The advanced stats match the eye-test in that there was nothing cheap about this victory. The Irish went toe-to-toe with Clemson, outgaining the Tigers in yards per play overall, in the 3rd & 4th quarters, and overtime. Both teams were decently explosive, not reeling off a ton of chunk plays but each hitting two of 50+ yards. Through regulation and overtime, each team had identical totals for possesions, scoring opportunities. Post-game win expectancy was in the 60/40 Clemson range thanks to a small efficiency advantage and the Irish taking advantage of Tiger turnovers, but against one of the most talented teams in football the Irish put themselves in a position where it was anyone’s game and finally came away with a landmark win.

No garbage time to speak of in this game.

Explosiveness

One of the knocks on Ian Book entering this season was that despite his high floor, terrific record, and general efficiency it was hard to think of a standout game. There were plenty of good ones to choose from like a ranked Stanford in 2018, Northwestern that year, or several games down the stretch last season. The effort in Athens was very good despite the loss and turnovers with everything placed on the QB’s shoulders. The winning plays and drives were there too – closing 10-for-10 to save the perfect season against Pitt two seasons ago, Virginia Tech last year, icing the USC game at home.

But there hadn’t been that game yet where Book had played his A-game against a great opponent, and then he puts together this legendary performance. Counting a couple of sacks the veteran finished with 7.4 yards per pass on 41 attempts, with 60 rush yards (5.5 per attempt) for good measure against a Brent Venables defense. Against an aggressive defense that has in past years befuddled Heisman winners Book was poised, accurate, and calculated with downfield throws and scrambles.

 

If you told an Irish fan this summer that the leading ND receivers in the Clemson game would be Javon McKinley, Michael Mayer, Avery Davis, and Ben Skowronek, they would have predicted certain doom. But the group was outstanding, with McKinley (14.6) coming up with some massive contested catches, Mayer redeeming his early mistakes in the second half, and Davis making the most important play of the game (and very nearly coming down with a tough touchdown grab earlier). The receiver group embodies this team in many ways – some fearless and talented young guys paired with veteran leaders who have been selfless in their careers and were confident in their physicality staring down college football’s best.

The pregame analysis was filled with concern that the Irish offense might be too one-dimensional and oops, it was the Tigers who instead could only move the ball in one way. The Notre Dame defense dominated in the trenches, with more run stuffs (11) than successful Clemson running plays (10). Travis Etienne is a player you are never going to fully contain, but Clark Lea and the defense held him to 3.3 yards per touch, and he seemed a little banged up by the late stretches of the game.

Notre Dame’s defensive line feels underrated at this point and shined again with a 37% stuff rate. The Irish are now 1st nationally in stuff rate for the season, and this game stands in stark contrast to the 2018 playoff game where ND had zero stuffs before garbage time.

Allowing 9.2 yards per dropback is not ideal, but survivable when you limit Clemson to 1.6 per carry. On many plays you just had to tip your cap to DJ Uiagalelei, Tony Elliott, Amari Rodgers, and Cornell Powell – they were each incredible in their respective roles. The Irish defense weathered the storm though, in very different ways each half. In the first half, the Tigers picked up some long gains with disturbing regularity but Notre Dame forced turnovers and negative plays to compensate. Then in the second half, the Irish seemed to settle in and force Clemson to sustain more long drives, which worked about as well as one could have hoped and resulted in a few punts and field goal attempts.

Efficiency

The Irish lost the efficiency battle for the first time this season but not by much. Clemson salvaged a mostly disastrous running effort with some successes in goal-to-go runs and short 1st down conversions after the first drive. In addition to bottling up Etienne the Notre Dame defense also kept a watchful eye on Uiagalelei, who averaged just 1.5 yards per attempt on 11 carries after flashing his running ability the week before against Boston College.

Managing around average efficiency against a Venables defense is no small feat, and the Irish were able to stay on track by avoiding too many 3rd and long situations. Notre Dame had a handful of valuable plays deemed unsuccessful that still gained helpful yardage to avoid amping up the degree of difficulty on third downs.

Friend of the program Jamie Uyeyama of Irish Sports Daily captured this already (note: always read Jamie) but in 3rd and 5 or less the Irish converted 9 of 10 times. On 3rd and 6+, Notre Dame was just 2 of 9. Clemson by a similar breakdown was just 3 of 8 converting third downs with five or fewer yards to gain, and 2 of 7 on 3rd and longs.

For what it’s worth, Uiagalelei had more yards per dropback and pass success than Trevor Lawrence did in his 2018 CFP win. Both teams will watch the tape and see new opportunities in a rematch, but it’s hard to envision the Clemson passing attack doing much better.

Finishing Drives, Field Position, & Turnovers

In regulation, both teams created seven scoring opportunities on 12 possessions – high-level offensive execution beating very good defenses more often than not. Both teams struggled to convert these chances into touchdowns until late in the game when the Irish went three for three in the red zone (including overtime). Jonathan Doerer and BT Potter were both clutch in nailing their realistic four field goal attempts each.

Notre Dame had a five yard per possession advantage in starting field position, fueled by Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah’s second forced fumble recovered at the Clemson 25. Both punters and kickoff coverage teams kept things largely under control – Clemson with consistent touchbacks, the Irish with a mix of high kicks that were well covered, and a few that were a little scary with Etienne on return duty.

The turnovers in this game were all of the massive variety. One Clemson fumble turned directly into a touchdown, another an instant scoring chance converted for another three points for the Irish. Ian Book’s fumble was of the opposite costly variety, taking what looked like a sure touchdown into an empty possession. Technically the last play of the game was a Clemson fumble after Braden Galloway tried to lateral the ball to anyone, but in my book, that’s a turnover on downs. But it’s worth noting that will count in the season-long stats and may be slightly fooling advanced stats analysis into thinking Notre Dame was a little luckier than they were in reality.

One to keep near

If you’re on this little corner of the internet chances are you invest a lot of time, thought, energy, and likely far too much of your personal wellbeing into Notre Dame football. At times – sometimes stretching over months and years – you’ve probably wondered why you do this yourself, agonizing over this sport with its chaos and flaws and rollercoasters and expectations. Saturday is why.

 

While it doesn’t match my love for Irish football, I’m also an Atlanta Falcons fan. Your reaction to reading that was probably “ouch”, and yes, the 28-3 Super Bowl was miserable. The collapse itself was shocking, followed by a thousand little papercuts every time I was reminded by it over the following days full of coverage, water cooler small talk, and memes. I’ve almost fully embraced the curse of being an Atlanta sports fan at this point (still in the bargaining stage of passing on Luka Doncic if I’m being honest) but that loss was a small, lurking thorn in my side for a good while.

This win is the other side of that fandom coin. It’s a memory and game to reminisce on in the coming days, months, and years that will never cease bringing little sparks of joy. With any Irish fan (whether my roommates or a stranger in ND gear) we’ll always be able to look back on this insane game, on Ian Book’s monstrous effort, of beating that ***** Dabo Swinney in Notre Dame Stadium. This season hopefully holds more generational wins and memories but for now, I’m going to bask in this one for a while and carry it close by. In 2020 I think we’ve earned it.