That’s 4 wins in a row over USC, as well as the 4th straight home win over the Trojans. Life is good this week. A whole bunch of recruits were in attendance to watch a festive atmosphere in a night game against Notre Dame’s main rival. There were some ups and downs, including a late rally by USC, but the Fighting Irish controlled the game throughout and did a tremendous job bouncing back from any signs of adversity.
It’ll be a weird box score for the history books, for sure. USC out-gained Notre Dame, Slovis threw for 299 yards, receiver Drake London had long stretches of domination, and Trojans running back Keontay Ingram played really, really well.
Stats Package
| STAT | IRISH | TROJANS |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 31 | 16 |
| Plays | 71 | 70 |
| Total Yards | 383 | 428 |
| Yards Per Play | 5.39 | 6.11 |
| Conversions | 9/13 | 7/15 |
| Completions | 22 | 27 |
| Yards/Pass Attempt | 7.1 | 8.0 |
| Rushes | 41 | 33 |
| Rushing Success | 44.7% | 80.0% |
| 10+ Yds Rushes | 5 | 4 |
| 20+ Yds Passes | 1 | 4 |
| Defense Stuff Rate | 7.7% | 27.5% |
Yet, USC only scored 16 points–their fewest in their last 20 games–and couldn’t prevent Notre Dame from continually driving nails into the coffin of their defense. Let’s recap Notre Dame’s run to 6-1 on the season.
Offense
QB:Â B+
RB:Â A+
TE:Â B
OL:Â B-
WR: C+
I think Notre Dame will be a little unhappy with just 5.4 yards per play and only 31 points against this USC defense, although during the game it certainly never felt anything close to a disappointing game for the offense. For example, they only punted once and that was on their first drive of the 3rd quarter.
Overall, it felt like a steady offensive performance buoyed by an efficient effort from Jack Coan at quarterback supplemented by a lot of gritty and timely runs from Kyren Williams.
Explosive, it was not. Williams broke off of a 38-yard run but his second longest run of the game was 12 yards while the early jet sweep to Braden Lenzy for 14 yards was the 2nd longest run of the game for Notre Dame. The screen to freshman Lorenzo Styles for 29 yards was the longest pass of the game for the Irish with really nothing completed down field.
I thought he was housing this for a second.Â
Nevertheless, the Irish were able to stay on schedule and kept a smooth tempo with a quick passing game that feels like it’ll be the norm for the rest of the season. The pieces just aren’t there for a potent deep passing game and Coan now looks much more comfortable behind this line completing a bunch of 8 to 12-yard passes.
Converting on 3rd down will be so, so important the rest of the way. It made a big difference against USC.
When you get Vintage Kyren Williams this type of offense is going to beat most teams, as it did to USC. For the record, Kyren put up 180 yards from scrimmage with 2 touchdowns while tying for the team lead in catches in what is likely to be his going away present to the Trojans in his Notre Dame career.
The offensive line played well in another step in the right direction. Coan was only sacked once (his feet got stuck again, though) and although the ground game got bottled up a bit too much and they won’t be excited about a modestly successful rushing success rate against this poor USC defense they kept themselves out of the negative headlines which is a big win.
Rushing Success
Williams – 11 of 25 (44.0%)
Lenzy – 1 of 1 (100%)
Coan – 2 of 2 (100%)
Diggs – 0 of 3 (0.0%)
Davis – 0 of 1 (0.0%)
Flemister – 0 of 3 (0.0%)
Buchner – 3 of 3 (100%)
Lots of ball carriers on Saturday night! Although, mixed results for sure. C’Bo Flemister came out of purgatory finally but he teamed up with freshman Logan Diggs to go 0 of 6 on successful carries.
This may be the game we remember where freshman Lorenzo Styles grew up and became a weekly weapon for the Irish. He finishes the game with 3 catches on 4 targets for a team-leading 57 yards while also taking over the kick return duties from the injured Chris Tyree.
