After a sloppy opening two quarters, Notre Dame pitched a shutout in the second half and calmly dispatched visiting NC State to add another ACC win to the school’s coffers. With plenty of things to clean up it was a successful dominant win before an important rivalry game coming up against Southern California.
Here’s our review of Notre Dame’s 36-7 win over the Wolfpack:
QUARTERBACK: B
I’m sure CJ Carr would like to have the pair of failed 4th down attempts back. Running out of bounds on 4th down plus an interception.* Also, major woof for offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock on both of these play-calls! The Irish ran 15 plays for 112 yards on these two drives and came away with zero points. Those drives were flanked by back-to-back punts, too. Overall, it was not a great time.
This might have been Carr’s least sharp game of the season. Although his accuracy remains outstanding, I have to think this was his worst performance of the year with 12 incompletions.
Even still, Carr breaks the 300-yard mark for the 2nd time in 3 games and did so with a healthy 18 yards per completion. I keep telling myself not to take this for granted with a young quarterback. A total of 11(!) explosive pass plays of 15+ yards is pretty crazy.
*I’ve been going back and forth on this 4th down play, screenshot below:
This is a tough play.
I never feel bad for officials but this is a tough situation to call. At this frozen angle it looks really bad for NC State. The defender is off both feet, making contact with Fields, and couldn’t be facing away from the ball any further if he tried. Despite the comment from Jason Garrett, I also think the ball was a lot more catchable than believed. Yet, when you watch the other angles, the NC State defender barely makes contact and I think I’m begrudgingly okay with not throwing a flag here. The contact is so minimal that the NC State defender actually quickly does a pirouette and jumps up in the air facing the ball a split second later–in a way it’s kind of funny because you know he was scared of a PI flag.
RUNNING BACK: D
This looked like it may be a massive romp on the ground given NC State’s struggles this season and instead it was probably the most disappointing performance for Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price this season. They eventually found some room to work with 5 explosive plays combining for 78 yards. Their other 28 carries only managed 76 yards total, though. Only 2.7 yards per carry!
Price also lost a fumble near the goal line, luckily the game was well in hand at that point (and a safety came right afterward). Notre Dame converted on 3rd down with Love’s touchdown run on the first drive then did not convert another 3rd down on the ground the rest of the game with 2 more failed attempts.
WIDE RECEIVER: B+
Hell, KK Smith! The redshirt sophomore had his breakout game of his career with 3 receptions for 59 yards, including his first career touchdown catch. He was also close to another long reception, too.
Will Pauling looked like he was going to set a school record for yardage in a single game after the first quarter. He’ll settle for an awfully nice 105 yards on 4 catches only.
It’ll be tough to change the way someone plays but I think Jordan Faison needs to get up-field more often when he catches passes right near the first down marker. He’s constantly juking and cutting back away from the sticks and I think at some point it’s going to lead to a brutal failed conversion in a big moment this season.
TIGHT END: B+
It had been a quiet few games for Eli Raridon, no more! The lanky tight end goes over 100 yards for the first time in his career and made several big plays for the Irish against NC State. Recently, I was looking at some NFL Draft rankings for this position and Raridon wasn’t listed among the top 10 which I think is going to change by the end of 2025.
Through half of the regular season, Raridon is up to 20 receptions for 342 yards. You mean to tell me the NFL isn’t coveting a 6’7″ tight end averaging 18 yards per catch?
OFFENSIVE LINE: B-
Watching this game live it did not feel like a great game for the offensive line. Is this grade too harsh? Sometimes I try and look at it from the opponent’s point of view. It seemed like the Wolfpack made a concerted effort to stop the run and still allowed almost 7 yards per play to Notre Dame and without stepping on their junk this wasn’t that far away from a really ugly 50-point effort allowed.
Maybe the offensive line was completely fine then. NC State had too many stuffs for my liking but a couple sacks allowed and a couple more tackles for loss didn’t get the Irish terribly off schedule.
We’ll wait for injury news on center Ashton Craig who left the game in the 2nd half with an apparent knee or leg injury. The initial reaction didn’t look too bad and as far as I can tell the injury wasn’t brought up in Marcus Freeman’s post-game press conference.
DEFENSIVE LINE: B+
A firm butt whoopin’ up front for the blue and gold. In terms of pass rush, run defense, and discipline this was the most complete effort for the defensive line in 2025. In my game preview I believed the Irish would harass the NC State ground game and that came to fruition. The Wolfpack’s jitterbug running back Hollywood Smothers had a long run of 10 yards with 11 other carries for a measly 36 yards.
