Clemson flew home early Sunday morning seriously licking their wounds as Notre Dame put together one of its most complete and physical dominations of a top ranked opponent in a very long time.
For the 1st half the weather was not cooperating for either passing game. Clemson in particular looked all out of sorts getting their run game bottled up and trying a bunch of horizontal throws to the perimeter. The Irish defense was swarming and their tackling was ferocious and on point. At the half, Clemson managed just 53 yards and barely threatened in Notre Dame territory.
On the other side of the ball, the Fighting Irish offensive line and running game were EATING.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | TIGERS |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 35 | 14 |
| Plays | 64 | 65 |
| Total Yards | 348 | 281 |
| Yards Per Play | 5.43 | 4.32 |
| Conversions | 6/12 | 4/12 |
| Completions | 9 | 27 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 5.00 | 4.77 |
| Rushes | 47 | 25 |
| Rushing Success | 65.9% | 47.3% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 11 | 6 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 0 | 1 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 23.0% | 15.8% |
Notre Dame missed a field goal in the 1st half, otherwise I’m not sure there will be much to complain about in this game. The Irish run game (263 yards, 5.6 per rush, 2 TD, 17 first downs) utterly dominated and the defense played fantastically to the point where I’m confident in saying Clemson got lucky to avoid a shutout.
Bad losses to Marshall and Stanford–who knows how to make sense of those moments now. On this Saturday night, Notre Dame reached a peak it rarely has touched and boy did it feel good. It has to feel amazing for Marcus Freeman after a rough start to his coaching career.
Offense
QB: B
RB: A
TE: A
OL: A+
WR: B
It was easy to forget the game didn’t start off very well for the Irish offense. The team was successful on just 1 out of their first 5 runs, Pyne was sacked on the first 3rd down of the game, and they punted 3 times before missing a field goal on the 4th drive. They’d shake it off.
However, up until this point Notre Dame was averaging 3.69 yards per play and Clemson was sitting at just 2.60 yards per play–there was a small inkling that the Irish were more comfortable and prepared for a physical game relying on running the ball.
The dam felt like it broke on Notre Dame’s final possession of the 1st half where running back Audric Estime was dominant on 5 runs and the drive was capped off by a nice 10-yard run from Pyne, an 11-yard completion to Mayer, and Pyne keeping the ball for a 5-yard touchdown.
The run game doesn’t have the pass game to take the pressure off!
With the wind causing havoc and defense playing mighty fine, this 14-0 lead felt much larger.
With the conditions, Pyne was bound to struggle in the first half. Overall, he played okay but really needed to hit the open pass to Michael Mayer in the late 3rd quarter for a touchdown. That would’ve made it 21-0 and Pyne would’ve finished the game on 7 of 8 passing for 93 yards and 2 touchdowns. Add in his 3 successful runs and this missed throw truly changes the narrative.
Rushing Success
Diggs – 10 of 16 (62.5%)
Estime – 14 of 18 (77.7%)
Tyree – 2 of 7 (28.5%)
Pyne – 3 of 3 (100%)
This was one of the best games for a Notre Dame offensive line in program history, I am comfortable saying that much. On 6 drop backs, the passing game did not convert a single 3rd down opportunity. Yet, Pyne was only sacked once (on the opening drive) and the line kept protecting well while paving the way for a huge day on the ground. Credit to the tight ends and receivers, who were often shifted into a tight formation, for blocking so well, too.
Despite no conversions through the air, the run game converted SIX times, including moving the chains on 3rd & medium/long on half of those conversions.
Running back Logan Diggs started slow (he got those first 5 carries) then finished the game with success on 9 out of his final 11 carries. When Audric Estime came into the game, the offense seemed to change and he completed an absolute dominant performance from start to finish. It was the big tailback who converted 5 third downs on the ground, an unbelievable night with the ball in his hands.
Defense
DL: A
LB: B+
DB: B+
This game maybe looks a little different if it wasn’t so windy and Clemson’s offense had a bit more success through the air which allowed them a little more balance. However, DJU was constantly harassed (sacked 4 times) and out of their first 9 full drives, only 2 made it into Notre Dame territory and those ended with a bit of a reckless turnover on downs at the Irish 38-yard line, plus a pick six.
Look at coach Mickens’ face, though.
Certainly, true freshman Benjamin Morrison announced himself to the entire country on Saturday. He finished with 7 tackles, 4 solo stops, a pass-break up, and 2 interceptions including the aforementioned pick six which extended Notre Dame’s lead to 28-0. That should sew up a freshman All-American season with so many people watching NBC.