A very weird game for Michael Mayer. If my research is correct his last catch of the game came on a huge 3rd down conversion on the last series before halftime while his only target the rest of the game came on a pass interference call in the middle of the 3rd quarter.
Defense
DL: A-
LB:Â C
DB:Â D
Drake London terrorized Notre Dame for large portions of this game with 15 catches for 171 yards on 19 targets, Keaontay Ingram ran incredibly well for 138 yards, and it kind of all didn’t matter did it?
Notre Dame’s All-American safety Kyle Hamilton was injured late in the 1st quarter and missed the rest of the game while USC has to be kicking themselves for not taking advantage of a weakened Irish defense. The Trojans missed a field goal, had an interception returned 79 yards to their own 4-yard line, and strangely ran the ball far too often (including 7 rushes to close out the 2nd half with precious little time passing up a very manageable scoring drive) given they trailed by 10, 14, and 21 points at different points throughout the game.
It’s completely fair to say that Notre Dame’s defense didn’t really play well and USC largely beat themselves with poor execution and strategy. Clay Helton weeps.
Was the Irish gameplan to let London get his and make quarterback Kedon Slovis beat Notre Dame using other weapons? That didn’t really work against the ground game (Ingram had 19 successful carries!!!) although USC only managed 128 yards to non-London pass catchers and wasn’t able to throw a single touchdown.
So, I guess it kind of worked?
Stuffs vs. USC
Foskey – 2
White – 2
Brown – 2
Ademilola, Jayson – 1
Bracy – 1
Bauer – 1
On the positive side, the pass rush from the defensive line made plays when it mattered and at times were dominating up front and harassing Slovis. You could make the case any uptick in pass attempts probably puts Slovis’ health at risk as much as it would help USC score more points.
Still, the 7.7% stuff rate was one of the worst efforts in recent memory as was the 80% success rate on the ground given up. These are truly dreadful numbers from the Notre Dame defense. I think we can give it a little bit of a pass for being a rivalry game and one in which they led comfortably for a long time, but still.
The tackling, especially on the perimeter, was really poor.
London made a lot of people miss on Saturday.Â
Clarence Lewis had himself a brutal time covering London and was part of a secondary that was barely able to hold on without Hamilton. Ironically, Tariq Bracy has struggled the most this year in terms of coverage and tackling and yet played one of his best games of the season.
The defense continues to scream out for more playmakers behind the defensive line, a need even more pronounced without Hamilton. I’ve said this most games, but the defense needs something better from the linebackers. White, Bertrand, and Kiser combined for 18 tackles which is fine but just a couple of stuffs from Drew White led the way. No tackles for loss from this group with how much USC ran the ball leaves a lot to be desired.
Although, Bo Bauer played a great game with his interception, pass break up on the overturned targeting call, and a big tackle for loss late in the game. I really hope he comes back next year.
Final Thoughts
As expected, USC was really sloppy with 9 penalties, 4 of which gave Notre Dame first downs.
There were 2 throws where Kevin Austin really showed poor strength in tight coverage, including on the interception. Although that pick should’ve been ruled in favor of Austin for simultaneous possession the fact remains he gets pushed around a little too often for being the No. 1 receiver. He also had another brutal drop on 3rd down to open the game, leading to no points.
I don’t think Drake London is 6’5″ tall but I do look forward to him entering the draft this spring. Goodbye!
The play-calling and execution after the Bauer interception left a lot to be desired. They ran the ball with Diggs and Davis before a 3rd down bunched formation saw Coan have all day behind the line with room to run only to toss the ball out of the back of the end zone. It could’ve been 14-0 at that point and to not even try something with Kyren Williams down there felt like a missed opportunity for an early kill shot.
Alternatively, USC’s missed field goal to open the 2nd half felt like a huge momentum swing in favor of Notre Dame. The drive opened with 6 consecutive successful plays and ended with 3 unsuccessful plays culminating in the picked up targeting flag. The Trojans could’ve closed the gap to 17-10 at this point.
