It was dark there for a while but Notre Dame heads into a much-needed bye week of rest after a passionate 48-20 victory over rival USC on Saturday night. Optimism and happiness are back!
While we spent all week worrying about the Irish offense and the future of the program we saw Al Golden & Co. put together a masterclass on defense lifting Notre Dame to an emphatic 28-point. Now, the Trojans head back to Los Angeles with their National Championship chances battered and bruised with quarterback Caleb Williams’ Heisman repeat on life support.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | USC |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 48 | 20 |
| Plays | 49 | 74 |
| Total Yards | 251 | 302 |
| Yards Per Play | 5.1 | 4.1 |
| Conversions | 3/10 | 7/16 |
| Completions | 13 | 23 |
| Yards/Attempt | 6.3 | 5.3 |
| Rushes | 29 | 37 |
| Rushing Success | 55.5% | 45.1% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 4 | 5 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 2 | 2 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 27.0% | 23.4% |
Offense
QB: C
RB: B
TE: B-
OL: B+
WR: C-
It feels wrong to begin with the offense after this game but we’ll keep the normal layout of our game reviews. I feel like there’s both a lot to say and also very little to say about this offensive performance. It’s definitely a ‘check back after the bye week for more information’ type of game as the offense was not much of a storyline in this win. They were given several short fields to work with (4 drives started in USC territory with a 5th beginning right at midfield) and the offense scored 3 touchdowns, 1 field goal, with a late victory kneel on those drives.
For the most part, they took care of business when they needed to against a bad USC defense.
It was also a weird and disjointed game for the offense because the defense was playing so well and there wasn’t a ton of work available for Hartman & Co. resulting in just 24 snaps in the 1st half and only 48 total in the end–which includes a pair of kneel downs.
On the other hand, on Notre Dame’s other 8 drives that started in their own territory they only scored 10 points with a single sustained touchdown drive among 5 punts included. If you’re looking for maybe the largest problem of the game look no further than Notre Dame only converting 30% of their 3rd downs against this USC defense.
Rushing Success
Estime – 13 of 22
Love – 0 of 3
Faison – 1 of 1
Hartman – 1 of 1
Props to the offensive line for rebounding back into a very good performance and something that we’d come to expect for their standard. The run blocking was spotty at times but overall good and the pass blocking really handled USC’s pressure very well. The stuff rate for the Trojans was a bit too high, however, USC finished this game with 0 sacks and just 1 tackle for loss. Very rarely did the Irish offense get off schedule.
Notre Dame leaned on Audric Estime heavily and it mostly paid off. The ground game didn’t break anything real long but I thought Estime did a good job avoid some USC defenders and turning losses or no gains into something positive–something he hasn’t always excelled at this year.
Sam Hartman continues to look off as a passer. He rumbled pretty freely for a 12-yard run but I wonder if that knee injury that’s never been officially listed is truly bothering him. We definitely need the bye week to get the likes of Jayden Thomas (3 receptions in his last 4 games) and Jaden Greathouse (0 catches over the last 3 games) healthy from their hamstring injuries because these 2 were on pace earlier in the year for a combined 7 or 8 catches per game and this production has disappeared.
The 46-yard touchdown to Chris Tyree was an absolute dagger and big-time throw by Hartman, though. That moved the score to 31-13 and effectively shut things down for USC as their likelihood of coming back against this Irish defense looked nearly impossible.
Outside of the touchdown to Tyree, Hartman was 12 of 19 for 80 yards. Modest but no turnovers at least.
Defense
DL: A+
LB: B+
DB: A
There are a whole bunch of “this was the worst offensive performance by a Lincoln Riley-coached team” stats floating around out there and nothing more can be said than Notre Dame absolutely stifled and threw this USC team around in a really vicious way.
USC quarterback Caleb Williams was harassed all night and sacked 6 times with numerous other pressures. Not only did he implode with 3 interceptions and a lost fumble but the Trojan passing game never really got going all night long. Unbelievably for an explosive offense like this, USC’s biggest play through the air was just 21 yards!
