I held on until the early 2nd quarter last night with Notre Dame leading 14-0 but about to punt from deep inside their own territory. Tucked in bed, I gave up and prioritized some shut eye. When I woke up and fired up the recording the first thing I watch is the most diabolical fake punt from the Irish. Not soon after Notre Dame was up 28-0 and on their way to their 10th straight win, third in a row against Stanford, and with fingers crossed tightly perhaps a playoff at-large bid.

Here’s the game review of the 49-20 win over the Cardinal:

QUARTERBACK: B

Another fine and competent performance from CJ Carr who ends his first regular season with Notre Dame with the following stat line:

195 completions
293 attempts
66.6 completion percentage
2,741 yards
24 touchdowns
6 interceptions
168.06 rating

His passer rating ends up finishing 5th nationally, pretty nice!

Minchey was playing with so many backups, that’s a tough situation to judge him. A late deep ball was thrown behind Burress and a pass to the flat was over the head of Larsen, but many of Minchey’s other throws were sharp.

RUNNING BACK: B+

Quite the range of emotions in this game. Early on, Stanford looked absolutely determined to stop the run and I had the feeling it might be a slog trying to promote Jeremiyah Love’s Heisman candidacy. Then he had an impressive first drive only to get hurt on the second drive.

Watching Love wince in pain and sit out a while I was surprised he came back to play, I went to sleep last night thinking his day was done. We should at least be happy the injury doesn’t appear to be too bad.

Ouch.

I love the depth and both Price and Williams stepping up after the Love injury. By the way, did you see Aneyas Williams told the media this past week that he’s returning for 2026? I thought he was the MVP of this game with 83 rushing yards, 40 receiving yards, and a touchdown.

WIDE RECEIVER: B

Micah Gilbert (25), Elijah Burress (21), Logan Saldate (6), Cam Williams (6), KK Smith (6), and Matt Jeffery (5) provided a lot of playing time for the receivers. It would’ve been nice to Gilbert come down with that late throw into the end zone from Minchey. That would’ve given Gilbert something around 50 receiving yards in the game.

It’ll be fascinating to see how Notre Dame re-loads this position group next year. Gilbert led the way in the regular season among the non-starters with just 9 receptions. He was present throughout the season but not that much of a fixture in the offense. There’s some nice young talent–and a huge freshmen class coming in terms of numbers–but with Carr behind center the transfer portal should be an attractive option for Marcus Freeman & Co.

Jordan Faison’s catch over the middle was amazing, especially for such a small receiver.

TIGHT END: B

There was a throw over the middle into the end zone that I thought for sure Eli Raridon caught for his first touchdown of the season. But, no! Remember after the first 2 games I was talking about a historic season. Instead, Raridon finishes the regular season with 32 receptions and 482 yards. A nice season for sure, but not an elite one.

OFFENSIVE LINE: A

Stanford hasn’t allowed a ton of rushing production in 2025 and no one will look at what Notre Dame did on Saturday night and be in awe. Still, the production was among the best the Cardinal have allowed this season and the Irish offensive line did a very good job in pass protection to keep the offense free from any sacks. Any time you don’t give up a sack with only 4 tackles for loss is a good day in the office.

DEFENSIVE LINE: B

Nothing fancy or dominant up front from the Irish–just a solid game all around. With only a pair of sacks, backup Cole Mullins was the only lineman to get on the scoresheet (0.5 sack) from this unit.

Stanford couldn’t get anything going in their run game. The late Charlie Mirer scramble for 30 yards was their longest rush of the day. Their second longest run of the day was a mere 6 yards! Incredible work.

LINEBACKER: B+

With the season-ending injury to KVA the Irish still only played 4 linebackers all game long with true freshman Madden Faraimo increasing his workload to 23 snaps. He took advantage of that opportunity with a nice sack and Faraimo also added a quarterback hurry.

Jaylen Sneed saw 39 snaps and got a more traditional 1st-team role against Stanford. Most expect him to leave for his final year of eligibility but you have to wonder if the injury to KVA (he’ll be 8+ months post surgery when August camp opens up next year) is something that would give him second thoughts about returning to South Bend?

SECONDARY: B+

Stanford’s quarterback Elijah Brown looked pretty rough out there. His numbers didn’t end up being that terrible, to be fair. He picked up completions of 27, 32, and 20 yards in the last third of the game to make things a little more acceptable. He started the game 6 of 21 with an interception. That’s pretty ugly.

NOTES:

This is the 10th season with at least 10 wins for Notre Dame stretching back to 2012. The Irish have won 10+ games in 9 out of the last 11 seasons. We don’t talk about this as much anymore since the program has started winning some bigger games, like last year in the playoffs.

I was really surprised Love came back into the game and I thought it was a weird choice to put him out there on a 3rd down right before halftime in a situation where he’s going to try and power for a first down. At this point, it was 28-3 which is pretty ugly for Stanford. What’s even more ugly is throwing to the most covered receiver who has ever been covered, by Leonard Moore no less, for an interception. Boom, it’s 35-3 at halftime.

Stanford has been super bad against the pass this year and this didn’t feel like a game where the Irish put up a ton of production through the air. Then you see the box score and they finished with 337 yards, third most this season behind the Arkansas and NC State games. I guess that’s what happens when Josh “Golden Arm” Burnham throws an 84-yard touchdown pass on special teams.

The Cardinal finished 2025 with a 4-8 record, their 6th straight non-Covid season with at least 8+ losses. A few days ago they announced the hiring of Tavita Pritchard who is the quarterbacks coach with the Washington Commanders. You may recall Pritchard as the Stanford quarterback early in the Harbaugh era, and he’d eventually be replaced by current GM Andrew Luck. It’s no surprise this was the decision from Luck–a combination of NFL and Stanford ties felt like something that would happen. Is it an uninspiring hire? Pritchard has no coaching experience outside of Stanford except for his current job with the Commanders.

That’s now 6 games in a row without a field goal for Notre Dame. In 3 out of the last 4 games, the Irish haven’t attempted a field goal. The team has nailed all of its PAT’s (29 in a row) for the last 4 games though.

Now we wait to see how the conference championship weekend unfolds…