Lorenzo Styles is a man after my heart. I wore No. 21 in high school so I’m partial to him already. Then, he comes out on Saturday night with this icy sock game. If you zoom in he’s actually wearing blue calf sleeves with high white socks to provide that early 1990’s pro-style sock look.
My new favorite player. Â
It was only 1 catch but don’t sleep on that Deion Colzie moment. His reception converted a 3rd & 8 on a drive that eventually put the Irish up 24-3. There really aren’t any other options at this point but you have to love the roles played by Colzie and Styles against USC.
Nothing felt worse defensively in this game than giving up the 3rd & 2 to Joseph Manjack on yet another missed tackle by the sideline. That was followed up by a Ramon Henderson pass interference call and 4 plays later USC was in the end zone to cut the lead to 24-16.
Notre Dame unveiled a new pre-game entrance, halftime, and 4th quarter light show that was a big hit. The poor souls out there who are always so angry about Notre Dame, don’t like night games, and think anything modern is tacky are having a rough time dealing with the success of Crossroads and the home field atmosphere.
electric #GoIrish pic.twitter.com/wFxukXdgmP
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) October 24, 2021
This was the 4th game of the season that Jonathan Doerer missed a field goal. At least he got it out of the way early!
Kelly didn’t seem too worried about Hamilton’s knee injury after the game although his track record on these things should elicit some pause. If it’s true there’s no structural damage it might still be difficult for him to play against North Carolina next weekend and with the Navy game after that I wonder if it’s more likely he comes back for an important road game at Virginia on November 13th.
Just an outstanding win for ND and therefore mankind. Thanks for the review since I didn’t get to focus on this as hard as I normally would but I was busy watching the Atlanta Braves try and give me like 8 different heart attacks lol
Go Irish beat Tar Heels.
The box score doesn’t show it, but I felt like we physically dominated them. London got his catches but he got the crap knocked out of him, over and over. There was an inside pass (maybe a screen?) and he got crunched by one of our middle linebackers. I was thinking that he’s not used to getting hit like that down the field. Eric alluded to the punishment Slovis was taking too. Just wore them down. If there was a 5th quarter I think we would have put up about 3 more touchdowns.
And my favorite moment of physical domination was the Buchner touchdown where Kyren was the lead blocker. The D back trying to take on Kyren ended up on the ground and Kyren walked into the endzone and turned around to almost wait for Buchner to catch up. Going to miss him next year.
One thought: is it poor tackling when Kyren makes people miss and runs through them too? Some guys are just strong AND elusive.
For every BK hater, he’s about to put up another 10 win season, and when I look at the penalties, sloppy substitution, and poor clock management of the USC team and coaching staff, I’m pretty good with him right now.
I wonder if SC regrets firing Helton. They pretty much flushed their season down the toilet in mid-September to accomplish…nothing, I guess? I dunno. New SC coach dude (I don’t know his name and I don’t care) seems like a dope.
I think their fans would’ve rioted if they hadn’t fired Helton by this point. Might as well write off the season in September and be rid of that stench.
Their interim is supposedly a recruiting wizard so that’s the only reason why he got promoted, as evidenced by his clock management.
Yeah, it got to be untenable by that point. The bigger piece of mismanagement was letting it get that far. Why fire a coach 2 games into the season after his first loss? Should have fired him in the off-season then. They wrote this season off by doing it, but never should have let it get to that point by giving Helton the one last chance that of course he wasn’t going to be able to live up to.
Because it was a loss to Stanford, and a bad loss to a bad Stanford team. It was one of those losses that forebodes another year with 5 or less wins. Who gets excited about that? Spoiler alert, not recruits. The AD had no ties to M. Helton, and Helton had that history of mediocrity that I soooooooo loved about him.
So what is better?
