Notre Dame won on Senior Day and it wasn’t close. An interception by the forgotten Nick Coleman on Florida State’s first series brought the ball deep into Seminole territory. From there, the Irish would score and the route was on inside a frigid Notre Dame Stadium.
Run Game Stepped Up (and On FSU)
The Irish really needed a strong performance from their offensive line and it got it with much more to boot. The offensive line responded with a bullying of Florida State for a season-high 365 yards while offering competent protection of Brandon Wimbush through the passing game.
On Senior Day, the Irish got a heck of a performance from Dexter Williams who scampered for 202 yards on 20 carries with a pair of touchdown runs. The night was summed up best by a 12-play drive that bled into the beginning of the 4th quarter with Notre Dame running the ball on each snap for 97 yards and the nail-in-the-coffin touchdown.
Wimbush Did His Job Well
This wasn’t an easy spot for Brandon Wimbush to come in for the injured Ian Book but he rode the wave of early momentum and threw about 6 really beautiful passes, including a trio of touchdowns.
Wimbush did cool off a bit finishing with 130 yards on 12/25 while throwing 2 interceptions. However, he was potent with his legs as usual (68 yards) and played quite serviceable while the game was in doubt.
The Defense was Sleepy
In a way, it was actually a very 2018 performance for the Notre Dame defense. Florida State felt like it was getting some mojo going on the ground or connecting on some passes at times. And yet, they held the Seminoles to 4.1 YPP and largely kept the opponent in check.
FSU didn’t help themselves with numerous drops, though.
10-0.
#3 ND 42 – FSU 13#GoIrish☘️ #FSUvsND pic.twitter.com/S89ZgbkXwl
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) November 11, 2018
It was the type of game where Notre Dame really could’ve screwed down and made this a super ugly game but some penalties and nice plays from FSU continued drives just enough to be annoying.
Some Timely Plays
For most of this game, Notre Dame didn’t have a large edge in yards and yet the scoreboard read something different. The difference was that Notre Dame made some very timely plays while Florida State simply could not keep driving long enough to make it close, including failing on 4th down on 3 separate occasions.
Notre Dame was scorching hot on 3rd down in the first half which was a huge part of building an early lead.
10 Wins!
Hey, the Irish finally have back-to-back 10-win seasons for the first time since 1993.
I respectfully disagree with the defense being sleepy. 1st and goal from the 5…conceded no points. Sure, FSU could have kicked a meaningless pity field goal that wouldn’t have changed anything but I loved the defense. Especially when Wimbush threw 2 INT in 3 possessions in the 2nd half, the game could have tightened up. It didn’t. They set the tone with 2 turnovers on FSU’s first 6 plays. I was impressed by them, they have a high bar with the standard they have set and IMO they cleared it again tonight, as they pretty much have all season.
Alize Mack, just wow. 2 of the nicest touchdown catches you could ever see. In a way really fitting that he put it all together in his last home game after a career of starts and stops and ups and downs. Just an amazing athlete and mix of power, speed and size.
Dex too on that senior redemption tour. Chewed up the FSU rush defense which was really good. 200+ rush yards, man. Also the line was awesome. Banks and Hainsey making some great blocks to spring #2 for long runs.
Wimbush with a great final note as well. Wasn’t perfect or always pretty but he carries himself well. So glad he could make what most (myself included) would be a dog fight into a win running away. Loved him lowering the shoulder and bowling over a guy to get a 3rd down conversion when it mattered. Doesn’t always have great execution but can’t question his heart.
10 wins for 3 times in 4 years. Looking great in mid-November for once. Special stuff.
Yeah, but they got down to the 5 yard line. Hence, a little sleepy. FSU had 121 yards on the 2 drives that ended on downs. Timely defense, for sure. But also, not really on the nuggets for stretches.
Florida State ended up on the 5 yard line because Wimbush threw an INT that gave them the ball at the ND 48 yard line. (And because they couldn’t get off the field on a 3rd down play because Love took a PI.)
FSU finished with 13 points. Under 50% completion rate with a lowly 4.5 yards per pass attempt. Didn’t fare better with 3.5 yards per rush. Just 6/17 on 3rd downs and only 322 total yards of offense despite a lot of 2nd teamers in there. Add in 10 QB hurries (from 6 different players) and the ND defense set the tone giving up 4 total yards in the 1st quarter to go along with 2 turnovers too.
If I knew all those stats pre-game, sleepy wouldn’t be the word I’d use. After watching it, still wouldn’t be, IMO the defense was well-engaged and very efficient all night long. Your points about FSU drops and ND penalties are relevant, I just found it a bit off-kilter to dismiss what I saw as a very, very good defensive effort especially considering it was a blowout that they didn’t have to play Coney/Tranquill the last 20 minutes of it.
