The Irish physically dominated a talented Clemson team with playoff aspirations, running at will and shutting down the Tiger offense. There’s already been some efforts to discount the resounding win – as if Clemson was never a real contender, or Notre Dame might not have dominated without a special teams and defensive score. But Dabo Swinney’s group is still a top-10 caliber team, with an offense that despite inconsistent QB play is 31st in Offensive F+.

Marcus Freeman’s team just dominated the matchups, strength on strength. Clemson’s rushing attack had been strong, but the Tigers barely tried rushing the ball between the tackles and were inefficient on the ground. The Tigers offense had been terrific generating long passing plays but couldn’t convert a throw of over 20 yards in South Bend until they were down 28-0. The secondary was supposed to be the weakness of this Clemson team, but Tommy Rees and the offense ran the ball all over the visitors instead.

This game technically went in and out of garbage time during the 4th quarter (defined as a lead of 23 points or more). I erred on the side of including all plays, which enhances the Irish offense (6.6 YPP after going up 28-0) and dilutes the defense (6.6 YPP allowed after allowing just 3.2 before the Morrison pick-six).

Stats from a few excellent sources – College Football Data, Game On Paper, and often referencing SP+ and FEI numbers. If you get lost, check out this handy advanced stats glossary here or reach out in the comments.

Not sustainable? Guess again

The consensus (including yours truly) was that the Syracuse formula would never work against this talented Clemson roster. The Irish would need to get more from the passing game, find more explosiveness, and replicate the special teams and turnover magic the best they could. Despite some cracks in the Tigers defensive foundation, it never seemed likely the team that struggled to impose its will on Stanford a few weeks ago would be able to run the ball consistently on a front loaded with future NFL talent.

Marcus Freeman’s team then proceeded to do the same things that fueled the win in Syracuse, only better, especially considering the degree of difficulty and stakes. Special teams grabbed the early lead and set the tone for the evening, helping fuel another massive advantage in field position (+19 yards per possession). The longest Irish gain was only 20 yards and passes averaged only 4.7 yards per dropback. But it didn’t matter, as the rushing attack dominated with nearly a 60% success rate and 5.9 yards per carry despite running on 77% of early downs.

Defensive dominance gave the offense breathing room

The late Clemson scoring drives diluted the overall numbers, but Al Golden’s defense kept firm control after being spotted an early lead. The Tigers didn’t have a scoring opportunity (1st down inside the Irish 40) until down 28-0 in the 4th quarter. At that point, with the game out of reach, the average Clemson drive was 4.2 plays in length (not counting punts) and 13.7 yards. At one point in the telecast Jason Garrett, ever the optimist, said something like “This is promising, they look in more of a rhythm now and I think it’s their best drive so far”. Clemson was at their own 31.

In the first half, Notre Dame held the Tigers to 0% success on passing downs, and 7.1% passing success. Their average 3rd down distance to gain was 14 yards! The misleading stat of the game may be Clemson’s rushing numbers – the final box score has the Tigers at a little over 6 yards per attempt with decent efficiency. But before Dabo’s team went down 28, Clemson was at a 29% rushing success rate, and the visitors virtually abandoned the run early on (36.5% early down run rate). FEI, which classifies the last 13 minutes after Clemson went down 28-0 as garbage time, has this as a better defensive performance in terms of available yards allowed than Georgia’s dominant season opening game in 2021.

What a beautiful thing to see the defense living up to their full potential, with all the pieces working in harmony. The defensive line and pass rush were tenacious, the linebackers played their best game in the year (after doing the same last week), and Benjamin Morrison and the secondary blanketed the deep shots Clemson loves.

Expected points added (EPA) isn’t an exact science, but using it’s calculations Morrison’s interceptions were worth roughly two touchdowns, which checks out! The pick-six is worth so much more above because of the field position dynamics – Clemson is in a place where they’re expected to add significant points, making it worth more than the blocked punt or first interception where already the Tigers are in a negative EPA situation (Notre Dame more likely to score next).

Building the offense around run efficiency

It’s extremely fun to win with explosiveness – the 2015 offense will always have a special place in my heart – but this game reminds you why segments of the ND fanbase have such an obsession with running the ball. It was an incredible revelation that slowly unveiled itself to fans and probably players over the course of the game – from “ND is running it decently” to “hold on, they’re really getting some push here” to finally “they can’t stop us, even when they know it’s coming”. The Irish offensive line bullied Clemson throughout, grinding them down run after run and not allowing any disruption (one sack lost one yard; only three run stuffs on 45 ND runs).

The running backs deserve immense credit along with the line. Estime and Diggs were special in their balance, vision, and ability to maximize yards despite not breaking out for super long gains. It feels long only a matter of time before a couple of these runs get loose, but the rushing efficiency is morphing into the bedrock of the offense. Over the last two weeks Estime runs have had a 68.4% success rate. For context, Oregon leads the nation by a good margin with a 61.2% run success rate, so lately Estime runs are well above the efficiency levels of the best in the country.

Can Tommy grow the passing game before USC?

Drew Pyne did not return to his magic Carolina or Vegas form, and was smartly not asked to do much (4.7 yards per dropback on 18 plays). But he navigated the pressure-packed game well, made some plays with his legs, and unlike his counterparts in white and orange didn’t make costly mistakes. Ideally Navy and BC afford some opportunities to let Pyne stretch his wings a bit more and find repeatable plays that can work downfield, but if the rushing game can be this dominant it will benefit the QB too.

But zero third down conversions passing the football means there’s still significant work to be done. It’s terrific that the Irish were able to limit havoc and string together long drives, but right now it’s an offense that’s easily foiled. It only takes one penalty, negative play, or calculated risk that doesn’t work for a Notre Dame drive to stall out.

This can’t be a fun season to be a wide receiver at Notre Dame, but those guys blocked their butts off too with the run-heavy attack. Jayden Thomas didn’t put up big numbers but looked like a player who belonged and was thriving on this stage. The Styles drop was one of the few poor offensive plays, and it will be fascinating to see how snaps are distributed at WR the rest of the way – Colzie and Merriweather each ran more plays.

On to a great finish?

As this enormous win wrapped up, there was an understandable immediate reaction to rank and compare this to the best wins of the Brian Kelly era. It’s far more art than science, depending on how much subjective weight you want to put on the true opponent quality, the stakes, and circumstances surrounding the relevant competitors. My advice remains the same as after the Clemson win two years ago – keep this one close and enjoy it.

Regardless of where it stands in your personal rankings, there’s no arguing that this win has a different flavor to it than any of the Kelly era. Unlike many of BK’s biggest wins – 2012 Stanford and Oklahoma, 2020 Clemson – this was a visceral bludgeoning of the opponent. More than any of the Kelly victories, it feels like this could be the start of building something special. If there’s a relative weakness, it’s that there’s less immediate dividends of this win in terms of postseason stakes.

That’s not to diminish this win – this proof of concept is so critical. After the Stanford loss and UNLV win, Notre Dame felt like a program sorely in need of a signature win or two to recapture the preseason momentum of the Freeman era. Two weeks later things are better than our October selves ever imagined. The challenge the rest of November will be avoiding repeating early mistakes and playing down the level of competition against Navy and Boston College. Keep those games drama-free and we’re suddenly looking at a very fun chance to wreak havoc on a big stage at USC and close this regular season in a truly special way.