Delayed gratification. Unit Strength. The Golden Standard. Leave No Doubt. And now, Clean Your Plate.

Marcus Freeman has come up with a bunch of kinda corny catchphrases in his time at Notre Dame. Clean Your Plate, in case it hasn’t been made clear yet, means take advantage of your opportunities when they come. If you keep ‘cleaning your plate’ – giving every opportunity your all – then more will come your way.

They may be corny, but the fact that the Irish keep bludgeoning their opponents like they did Saturday – a 58-7 win over Stanford that frankly wasn’t that close – shows the ND players believe in them, and that’s ultimately all that matters.

The game was a laugher basically from the first snap, as Boubacar Traore, who quarterbacks see in their nightmares, blasted Davis Warren to force a fumble and set ND up with an easy TD drive to go ahead 7-0. It was on from there as the only drama consisted of how deep into the Irish bench Freeman would go. (Very deep, as it turned out.)

Some standout storylines from another easy win before things get interesting next week:

All the RBs had some fun, but: Let Jonaz Walton cook

If there was any doubt left, there’s Jonaz Walton and there’s everyone else in the Notre Dame running back room.

Walton may not be the only member of that position group that would’ve taken that 97-yard touchdown run to the house – it was very well blocked and defended extremely poorly – but he is certainly the only one for whom it would’ve been obvious he was gone basically from the second he broke through the line. That’s the dimension he brings. It’s one Nolan James and Aneyas Williams, both very good college running backs, simply do not have.

Walton later added another filthy touchdown run, from 40 yards away, and broke Josh Adams’ record for rushing yards by a ND freshman in a game (set, of course, the day Adams broke his own marathon run against Wake Forest in 2015).

But as noted, while Walton’s plays were the most spectacular, James and Williams got in on the act as well, each getting in the end zone. James had an impressive touchdown run of his own:

And Williams showed off his slot receiver skills by burning a Stanford defender and tightroping the sideline for his own score:

Later in the game, freshman Javian Osborne showed off some smooth moves on his way to the end zone, too. Notre Dame averaged over 8 yards a carry in this one (pre-Teddy Jarrard kneel-downs), and the concern over the ND running game, while it has yet to be proven against the highest-quality opponents, seems like a long time ago right now.

It’s an embarrassment of riches in the Notre Dame backfield this season – again.

And a hat tip to the ND offensive line as well

Rarely do people notice the offensive line when things are going well, but let’s shout them out here. It wasn’t a perfect game, but it was a very good one, and their blocking (with some help from tight ends and receivers) paved the way for a lot of those rushing yards. Also, CJ Carr has barely been touched this season, certainly not much since a pretty good Wisconsin defense got in his face a couple of times in Green Bay.

The sequence of Anthonie Knapp road-grading people was fun. Remember when ND fans thought the Irish were crazy for taking a guy like that during the recruiting process? Another example of Trust the Staff.

Boubacar Traore: Wow

Speaking of guys that weren’t highly recruited, this guy was going to go to Boston College until the ND staff figured him out. He has been a monster basically from the jump.

Traore makes a highlight play almost every week, but you could basically just toss out the rest of the film on him if you’re an NFL scout and just watch this:

There’s basically nothing the guy can’t do on a football field. If Notre Dame needed a receiving tight end in a pinch, I have no doubt Traore could do it.

Believe it or not, that hit was the only tackle for loss by the ND defense on the day, but they still dominated Stanford, with the exception of a pretty lame sequence that resulted in the Cardinal’s only touchdown.

Fun to see guys succeed and enjoy doing it

Let’s be real: Stanford is just an unserious program right now. No matter how many times Jason Garrett talked about the culture or Andrew Luck’s energy or whatever, the fact is that team is a travesty at the moment. These games used to be special, and now they’re not even an afterthought.

That aside, it was great to see so many Irish players not only get in the game, not only excel, but have such obvious joy doing it. Talk about culture: That’s a culture. The tunnel of love created for Walton and Osborne and probably several other guys we didn’t see is the sort of stuff that probably exists other places in some form and we don’t see it, but to see it in South Bend underscores how terrific a situation we have going right now as Notre Dame fans.

The season starts next week

ND got through the presumed light 6-week stretch (though Wisconsin is a borderline ranked team and probably better than they’re going to get credit for) without incident, outside of the injury to Brauntae Johnson. Next week: A top-10 BYU team, a College GameDay and Saturday Night Football primetime spotlight, and the first true opportunity to make a statement about how good this Notre Dame team is.

I can’t wait.

(Photo credit – South Bend Tribune)