Agree to disagree. I don’t see how it’s controversial in the least to say we were a bit sleepy and finished with an average performance against a terrible FSU offense.
I was a bit shocked that they didn’t wrack up at least 3 sacks. It didn’t seem that we were looking to totally dominate them, just so enough to win. Which I think is ok maybe. If they just put their heads down and turn in a workmanlike performance and still put up the numbers that they did, I’m okay with that. I kind of feel like against Navy, NW, and FSU that the attitude has been “we’re not trying to win one game, we’re trying to win them all,” and if we wait till Syracuse to really get up and lock down AND we’re still putting up dominant defensive numbers, I’m ok with that. I’d love it if we were two deep with NFL guys throughout the defense, but we’re just not and we need to try to protect our front line guys.
Yep, looking just at the defensive performance it was pretty good, but then factoring in how bad FSU has been… it was good, but still could have been better. I thought there were opportunities to get off the field that we failed to do so, and stops we got that were more FSU error than ND caused.
That much is certainly true. It’s probably just semantics and me being pedantic over the word “sleepy”. The defense was awesome early and the score was quickly 32-6 largely because they were so strong, so who cares if they conceded some yards and first downs after that? While still getting 10 QB hurries and rotating a lot of players in for once.
They certainly weren’t dominant or air tight all night long, but all things considered 13 points against and FSU’s 4th worst game in yards/play this year was really good considering that Wimbush was a bit lax in the second half and put more pressure than necessary on things.
“Who cares if they conceded some yards and first downs after that?”
Depends, if Saban was coaching you better believe there would be some players getting chewed out. But given that we’re just fans and don’t actually get to effect the level of perfection of play… perfectly fine if it doesn’t bother you.
Some more notes on the rushing performance… Rush defense was actually one of the few things FSU has been doing well – 33rd in S&P+ rush defense, 17th in rush yards allowed, 6th in yards per carry.
Notre Dame’s 365 rushing yards today is the most FSU has allowed since Georgia Tech went for 401 against them in 2009. The 7.3 yards per carry is the best against them since Florida hit 8.0 per carry back in 2009 as well.
I didn’t see the source, but Murtaugh said that he saw Dex is the first 200 yard rusher the Noles have allowed since 1984. Domination.
Just saw the tweet again, 1982 actually!
Helps that after Wimbush’s second interception that Long/BK refused to call another passing play for the rest of the game (final 23 minutes!).
Also…LOLUSC.
It was pretty close to perfect last night. Complete domination with no real concerns the whole night, no chance FSU was ever going to win. Wimbush came in and did well and his mistakes didn’t cost us dearly when they came, but at the same time we’re reminded why he’s the backup. 42-13 is dominant enough that no one in the media blinks an eye or suggest we underplayed, but at the same time anyone who knows this team can say with confidence that had Book played, we’d have put up 60. We still MIGHT have gotten into the 50s if we’d chosen to do so, but with how Brandon was passing in the second half and how easily we were running, the right move was to pound it out.
I’m somewhere between Eric and Hooks–the defense played well, and stepped up when needed, but we also gave FSU a lot more on the ground (almost a full yard more per rush, IIRC) than they’d been getting.
Also, part of me wonders if those WRs look as bad as they did and drop all those footballs if the temperature is 67 instead of 27. Still, our guys played in the same conditions and made the catches, so who cares.
Great win, now comes the biggest test left. Syracuse is a weird good/not great/decent team. With Book, I think we have a comfortable 10+ point win, where the only people worried are those of us agonizing in the slack over every play. With Wimbush…I don’t know. But the advanced stats preview is going to be interesting.
Funny, I said the same thing to my buddy about Book getting us 60+ last night.
I’m OK with the defense. Bummed that they drove it relatively well – easy to forget now that they turned it over on downs once at our 18 and once at our 3 – but I get what Eric’s saying about vanilla D. Lea probably figured he could do enough to hold them down without putting anything overly interesting on film, and when he did need to do something, like on the 4th and goal from the 3, he dialed up nice little wrinkles to throw them off. He has growth in front of him, for sure, but man, I’m impressed by Lea’s work as a rookie DC.
Separate topic – really cool that BK called a timeout to pull Wimbush and let him hear it from the crowd in what what may well be his last game in the stadium. However rough some of his career moments might’ve been, he’s 12-3 as a starter and he was instrumental in dominations of USC, Michigan, and Florida State. He deserves a secure place in Irish lore just for that.