Clemson actually ran the ball pretty well overall but simply could not sustain any drives without much help from the passing game. DJU relied on a lot of throws to the sidelines or underneath, and the Irish tackled so well leading to just 177 yards on 44 plays for Clemson coming off that Morrison pick six.
Stuffs vs. Clemson
Bertrand – 4.5
Foskey – 2
NaNa – 1
Rubio – 1
Bracy – 1
Hart – 1
Jayson A. – 1
Cross – 1
Justin A. – 0.5
Liufau – 0.5
Morrison – 0.5
By then, with 12:58 remaining in the 4th quarter the game was effectively over.
Thanks to some generous help from the referees, Clemson scored their first touchdown after 3 quick calls against the Irish. They also followed that up with another long touchdown drive. A bit annoying overall, but this was garbage time complete with Clemson dumping the ball off consistently and wasting time with no chance of winning.
Final Thoughts
I wonder how many Notre Dame games in history have witnessed both a blocked punt touchdown and pick six?
The Irish now move to 4-22-0 all-time when unranked against top 5 opponents at the time of the game. Those other 3 wins included: Pitt (1982), Oklahoma (1957), and Minnesota (1937). Both Oklahoma and Minnesota would finish in the top 5 those seasons, while Pitt would finish no. 10 in the AP Poll after previously being no. 1 when they played Notre Dame.
Where will Clemson finish this season ranked? They end 2022 with 3 home games against Louisville, Miami, and South Carolina and will likely face North Carolina in the ACC Championship.
With a do-over, I bet Notre Dame tries to run the ball twice from 3rd & 10 at the Clemson 24-yard line instead of settling for a field goal attempt in that blustery wind.
What has happened to Lorenzo Styles? He has 5 catches for 32 yards over the last 4 games and has dropped (I believe) 4 more targets thrown to him in recent weeks.
Sideline official must be a ND fan, look at the shame in his eyes after Styles’ drop.
Clemson’s weapons in the passing game did not look very threatening. It’ll be interesting to see how Swinney handles the quarterback issue to close out this season and into 2023. He certainly didn’t do his freshman quarterback Cade Klubnik any favors in South Bend!
I didn’t realize DJU started the game going 7 of 7 through the air. That only netted 33 yards and just a single first down, though.
JD Bertrand (team-leading 12 tackles, 9 solo stops, 1 sack, 2 TFL, and 4.5 stuffs) played perhaps his best game of his career.
Michael Mayer’s late touchdown broke Ken MacAfee’s school record for scores by a tight end. The Kentuckian has now completely re-wrote the entire record book at Notre Dame.
How did it become so difficult for opponents to block Notre Dame when they are punting? It’s some serious Brian Mason magic!
I know that he lost his sister earlier this year and it must be weighing on him heavily, plus he’s constantly dealt with injuries. Former no. 1 overall recruit defensive tackle Bryan Bresee just does not look like the same player anymore when he was super quick and agile at his size. He was invisible against the Irish on Saturday night.
A difference in stuff rate by 7% when Notre Dame ran the ball 22 more times is absolutely massive.
Notre Dame *should* head to Los Angeles on November 26th at 8-3 on the season. If they can take care of business it would be one heck of a turnaround. The Marshall game review was discussing a 3-win season and firing Marcus Freeman in December just 56 days ago!
The Irish looked angry and more physical across-the-board in this game on both sides of the ball. They were not intimidated or afraid. Some of the best tackling we’ve seen all year. Credit to the coaches. ND has some great athletes and it showed tonight.
Random thought:
-Reminded me a lot of our game against Utah in 2010. Conservative but opportunitic while asking not expect much from the passing game.
-The sideline ref definitely cheered during the punt block.
-Before the TD pass to Meyer, you can clearly see Pyne double check the signal, gulp, check the play clock, and then relay the call to the huddle.
This win was so, so satisfying.
One more:
-I want to shout out the skycam operator. The shot of Freeman saying goodnight to Dabo followed by a slow zoom out to see the field full of fans gave me chills.
Several things:
1. Loved the way the defense played. The linebackers were v disciplined in a way that I feel like we haven’t seen much (esp from Bertrand and Liufau). Really great performance.
2. I’m so glad we get Fisher and Alt for at least one more year and here’s hoping they stick around for all of their eligibility.
3. Foskey really coming into form after looking like he might have a mediocre year.
Overall just a blast of a game to watch, and it’s heartening to see us dominate even with clear limitations on offense. Shows the potential for what we could be with a competent passing game. Both enjoyment of the present and hope for the future have been restored (for now lol).