NC State’s 51 total rushing yards was the fewest given up by Notre Dame since the Purdue game (38 yards) back in early 2024. CJ Bailey never got comfortable in the pocket, either. Officially, 4 sacks and just 2 quarterback hurries. It was far worse for NC State’s offense in reality, though.
LINEBACKER: A
This was the unit that needs a big game tackling well and keeping the Wolfpack offense in front of them. Goal achieved and then some! There was a 3rd down in the game that summarized Notre Dame’s defense on Saturday. Bailey went for the easy completion underneath far away from the first down and Drayk Bowen absolutely murdered the ball carrier.
Drayk “Bring the BOOM” Bowen!!!! pic.twitter.com/ASYRUx35gO
— Dos Leprechauns (@dosleprechauns) October 11, 2025
The linebackers are playing fast and mean. KVA (first career interception) finally looks to be taking the next step in his development. This unit is going to be stressed big time next week against USC and at least will come into the game playing their best football of the season.
SECONDARY: B
For a while, NC State was successfully picking on Dallas Golden at nickelback and Bailey threw an absolute dime for a touchdown pass for 45 yards with this matchup. I don’t think the Wolfpack had many other answers during the game against the Irish secondary.
Coming in with one of the best completion percentages in the country, Bailey finished at just 57% against Notre Dame. Worse still, he was 10 of 13 on short passes or passes behind the line of scrimmage but for only 54 yards. This NC State offense wasn’t going to have a good day with such low yardage totals in their short passing game.
NOTES:
The big brain replay review decisions to uphold a catch for NC State and then take away an interception by Tae Davis was comedy. At least we can be thankful these dumb decisions weren’t made in a close game.
Noah Burnette coming in and hitting field goals from 48 and 34 yards, while not appearing to tweak his hip injury, is extremely good news for the future.
I was surprised the NBC/Peacock broadcast didn’t mention NC State defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot’s daughter passing away (unless I missed it?) which leads me to believe Eliot didn’t want it brought up during the game, which is understandable.
It’s weird because after this week Notre Dame is still a healthy 21st nationally (16th among power teams) in 3rd down conversions. Yet, the Irish have only converted 7 out of the 16 attempts on 3rd down and 1-3 yards to go in 2025. That’s about a 25% drop in success from last year. Notre Dame is actually converting ALL 3rd down pass attempts (47.2%) at a higher rate than 3rd down and short rush attempts (43.7%) and have only thrown the ball once (converted for 10 yards) on 3rd and short this season.
Dave Doeren has to be one of the most milquetoast head coach’s in the country. That’s a tough place to be in if you’re a NC State fan right now. When was the last time the Wolfpack were even remotely exciting? Maybe 2021?
NC State has bad special teams and a sneaky big play was the Faison 23-yard punt return that took the ball from deep in Notre Dame’s own end to a playable situation with 23 seconds remaining before halftime. That would lead to a field goal and 10-7 lead at the time.
The craziness continues. Notre Dame’s non-sack tackles for loss against the Wolfpack: 1. Do you remember the play? It was the throwback from Smothers to Bailey that was corralled by Junior Tuihalamaka for a loss of 4 yards.
Does it seem like Bryce Young isn’t playing very much right now? He did play 38 snaps against Boise State and 29 snaps at Arkansas before that. I don’t know if him getting in Smothers’ face in the 4th quarter while up 29 points is going to endear him to the coaching staff. That play was going to add another tackle for loss to the bank!! EDIT: Young played 26 snaps against NC State so he’s still on the field as much as any non-Traore edge rusher.
Maybe he was dealing with home sickness earlier this season?
Well, has Chris Ash got things sorted now? The challenge next weekend against USC may be a defining moment for his tenure at Notre Dame. The Irish have allowed 27 points over the last 3 games at 4.75 yards per play. Not bad! During the broadcast they showed Ash with his family and mentioned they are living in Florida. Okay, well Ash was a scout for the Jaguars in 2024 but then spent 2 seasons in Las Vegas with the Raiders before that. For 2021, he was with the Jaguars. How long has his family been living in Florida? NBC made it seem like they hadn’t seen Ash (in how long??) and maybe this guy just needs some quality family time!?
Really poor work from NBC when they thought it was Dallas Golden walking off the field when it was the other no. 14 Micah Gilbert. You could see Gilbert’s face really well on TV so it shouldn’t have been a mix-up. Of course, names on the jerseys also helps everyone.
I have to say I liked the 4th down conversion from Tyler Buchner. Now that was a nifty play-call. Do we need to get Buchner involved more on short-yardage situations??
