I thought Notre Dame could score 40+ points in a high-flying affair against USC. Turns out, the Irish were able to score over 40 but the Trojans, with the “help” of the Notre Dame defense, were unable to make this a high-scoring game. It’s Sunday late morning and it’s time to recap an absolute smashing obliteration of Southern Cal.

PASSING OFFENSE

Once again, the game transitioned to an infomercial for Notre Dame’s run game but Wimbush did just enough early on to put in a respectable performance through the air. Best of all, he started off with the game’s first two scores on touchdown passes to St. Brown and Stepherson–both really strong medium-to-long stabs down field.

There were a couple drops, and a couple inaccurate passes throughout. It seemed like there would be many opportunities to hit deep passes with USC crowding the box and leaving receivers in one-on-one situations with little safety help. That didn’t happen (long completion of 26 yards) and Wimbush did only complete 47.3% of his passes, too.

Statistically, a completely forgettable game for Wimbush but I thought he was very calm, looked poised, and showed no signs of panic when his first or second read wasn’t available.

Welcome back to the party, Kevin Stepherson! He finishes with 3 catches for a team-high 58 yards and 93 total yards. Did you notice they put him back at kick returner?

RUSHING OFFENSE

Who is getting bored with this ground game? No one!

Just another pair of 100-yard rushers, 377 total yards, and 5 more rushing touchdowns.

Player 1st/2nd Yes 1st/2nd No 3rd/4th Yes 3rd/4th No Total
Adams 7 9 2 0 50.0%
Wimbush 8 2 3 0 84.6%
Jones 4 1 0 0 80.0%
Stepherson 2 0 0 0 100.0%
McIntosh 1 2 0 0 33.3%
Book 1 1 0 0 50.0%
Total 23 15 5 0 65.1%

 

Josh Adams continues to have a George Atkinson-type season if GA3 were pumped full of steroids. By that I mean, he’s still not putting up great numbers in rush success but he’s just so damn good when he is successful. From his 9 successful carries he had runs of 7, 10, 13, 15, 6, and 21 yards plus touchdown runs of 3, 14, and 84 yards.

This might have been Wimbush’s best overall rushing effort in his young career. By the way, he’s on pace for a 1,000 yard rushing season.

It seems Tony Jones, Jr. is fully healthy again because it looked like the back the media raved about during fall camp was on the field for the first time this season. He blocked well, covered kickoffs well, and ran over some fools.

With Stepherson getting in on the action with a couple reverses the Irish have now given carries to 12 different players this year.

PASS DEFENSE

USC basically had 3 sustained drives in this game whereby Sam Darnold accumulated 165 of his 229 passing yards (72%) with most of that–during the two opening drives of the 3rd quarter–coming against soft coverage. For the rest of the game Darnold was one big yawn and not so much ineffective as he was Captain Checkdown unable to scare the Irish secondary.

Deontay Burnett (8 for 113), Steven Mitchell (7 for 71), and Tyler Vaughns (6 for 65) all had strong games in the stat book but it was a very harmless night for the Trojan pass game. I guess that’s what happens when little else goes right for your team.

Give credit to the Notre Dame defense for constantly harassing Darnold (5 sacks, 7 hurries) and rarely allowing him time to set his feet and throw the ball downfield.

Also, Nick Watkins’ interception was absolutely gorgeous. Many a good corner have dropped the ball under such stretching circumstances.

RUSH DEFENSE

The Trojans were dominated up front. The Irish totaled 10 tackles for loss and limited USC to 76 net rushing yards. When you factor in Darnold and backup Matt Fink scrambling for 18-yard gains apiece there was almost nothing coming from the Trojan running backs.

USC opened the game with success on just 2 of their first 10 carries and finished the game with an abysmal 34.6% success rate. They had no chance and needed to put the entire game on the arm of Sam Darnold.

It didn’t work, and it feels great knowing Mike Elko & Co. expected just that.

SPECIAL TEAMS

It was a relatively clean game defined by a couple of crucial mistakes from USC. One, a missed short field goal that prevented the Trojans from getting on the scoreboard in the 2nd quarter. Two, a muffed punt return from Jack Jones that gifted Notre Dame a drive beginning at the USC 9-yard line.