13-3 now, right? 4-0 this year (Michigan, Ball St., Vandy and now FSU) and 9-3 last year (started all games but the UNC game in a 10-3 season). Sorry for the petty correction but gotta give him his due and make it all the more impressive.
Technically BW was the starter against LSU, but when I remember that game I think of Book as the QB.
Just here to say I was wrong when I predicted 9-3 and felt 8-4 was more likely than a 10-win regular season. I’m glad BK has beaten history and finally delivered back-to-back 10-win seasons, and making it 3 of the last 4.
I still think this team gets blown out by either Alabama or Clemson, but I like our chances vs. anyone else with Book leading the offense.
Unfortunately, barring truly unforeseen circumstances, Alabama or Clemson is our most likely first round opponent. I like our chances against Clemson better, and think any team has a better chance against bama if saban and his team of 40 “consultants” don’t have a month to pick apart film.
Although I am sure he somehow is able to prepare his team for all three possible opponents in that amount of time.
Yes I’m sure they do prescouting on potential finals opponents. History indicates that, except for their loss to tOSU, Bama blows out semifinal opponents and plays close games in the final. Part of that may be due to quality of competition, but I think part is definitely related to preparation time
It’s what I hated about 2012/13 BCSCG is that prep time definitely favored Bama, I dont think we win that game either way, but I think it would’ve been more respectable with them only having a week of prep.
They definitely found some stuff on tape. It seemed like every play was tecmo bowl and they picked our play
I remember watching an ESPN segment with Saban talking through some of the film in that game. Watching him explain how the offensive and defensive alignments created, essentially, pick-your-poison assignments for our LBs and Safeties made me realize that Bama knew they were going to stomp ND before they even got to the stadium that day.
Any word on Love? I thought they said on the broadcast after he took that hit to the head or neck that he went into the medical tent. I saw someone tweet last night that he was on the sideline without his helmet.
Kelly said he was cleared and would’ve gone into the game late if he was needed. So good news!
Great news! Thanks!
Back to back 10 win seasons. I love the direction this team is going.
You’re clearly too optimistic. The sages over on NDNation recognize this for what it is – a team achieving success (although nothing can truly be called success until we win a championship, and even that won’t count unless we beat bama by 50) in spite of it’s coach.
OT, but with Northwestern clinching the B1G west we can claim the overall Big Ten title already
Not if tOSU takes it down. Does that mean we have to root for Michigan?
Nah, we can just root for aOSU to play terribly.
Or the ground to open up and swallow both teams and all their fans.
I think all of the people who truly believed ND’s offense was in deep trouble (myself included) completely forgot how incompetent Florida State is this year.
FSU as a team is garbage. However, their one bright point has been run defense. Most impressive to me was the running game against a pretty solid rush d.
Agreed even if their defense has been free-falling the last few weeks. There was actually a time in 2016 when Francois looked like he was going to be awesome, but their offensive line struggles have permanently ruined him.
I’ve watched him off and on the last few years. He’s been crushed by godawful Oline play. Maybe more solid hits than any other major CFB qb.
Two best comments of any NBC commentator ever during and ND game.
First:
The catch that got overturned as an INT that got wiped out for DPI. When they mentioned that there was also a late hands to the face of Wimbush, should have been personal foul. One of them said “do we have enough flags for FSU?”
Second (but actually related to your post):
If they were to build a statue of Francois, it would have to be him lying on his back as the OL went to pick him up off the ground.
I loved hearing them rip on FSU all night. Poor Willie. At least he looked comfortable in that sweat suit.
While hearing Tirico say “And that’s Florida State’s season in a nutshell” on the PAT block and return was hilarious, I really felt bad for FSU fans watching that broadcast. We get it, FSU is bad and they make a lot of mistakes. Saying it over and over doesn’t really add anything to the show
I wonder if Tirico has spent a little too much time online where you can’t escape talkin bout the noles. Maybe he was glad to rub it in a bit.
I’ve never actually heard bad things about their fans in person (as opposed to say tOSU), but they seem to have the most obnoxious internet fans.
Other than the internet idiots, they’re mostly fine. They can be a bit rednecky, as Tallahassee and environs are in that part of the state, but they’re way better than your average sidewalk Florida or Miami fans.
Also gotta give some love for an excellent picture used at the top. I don’t think I’ve still stopped laughing yet at flashing the deuce to a beaten defender pre-end zone. Classic.
Hooks,
Saw in the “we don’t have Book for the game article” that you were prognosticating that we wouldn’t beat FSU 42-10. Have to give you props, you were right.
Ha, shows how that went, the running game was better than I expected!