Williams connected on 13 passes for a combined 163 yards (12.5 per attempt) but finished the rest of the game going 10 of 24 for 36 yards (1.5 yards per attempt). This would’ve been a really bad game for Williams even without the turnovers, that’s how well the Irish defense played.
Stuffs
Bertrand 3
Watts 2
Hart 2
JJB 1
Rubio 1
NaNa 1
Liufau 1
Kiser 1
Harper 1
Sneed 1
Hinish 1
Brown 1
Traore 1
Morrison 1
Junior 1
Mills 0.5
Cross 0.5
Look at all those players who picked up a stuff! This was such a well-rounded effort by the entire defense featuring 11 tackles for loss (the most against a Power 5 opponent since 9/28/19 against Virginia) and by far the best tackling effort of the season.
USC did find some modest success on the ground (they approached half successful runs although it never really felt like it during the game) led by MarShawn Lloyd’s 31-yard touchdown scamper. In addition, 4 other carries netted 48 yards on the ground. But again, there wasn’t anything really consistent or explosive for USC and they finished this game with a paltry 24 yards on their other 32 carries–a robust 0.75 yards per carry!
With sacks removed, USC gained 68 rushing yards on their 26 non-explosive plays for 2.61 yards per carry. They were arguably a good punt return and gifted extra snap before halftime from scoring 10 points.
How much of a historic defensive performance this was remains to be seen. At this moment, it feels way up there for modern Notre Dame history. While scanning the results it looks like just about everyone on defense played well and everyone made at least 1 play across the entire 2-deep. Heck, even punter Bryce McFerson flashed some speed and angry tackling to prevent a touchdown!
It was nice to see Xavier Watts have the game of his life after playing really well this season but still not getting many accolades, especially across the national landscape. This is the type of performance where if he comes back in 2024 he’ll be among the first handful of mentions on the star power at Notre Dame in all the preview magazines and articles.
Bottom line, this was an excellent and perhaps season/era saving performance from Al Golden and the players who head into the bye week with a ton of confidence. They should feel like this defense can go out there and lift this team up to 10-2 and a possible major bowl game appearance.
Final Thoughts
I hope it doesn’t get lost in the overall defensive beat down. The 4th down stop with 6:04 remaining in the 2nd quarter was a huge tipping point in the game. It was a major “not today!” type of moment from the Irish. Bertrand came through and absolutely blew up that play. Notre Dame went 3 & out immediately afterward but Williams ended up throwing interceptions on the next 2 series leading to a comfortable 24-6 halftime lead for the good guys.
I don’t have patience or understanding for poor officiating. After Notre Dame’s 4th down stop and subsequent punt mentioned above the Trojans got the ball back and on 3rd & 10 Zachariah Branch was brought down short of the first down line. The officials come in and spot the ball initially short of the sticks, correctly. And then, suddenly USC is just given the 1st down out of nowhere. Luckily, Xavier Watts intercepted the very next play.
How?
We have at least 2 more games against Branch, barring a transfer or injury. Let’s not punt the ball to him again, okay?
Watching Boubacar Traore come off the edge for a sack in this big of a game has me tingling for his future as a pass rusher. I bet we hear a lot about him in spring practice as he begins to develop into a steady contributor, or more.
The timeout called after Traore’s sack, what did everyone think? The play began with 14 seconds remaining in the 1st half and Williams was brought down with 10 seconds to go, and the ball was “recovered” with around 8.5 seconds remaining. It was close, but USC got the snap off about 0.5 to a full second late as the clock hit 0:00. The timeout for being offsides is the safe call in that situation but I would’ve loved another crack at Williams on an untimed down and keeping USC at just 3 points instead of their field goal attempt.
Mitchell Evans leads Chris Tyree but just 1 yard as the team’s leading receiver in 2023.
Rhode Island transfer Antonio Carter has all but disappeared from the safety rotation but he did come through with a violent special teams tackle on Branch which gave us this amazing picture:
Ahhhhh!