NC State didn’t have any red zone snaps in Irish territory. Notre Dame had 8(!) drives into NC State’s red zone.
Notre Dame has put together 5 straight games with at least 6 yards per play on offense. They’ve strung together 6 straight games with this stat a couple times (2024 & 2021) in recent history. It’s not super common.
I was under the impression that impeding or otherwise preventing the receiver from making a play for the ball is DPI? IANAR
Only in massive spots against Penn State with half the chance of the receiver making a play. Early October, it’s not a flag. Blah.
Also, you forget subsection (x) of the rule which states as follows:
I didn’t see Love or Price not picking up the yards blocked. Though Price needs to stop fumbling. I think you have them rated a little low as I put their lack of production on the Oline. The Oline does a better job protecting Carr than they do opening holes for the RBs. They get little push in short yardage. Carr not being a true run threat adds to the woes in short yardage.
Yeah, if the RBs’ grade was D, then B+ was way too high for the OL despite pretty good pass blocking. But i think there’s also another issue here…for all Denbrock’s offensive prowess…his weak spot is simply short yardage. He can scheme up big chunk plays all day long, but loses his creativity and edge when it’s time for power.
I don’t disagree. Maybe Rudolph is part of that too. They need to “control” the LOS.
Jamie Uyeyama on twitter posted this stat highlighting just how good the offense has been:
Wow
Both the NC State catch and the Gray interception were drops right? I think in both you can see the ball move and hit the ground.
I’ve heard real ND press try to argue Gray made that catch and I just don’t see it.
Sigh, what is a catch anymore?
If we were being charitable, I think both plays needed to be upheld. We had the bad luck of having both of the on-field calls made against us, leaving the head ref to be put in a tough position. I think neither replays had much conclusive evidence to offer either way.
Uncharitably, those were tough back-to-back calls to stomach. They cost us somewhere between 30 seconds and/or 30 yards of field position. I was thrilled we got a FG on that drive.
I’ll acknowledge that the Gray interception was tough to overturn the call on the field, but the “catch” before that was clearly bobbled and not in control based on the replays they showed
Why don’t we just say that BOTH calls on the field were poor. The lousy on-the-field calls put the replay official in the position of having insufficient evidence to overrule the actual ref on the field.
I’m glad the stats reflect my sense that we are better at third and long than third and short. I think the quick passing game is working much better than the running game.
Anyone else get nervous when they saw NC State decided to wear their Northern Illinois alternate uni’s? And then the first half happened…..not feeling good at that point.
Wonder if NC State did that deliberately to troll us?
I’m thinking it was not a coincidence!!!
Their gypsy curses don’t work on us.
I just wonder, if Buchner doesn’t make the play (and he got hit right at the LOS by a defender), how the rest of the game goes. It was a gutsy call.
It was absolutely the drive of the game. Getting stuffed again on 4th down on our half would have been tough.
For real, a concern, but… Tyler ran it really well. It was right in front of me and it brought back memories of his good moments on the RPO. Eric has a point in wondering if TB could be some kind of an option on short yardage.
PSU axed Franklin according to CBS. The fastest to ever go from top 5 to no job?
You hate to see it.
Little Game James and Drew “let me lose this one for us” Allar strike again.
Reported $47 mil.
I’ve heard people say that they can’t have CJ practice a QB sneak or run it in a game because the coaches are worried he’ll get hurt. I don’t understand that. He has run draws and rpo several times during games (and I’m sure, therefore, practices). Those plays seem to be much more likely to injure the QB as they involve defenders getting a running start at hitting the QB, as opposed to a sneak.
In the preseason, I was really hoping ND would have a Tyler Buchner red zone package. Starting a young, first time QB could make things a challenge down there. Luckily Carr has been pretty good, but I did love seeing Buchner on that 4th down conversion.
Does Denbrock just not know how to convert short yardage without a running QB? The wildcat has been awful this year, but why not just try a traditional run play with Love at some point?
For the fourth down plays, one of my best ND memories is being in the stands on the 10 yard line with a perfect view to watch Rick Mirer hit Bettis for the TD and Brooks for the 2 point conversion to win the Snow Bowl against Penn State. That play can work! On the first fourth down, looks like Faison was wide open over the middle. Tough throw across the body but hopefully Carr learns from that.
Two (2!!!) players over 100 yards receiving! When was the last time that happened?
As far as the low TFL numbers, I just don’t think we have the interior DLine for that kind of havoc. For this crew, I think the number to focus on is either run stuffs for opponents successful run rate, because they have to be pretty good.
Last time was actually 3 100 yard receivers when Coan threw for 509 in the Fiesta Bowl