They could have scoreless droughts and not have to worry because the defense was always so dominant. That wasn’t the case in this game.
The defense wasn’t producing turnovers (until later) and when the offense uncharacteristically turned the ball over, Riley Leonard and company had to pick things up.
The offensive line played really well. Love and Price were both sensational. Leonard was efficient and his legs were a huge asset again.
Mike Denbrock also did a great job of exploiting matchups using his tight ends on both of Leonard’s touchdown passes. Eli Raridon against Mason Cobb and Mitchell Evans against Bryson Shaw were the kind of mismatches you plan on getting and then attacking. Denbrock did that and those plays were massive.
- There are things from this game that are going to stick with people like another Beaux Collins drop and another Mitch Jeter missed field goal. I understand why they will if they watched a ton of dropped passes from Georgia contribute to nearly losing to Georgia Tech or if they watched Ohio State’s kicking woes in a loss to Michigan.
Maybe these issues have gone on too long to be fixed, but at least Notre Dame gets a chance at a little bit of a reset because chances are that these two will be needed to help win later on.
- Ohio State lost. Georgia should have lost. Miami choked away a 21-point lead and is out of the CFP. Things have fallen into place for Notre Dame to definitely have a home playoff game and possibly earn the fifth or sixth seed.
There are still things that need to play out before it gets all figured out, but Notre Dame did its part to earn it. It’s an incredible accomplishment for the entire program and Marcus Freeman deserves every bit of praise he gets for the job he did in getting them here.
I mentioned it in 6 Thoughts already, but the gap between what he and Riley have done in year three at their respective programs has been massive. After starting 8-4 and losing in Los Angeles to USC two years ago, Freeman is 22-4. Riley was 11-1 at that time. He’s gone 14-13 since.
Notre Dame has depth. Notre Dame has an identity. Notre Dame is about to host a CFP game. USC is what they were before Riley arrived: talented and no better than they were when Clay Helton was their head coach.
This feels like the start of something for Freeman at Notre Dame. It couldn’t be more different than it felt after they lost to USC two years ago.
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