Notre Dame’s average starting field position on offense was their own 47-yard line!
Notre Dame’s offensive red zone touchdown percentage through 8 games is 74.07% and 9th best among Power 5 teams this year. The defense is sitting at 36% in redzone touchdown percentage (7th best nationally), up nearly 44% from dead last in 2022.
I missed the start of the game dealing with a Venmo scam attempt, so that was fun. Stay vigilant and aware out there!
Notre Dame has won 6 straight home games against USC now. That was coming off a dark period of 5 straight losses (2003-11) but prior to this the Irish did win 9 out of the previous 10 home games (1983-2001). A 15-6 home record against the Trojans in my lifetime helps explain why Michigan is viewed as the more intense rivalry for me.
How will USC finish this season? They’ll probably drop out of the FEI top 20 rankings (they were no. 15 prior to Saturday night) and they’ll surely drop down to the bottom quarter of the AP Top 25. They have to host a physical Utah team this weekend, then travel to California before finishing with Washington, at Oregon, and UCLA. If they lose to the Utes there might be some dark clouds gathering over their campus.
He has an extra game in hand on most of the country but Estime is 4th nationally with 787 rushing yards in 2023.
This was Lincoln Riley’s 86th game as head coach in college football. His offenses had been held under 5 yards per play on only 5 occasions prior to facing Notre Dame on Saturday night. The 4.08 YPP totaled by the Trojans against the Irish is by far the lowest average by a Riley-led offense since his career began in 2017. What I would give for Notre Dame’s social media to publish a video of Al Golden Crip Walking into the Gug on Sunday morning.
Jadarian Price only has 1 carry in the last 3 games but made an enormous impact with his 99-yard kickoff return touchdown. I actually yelled, “Stop returning kickoffs!” before he took it to the house.
Former walk-on Jordan Faison was the team’s second leading rusher based off his lone 16-yard rush and it was a nice athletic play by him.
Of course, Louisville crapped the bed and lost at Pittsburgh this weekend. How about Duke beating NC State 24-3? That remains a quality win for the Irish. The Blue Devils have a tough stretch coming up without their quarterback (at FSU, at Louisville, at UNC in their next 4 games) and I wonder if they’ll win one of those games thanks to their strong defense.
Speaking of officiating, does Benjamin Morrison get the favorable Michael Jordan treatment from the refs? He seems like a very handsy defender but gets away with it most of the time. Interesting that USC got called for OPI twice IIRC.
ETA: I didn’t think we were as bad as we looked losing to Louisville, and I don’t think we’re quite as good as we looked and tOSU and USC. Still think we’re a solid #10-15 team. Would be fun to take our defense against Alabama’s offense in a NY6 bowl…
Morrison definitely gets away with some stuff, at least twice it looked like he committed uncalled PI.
Both USC OPIs were hilariously obvious calls but it was still nice that they were actually made.
He did get called for three 15 yard penalties
Looking at receivers next year, can we please find a field receiver that can win one on one? I’m hopeful Greathouse can handle it next year, if not…
Is there any chance Braylon James is ready for that next year? Rico isn’t big or strong enough, and seems like he’d be a great slot next year, Thomas isn’t fast enough, and seems like he will be solid boundary #1 receiver. I’m not ready to hop on the Faison hype train just yet either. Is Cam Williams a field guy, and is he gonna be an EE? Tobias has burned his redshirt so he’ll probably wait until the end of the season to transfer, but I don’t see him magically figuring things out right now. I’m just worried we’ll get stuck next year with a couple of injuries and then be in trouble again.
Somebody else suggested it, but would be fun to have a couple of Xavier Watts offensive packages next year. Not Travis Hunter type of snaps, but just to add some WR depth and creativity.
Cam Williams seems to still be moving up the rankings. He’s a legit future #1 and it seems like he’ll be very ready to play as a freshmen (being a #1 as a freshmen is another question). I wouldn’t be surprised if he was starting game #1 either.