One more thing I’ll add upon rewatch: even up 4 score the defense never gave Clemson anything easy. The prevent defense didn’t turn into super easy marches down the field. Yeah Clemson had a quick-ish score late, but they had to deek and dunk their way down there.
They took what we gave them but they took nothing else. I don’t recall them even trying to throw the ball over our heads. I interpreted those drives as white flags saying; “We know we’re beaten; we just want some cosmetic points.” It was so obvious that, when they scored their second TD, there wasn’t a reaction from anyone in the Stadium, on either side. It was almost like we were in the middle of a commercial break, it was so quiet.
The defense was relentless last night.
Also, when was the last time we had 2 running backs with 100+ yards? And has there been a more decisive victory against a top 5 team?
I think I was at the last two really dominant games against top 5 teams: taking down #5 Michigan in 98 and #5 USC in 95. It’s been a minute lol. Both of those were a great time, 98 being the first time I ever witnessed a field storming (I was 9 years old). Always happy knowing I saw us blast Tom Brady
Almost did it last week.
Sort of a cheeky answer to that, though still impressive: We put three backs over 100 yards from scrimmage against North Carolina.
Non-cheeky answer is the 2020 Syracuse game – Kyren had 110 on 20 carries and Tyree had 109 on 6 carries (85 of them on one run). Kyren (185) and Tyree (103) also did it against FSU that season. The 2017 season featured an absurd five such games – Josh Adams (161), Dexter Williams (124), and Brandon Wimbush (106) against Temple, Adams (227) and Wimbush (209) against BC (lol), Adams (118) and Deon McIntosh (124) against North Carolina, and Adams (191) and Wimbush (106) against USC (lol).
To E’s point, against Syracuse Estime had 123 yards rushing and Diggs had 85.
NB: Kudos to the excellent official media guide, which took the legwork out of getting this answer.
Reverse troll Navy challenge by attempting to get 3 RB’s each with 100 yards rushing. It would probably just take one really long run by Tyree to have an have a somewhat decent chance at it with the way the others are going.
That game rules and was good imo
Good:
No section for special teams? So much pressure on punts, solid punting by Sot yet again, Mayer wrapping up the onside kick easily.
Offense put up two drives of 11 or more plays and 75 or more yards. Nice! Actually enough points to win the game, as I’m not counting the Clemson touchdown on phantom PIs.
As in the Slack channel, I’ll complain about the passing game. In addition to the Mayer miss you mentioned, Pyne had two passes batted down because he’s short (3rd down slant conversion and a 15 yard curl, both open and both passes look to be on target) plus airmailing an open Lenzy while on the run. Add on Styles just not working out this year, and next year could get really ugly through the air if one of the TEs and at least one of the freshman WR don’t step up. I hear Greathouse and Flores are pretty polished, let’s hope both of them and Meriweather pan out.
I know we like to complain about losing to Stanford and Marshall, but we can now squint and realize maybe it forced some need re-evaluation from HCMF and TR that is leading to where we are now.
Just a fun, electric atmosphere. 3 trophy games to close out the year, let’s bring them all home!
Certainly fan expectations and bad losses affect those overreactions. Not many commentators and staff picked us to win against Syracuse and against Clemson. Only a few picked an Irish win and then by a slim margin. OFD posted an article after the Stanford game posing the question who needs to be fired. Post-game comments by Mack Brown after the Irish scored 45 in the Tar Heels only loss holding a high-powered offense to 32 were accurate. “I want to congratulate Notre Dame. They played like a top 10 team tonight… That’s the team we expected to see…. The start of the second half was an absolute killer.” and “So they’ve got a great program, they do it right, they do it within the rules, and they’re really good. I think you just give credit to them…Tonight, we just could not stop the run. And they just lined up and hit us right in the face and just kept running it and kept running it and we couldn’t get them off the field.” That certainly was the case last night in all aspects, A dominant defense and a terrific special teams.
That’s twenty-seven straight regular season wins over ACC teams. The streak continues.
Considering we have beat the two best ACC teams, I think we can safely declare ourself 2022 ACC champs.
hell if ND draws SCar in the outback bowl there can be “South Carolina State Champions” merch!
Favorite part of the game for me was when Diggs came out on the last drive after a couple of big runs and was visibly upset about having to come out. You could see him get in Estime’s face pumping him up, telling him to keep it up and to punish Clemson…at least that’s what I’m telling myself he said.