TURNING POINT

There were plenty of options for turning points, including the muffed punt above or Watkins’ interception. For me, I have to go with the 3rd down stop that led to USC’s missed field goal.

This was the play that came after Julian Okwara’s third down sack which was wiped out due to holding on Jalen Elliott. This caused mass confusion as the referee announced 1st down and the NBC score bug followed suit. However, it was 3rd & 1 in a huge first half moment.

On this snap, Trumbetti plays like a man and walks back the tight end immediately after the ball is at the quarterback. This affects the lead blocking tight end who gets in the way and a mass of bodies collide behind the line of scrimmage. Both Bilal and Morgan scrape down the line for the assisted tackle.

By the way, Notre Dame’s offense converted all 5 of their third down opportunities when they ran the ball.

3 STARS

  • Josh Adams
  • Te’von Coney
  • Brandon Wimbush

FINAL NOTES

How historic was Saturday night? Here are the top victories by winning margin against ranked opponents at the time of kickoff in Notre Dame’s storied program:

1966, USC, 51 points
1992, BC, 47 points
1949, Tulane, 39 points
1989, Pitt, 38 points
1966, Oklahoma, 38 points
2017, USC, 35 points
1946, Iowa, 35 points

Notre Dame was ranked #1 in 4 of these games (all but BC, Iowa, and this Saturday) and this weekend was the only game in which the Irish were the lower ranked team–although we were still favored.

Some quick season stats to date: 12th in defensive scoring, 28th in defensive rushing average, 1st in fewest rushing touchdowns given up (still at 1), and tied for 24th in defensive yards per play. On offense, 11th nationally in scoring, 6th in rushing yards per game, 2nd in rushing average, tied for 2nd in rushing touchdowns, and 24th in yards per play.

Notre Dame went 4 for 4 on touchdowns in the red zone again.

It may have been out of respect for Martini but I thought it was strange just how much worry there was he was missing this game. Te’von Coney responded splendidly with a game-high 11 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery, 1 sack, and 1 quarterback hurry. This might be his career game.

We’ll have to see the actual snap counts but both Troy Pride and Donte Vaughn seemed to play a lot which says enough about how much respect and, shall I say, comfort the Irish defense felt about its odds facing Darnold.

Speaking of which, I found it kind of funny how Darnold basically quit during the game. Sure, he was banged up and the game was out of hand. But, you still quit. Heisman campaign, over.

Notre Dame is tied for 3rd nationally in turnover margin.

Special shout out to Khalid Kareem and his 2 sacks, which now moves him up to the team lead with Daelin Hayes and Jerry Tillery.

So, just how good is Notre Dame right now? Let’s take a look at the AP Top 15 and their yards per play differential:

#1 Alabama +3.08
#2 Penn State +2.73
#3 Georgia +2.50
#4 TCU +1.79
#5 Wisconsin +2.42
#6 Ohio State +2.92
#7 Clemson +1.74
#8 Miami +2.20
#9 Notre Dame +1.68
#10 Oklahoma +2.91
#11 Oklahoma State +2.96
#12 Washington +2.59
#13 Virginia Tech +1.32
#14 NC State +0.76
#15 Washington State +1.49

This is a little humbling to look at, although the Irish would likely move up with some strength of schedule balance as they’ve played 3 teams in the S&P Top 26 (Georgia, MSU, USC) already. But really, the main issue is Notre Dame being tied for 121st nationally in passing yards per attempt. The next closest Top 15 team in this category is Washington State at 71st nationally and they’re weirdly much better on defense than offense this year.

Notre Dame can maybe go the rest of the regular season running the ball really well, not committing turnovers, while playing some strong and timely defense to finish 11-1. Just being able to do that–and pick up a damn win at Stanford–would obviously be amazing. Although the team looks very comfortably in the top 8 to 12 teams there’s another gear that would need to be attained in order to truly be a legit Top 5 team who could win a playoff game or major bowl game. But it’s pretty good that we can contemplate such things right now.