Based on nothing but body language I think Merriweather is far more likely to stay, plus he’s actually playing. I’ve noticed he stays engaged on the sidelines and never seems too down.
James, I’ve seen a lot more by himself and/or not as engaged. Could be nothing but could be something.
Merriweather also apparently blocks really well which is indicative of effort. So he’s not mailing it in/checking out.
Great write up, Eric — glad to see your reasoned analysis well-tempered by some fab positive vibes.
To your points:
— Yes, J-B’s 4th down stop was an incredibly strong moment. He just knifed through, I think he’s underrated as an impact LB.
— Concur, we should not have taken the TO at the end of the half, just let it play, I don’t think they get anything.
— Unfortunately, I do feel Sam Hartman is affected by the knee. It goes back to the Central Michigan play. I think if someone studies his throws since, that pinpoint accuracy he had prior to that play is diminished. I think he has a bit of trouble pushing off. He was right in front of me during warmups, and I was looking hard at him for about a ten minute stretch, and I think that this is a thing. Aggravated by the O’line’s struggles vs Duke and L-ville. Outside of all of that — he is one hell of a high character man, and his love of the moment afterwards was literally heartwarming. When he said, if he ever is blessed to have kids 🙂 he is looking forward to bringing them back to share the memories of last night (evoking btw how ND staged the presence of Joe Montana and Ian Book) — I really felt like he had become one of us. Even despite what I am sure he feels is not quite what he was hoping for when he came.
I hope his knee comes back with the bye week (if indeed that’s the problem) and he goes back to lighting up the stat boards.
Thanks again Eric.
I’m agree that something may not be quite right with Hartman’s leg. He has seemed like a different player since that, if only slightly. It’s not that he’s bad, but he seemed really special, and I think has lost some zip and touch on his passes. And I don’t think it’s just a function of playing better teams, at least not entirely
It absolutely rules how in on ND Hartman is.
Yes, and I have grown to respect that a lot. I’ll say that some of the credit for this goes to MF, and even ND’s own philosophy of the kind of portal transfers we bring in. Much criticized by some of our fan base, but I gotta say, I am fundamentally reassured that this kind of extremely positive synergy has developed, even when matters were not going well.
It’s a little odd that Hartman’s knee would be bothering him throwing but not running, no?
No, I think it might be a pushoff issue. But I confess, that’s just a hunch based on how he threw during warmups as the throws got to mid range (which is where he seems to be less precise).
I just notice that, prior to getting his knee rolled up on in CMU game, he rarely threw an errant pass. Now I know he wasn’t playing against world beaters but most of his incompletions up to that point had been drops. Right after that, he airmailed two balls in a row, in the CMU game. And it seems his accuracy has not been what it was ever since then. Probably confirmation bias, just looking for data to fit this theory, but I think it’s feasible that something isn’t quite right and it’s affecting him.
So basically, what I’m saying is, if not for that Central Michigan DT, we’d be 7-0 and ranked #2 right now. Stone.
Sounds funny, but… agreeance!
Depending what he hurt in his knee, it could definitely impact throwing, and maybe even play-action footwork, more than running.
Having rehabbed an MCL long ago, a strain/sprain could potentially still hurt with lateral movement, but not straight line running. I could see planting to throw causing more pain than running.
Not saying he has an MCL issue. Just that there are knee things that could definitely impact throwing more than running, even though that seems counterintuitive.
More Noise – Where were your seats? Kid #3 and I were in Section 3, right next to the visitor tunnel, and Sam was in front of us for warmups, too.
As our in-house home field advantage evaluator, how was the crowd volume level for the game? I can assure you that Section 3 Row 6 did its part, as my lack of voice today can attest.
Say what you want about Marcus Freeman’s offensive philosophy, but you can tell how much he’s changed the defense since he arrived. Clark Lea was a great DC, but you could just tell we were missing that extra athleticism that pops off the screen. Kyle Hamilton singlehandedly kept our secondary afloat for three seasons but against teams with even decent WRs or skill players we were toast. It was all on the front seven to make things happen and protect the safeties and corners and that just doesn’t work in modern college football.