You were a little more favorable in your grading of Pyne then I would be (C+ in my book, only that high because of the successful runs – he was not good throwing the ball), but that is nit picking after such a great win.
Golly, you just hate to hear Dabo say stuff like this, dontcha?
Raises and promotions for all
Was at the game. It was amazing. It is baffling that anyone ever didn’t want a video board. The stadium experience is so much better now compared to when I was a student (03-06 seasons).
But the main reason I wanted to post. I watched the game the morning after. Worst TV announcer story of all time was when someone was talking about how last time Clemson was at ND Dabo got a call by a woman who said the locker room was clean. Really??? That’s all you have to talk about. Go wait in the car.
NBC with the scoop of the century.
GREAT GIF, Eric !!
Juicebox,
So glad you were there. AFN put it on, so I could watch on my big screen. Shared emotion with all of you.
I have a favor — can you send me the replay, I’d love to watch it again? Only I think I might have a region problem if it’s straight NBC. But somebody on this site squared me away for an earlier game, maybe BYU…
Here you go Mr More Noise https://youtu.be/xdWL2IHrCog
I watched the game on Sunday. I was impressed by the crowd noise on the T.V. I noticed it because during most of the broadcast I couldn’t hear the band play or just barely hear it. Most of the time on the NBC broadcasts you can hear the band. That must have been a great atmosphere for those attending in person. Hopefully helps a ton with the recruiting front to.
It was so loud that, after the game, I and my friends couldn’t even hear the Alma Mater being played. The crowd was still that loud more than 10 minutes after the game had finished.
I missed it, too. Noticed just in time for love thee Notre Dame. It was raucous.
Excellent game — loved it! I admit that I was a bit negative going into the game, thinking that Clemson’s strengths would be a good match to ND, but I’m happy to see that I was wrong
I didn’t think ND would win and was surprised at the completeness of how they did on defense but I wasn’t that scared of the Clemson offense (thought it would be competent at least, though). Racking up 263 yards rushing in such a steady fashion was impossible to foresee, and the totally surprising aspect. Truly one of the great performances for the program, not sure anyone really could have predicted that but shows why it’s such a great sport, weird stuff can still happen.
Remember all the Hiestand hate? And JD Bertrand slander? Those voices got real quiet REAL quick.
I thought we would get thoroughly handled by their D. The best part of their team is their run D (albeit nowhere near years passed). 2017 showed us that if you don’t have much of a passing game, teams can game plan to neutralize a really good running game.
And yet, we absolutely ran all over them. I still don’t know how that happened. But it did and it was glorious.
For once, I thought Jason Garrett had some very useful insights, when he went through how we have been recently very good at disguising the same couple of key plays. And I see Coach Freeman riffed at that exact same aspect during his presser a couple of hours ago.
ND ran all over Clemson, despite that Clemson’s run D was its strength AND it knew ND was gonna run it. Given all the hate TR has been getting lately (and I’m not saying this game totally answered all legit criticisms), I feel like he should be getting more love than he’s getting right now.
Can we get the whole team to switch over to Cam Hart’s look from Saturday.
Big fan of the no (low) socks/black shoes look. Just brought a certain swagger.
I just got back from South Bend. I am still hoarse and sound awful because I absolutely abused my vocal cords on Saturday night. It was the biggest ND win I’ve personally witnessed since USC in 1973 (when I helped tear down the north end zone goal post).
Damn I feel good!!!
Way to go, Cubfan!!!!!!!!!
I tore down those same goal posts with you (2nd time, we did Syracuse in ’63).
Actually, it was ’61. I went to high school at Holy Cross Seminary, across the lake, which later became Holy Cross Hall before being torn down — anyway, all of us young seminarians got to go to all the home games. That was the year we beat the ‘Cuse on a field goal after time had expired (a roughing the holder call gave us another shot at the kick).
http://archives.nd.edu/about/news/index.php/2011/nd-vs-syracuse-11181961/
So who else on the board has some goal post tearing downs to recount? A bit off topic but what better theme this week!
Really cool, thanks for sharing!
Well, just to add detail to my goal post tearing down experience, once we got it down, we carried it to the steps of the Golden Dome, carried it up the steps and deposited it there (can you think of a better place to deposit it?). Those things are heavy.
For the rest of that season (a national championship season), the north end zone goal posts were the old traditional goal posts with two posts in the ground rather than one. I guess they couldn’t get one of the newer goal posts in time. There were only two home games after the USC game so it really didn’t matter that much.