You could see some of the change last year starting with the Ohio State game where we held down Stroud and co. Elevating Morrison to starting corner completely changed things, teams could no longer count on getting their best WRs the ball downfield. The USC game was bad but as of last night we can chalk that up to flukiness hehe.
This year, you can finally see things rounding into form. Even in our worst performances the defense has looked quicker and the athleticism is evident. It is such a luxury to have a secondary this good that can completely take the other team’s best weapons out of the game. We legitimately have a case to be the best passing defense in the country, who would’ve thought 22 months after that Fiesta Bowl debacle?
I thought the defense would make it hard for SC’s offense but I didn’t think they would completely humiliate them. I was against the Al Golden hire at the time but I can admit that adopting his NFL-style philosophy was the right move. He and the Bengals gave Pat Mahomes fits in the playoffs and regular season every time they played and now we are seeing why.
We’re still missing the athleticism at starting LB, but I’m optimistic on the underclassmen. Thankfully in the meantime Bertrand has a 5* football brain. And getting just one game wrecker on the edge or in the middle that always requires a double team would push things even higher.
He’s got Joe Schmidt’s brain without Joe Schmidt’s surgically repaired ankle.
“I actually yelled, “Stop returning kickoffs!” before he took it to the house.” – same, same
Also I don’t really have any issue with the end-of-half timeout. Obviously, it would have been better if he didn’t take it, but in his mind there was a solid risk of giving Williams a free play/shot at the end zone+making the field goal five yards easier. That was just young guys being not-smart, and given his great halftime interview I suspect Freeman will be (appropriately) having those three guys run some extra sprints when they get back from vacation.
Only coaching issue I had with the game was the field goal on 4th and short up 18. I understand 21 is a “football score” or whatever but still that could not have been the correct decision by the numbers.
I also think those players celebrating probably thought we recovered the fumble.
It looked like we did, too. I get that part of it, I was re-watching several times and had to remind myself that we didn’t recover the ball.
One of the three was Liufau, hardly young and should have known better. However, if the ball had gone anywhere but right back to Williams, time would have expired.
I thought the FG was the right call. It made it 3 TDs to tie as opposed to win. However, if that is the only call we are complaining about, we had a great game.
I thought the USC play calling after the KO return was silly. They basically burned 5 minutes to go 3 yards net. Two runs, maybe three if you count Williams scramble as a draw, a lot of time before each snap at the line. They burned more clock than most of our drives.
Re: USC burning clock – I said out loud “if I were a USC fan I would be furious right now”. But, since I’m not, I was cool with it!
A slightly refined version of the 21 >>> 18 argument is that 18 is still two touchdowns and a FG to tie whereas 21 is clearly 3 touchdowns, but getting it up to 25 would have ended the game there. And not getting it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. I just checked the ND football analytics twitter feed and he didn’t post the graphic with the numbers but seems he agrees: https://x.com/ND_FB_Analytics/status/1713384425260494896?s=20.
Basically, I think the numbers indicate that many people (including many coaches) overrate the ability of making the need for a FG into a need for a touchdown as compared to the (much more important) difference of making an X score game an X+1 score game.
So it isn’t and is important to get the TD
With this offense, I was totally fine kicking the FG, despite feeling it was the wrong decision in a vacuum, given field position and yardage needed.
Even if we convert, we are probably just running 3 times, gaining 7 yds, and kicking a FG 3 minutes later. A good outcome, but probably not worth the risk when we are converting around 30% of 3rd/4th downs.
Well, the point I was attempting to make was the stakes were relatively low as it was a 3-score game – and if he didn’t get it, it’s still a 3-score lead and USC would be in bad field position needing 3 scores.
If that was an 11 point lead that he took to 14 at that point in the game with that field position, that would be a terrible decision.
Wife is out of town this weekend so I was trying to watch the game while also watching 3 under 8, prepping dinner, etc so definitely missed some stuff (luckily the 8 year old is a really good football watcher and fan so he kept me up to speed).
Have seen a lot of takes I already agree with stated here like how all in hartman seems to be . Some great quotes from him last night and I half expected him doing the the “fight on” down in the tunnel to be the new banner today. It’s just funny because on message birds there had been so much “nd ruined hartman” “no good college qb will ever come here”, but like ndolhs12 said, he’s all in and he’ll be the best advertisement we could ahev for michael pratt or riley leonard or whoever.
The last couple weeks we’ve litigated freeman here and there are still some questions but how much the players seem to love playing for him, how they respond to adversity and how they play in big games speakers volumes for the need to be patient. I will say if I’m USC I would have big questions about Lincoln. Obviously incredible qb coach but they’re gonna go 11-3 and 8-4 with an all time qb, they’re poorly coached, sloppy, soft, bad Infrastructure (no ST coach). Freeman still has some concerns (as said above why kick the fg up 18, that makes no sense). Last year I said that qb room was good because I knew Freeeman would be sure he NEVER had a qb room like that again. Well I think he will learn his lesson this year with wide receiver. This will be the worst wr of his tenure, by a lot.
Either way, awesome win, good for freeman and the team, good for us fans. Win the next two after the bye and staring down a NY6 game.
I may regret this, but as I am not any kind of analytics person, who can enlighten me on why it was bad to kick the field goal when we were up 18? By my simple math, if we’re up 18 and the other team scores two TDs and two 2 pt extra points, and then only kicks a field goal, they beat us by one point. Whereas if we kick the field goal, they have to score three TDs to beat us. Arguably harder for them to do, so good to kick the field goal, no?
Were folks saying not to kick the FG?
I’m with you, take your points and go up by a clean 21.
I get analytics says to do x sometimes, but like… I dont think the situation warranted that in the moment
We were up by 3 scores. Kicking a field goal kept us just 3 scores ahead. Yes, in the most literal sense overcoming an 18 point deficit is easier than a 21 point deficit, but in that spot, with less than 4 minutes remaining, the difference is negligible. And if you go for it and are stopped short you stick them on the 5 yard line against a defense that’s been eating their lunch all night.
But most of all, what reason was there to believe they could stuff us on 4th and half a yard? I would have given us a 90%+ chance to convert there, and putting another touchdown on the board is what USC deserves.
Objectively the field position thing is huge. Like you said fail and they still only get it at the 5, but kicking off you assume immediate +20 yards field position plus the risk of a massive return.
Feeling the game out wise, usc was kind of begging to quit and if you fancy yourself a tough football time built on the lines don’t you need to kick their ass?!?
Also would’ve broken 50 against them in the end, which they (and we who remember three consecutive 31 point beatdowns) also deserved
The field position thing has been covered, but it’s hugely important. At least in the NFL (there’s just way more of this data for the NFL), you add more expected points by failing to convert a 4th down inside the 5 yd line than you do by kicking a field goal.
When a team starts inside their own 5yd line, it is more likely that the other team will score next.
There are tons of articles on this. This is the first one that popped up.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/upshot/4th-down-when-to-go-for-it-and-why.html#:~:text=Near%20your%20opponent's%20goal%20line,at%20your%209%2Dyard%20line.
Great win, great atmosphere, impressive how the team and coaching feel about each other. Riding the wave of college football wins at ND. I always think of the coaches and their families when the discussion turns to firing. They have wives, children at school who’ve made friends, and daily contend with all those issues that come up with kids who spend a few years at a place with its attendant pressures and potential of being uprooted suddenly with subsequent job searches. You have to love coaching at ND or elsewhere to put yourself and family and, to a lesser extent, players through that wringer. The recruits certainly must have enjoyed the experience of this game and what the win over USC means. The great college football experience.
I noticed Father Jenkins is retiring to go back to teaching with the resultant opening on the Playoff Committee.
Got a bit of a Michael Weatherly in Bull vibe from Golden in Saturdays game. Calling all the shots.