A season-long Carrington class flare of a hot seat where that overshadows the “Savior Hope 2022” storyline, or
A quick trigger where the stories are now all about Franklin or Fickell? In end the quick trigger was the right call and shockingly, USC made it. I hope this is the only smart decision they make.
I hope Fickell stays at Cinci or goes to LSU, Franklin stays at PSU, and they get Clawson, the clubhouse leader for the “Suddenly Not Mediocre Against All Odds” Trophy for 2021-2022.
$12M is a big nut as a buyout, but the Cinci connection between Bohn and Fickell will likely prove too strong.
Well, ok, but if ND listened to the fanbase, Kelly would have been fired in September 2010.
SC has improved nothing and has wasted a season. I guess if that keeps the 11,000 fans who go to the Coliseum happy, great.
The argument isn’t that they should have listened to their fan base but that if Helton was teetering on that thin a ledge, then he should have been let go last January.
Oh, yeah, definitely. Just mishandled all around.
i for one wholeheartedly endorse their moves as of late
I’m just saying, Jeff Fisher is tanned, rested, and ready.
but how can one go 7-9 when there are 12 games
I think he’d be okay with 5-7
Yeah, this is the worst coached USC team I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been watching them since I was in grade school in the ‘50s. The entire staff needs fired.
Yeah they promoted Williams I think in an effort to keep the recruiting class intact but puzzling to give the interim tag to a guy without any coordinator experience when you have a veteran DC like Todd Orlando, an up and comer in Harrell you may want to see i action, and Mike Jinks who was a (bad) HC at Bowling Green
Hi all from the Varsity Club (over on Main St in Mishawaka, I have a time share since the beginning, 4th home football w-e of every season, which on odd years gets me and the boys — the leaky Trojans.
Eric, a pleasure to read this precis. Let me confine myself to my hobby horse, crowd noise. Right you are, the Board has helped immensely. Best meal invitation I ever made was bonding with the guy who’s in charge of it before its first season.
The crowd did get lackadaisical and quiet when we went up by 21 — a bit like the team.
(On an unrelated note, the USC coach said our D got gassed and I think that’s true, what do you think?)
Having said that, the band is still missing out on opportunities and they are such wonderful people and its such a great band. Just think if they put the words to all four of our great fight songs on the big board and got the 77,000 people to song along, and then stopped doing the Celtic Chant arm stuff when we need noise, they could become relevant again. Oh well, happy to be in the finetuning mode. This whole aspect has truly come a long, long way.
Sounds like you’re having a blast MN. Rock steady. Go Irish!
Totally, tindma!
Also super great was being right over where the visitor’s little tunnel has been put in. It was a stroke of genius — them having to narrow down to one of two abreast makes them feel… puny.
That’s why a stick to pints and not the 24oz. offerings at the tavern.
BK spoke highly about the atmosphere in his press conference. He then made a joke, that I didn’t get until watching the above video, that he was really pleased when the lights came back on. 😄
But what about dinner in Chicago!?
Night games rule. Only nerds dislike them.
damn straight baby
if chicago had waffle house this wouldn’t be an issue btw
White Castle does the trick
or an actual diner if I want breakfast food
Oh my yes. Remember the ND Nation whiners pissing in their pants about night games?
The light thing was very cool live. Even better than the video clips make it seem.
The light show was LIT!
This was my first game in a few years and only my second with the video board. It amazes me that anyone ever thought it was a bad idea.
Thanks I have to go listen for that in the presser.
BTW, for everyone, on my next trip to the Bend this winter, I am supposed to meet with the video board guy. Any suggestions or ideas, let me know.
Beating USC is always and everywhere a good thing. I think BK’s record against USC should be considered one of his greatest accomplishments. I started at ND in fall 2005, and if my math is right we are now .500 against USC since then. When I graduated, it felt like we’d never win against them maybe ever.
They ruined Ara’s shot at an undefeated season his first year with a late TD in the last game.
Im sure Noise will remember that too.
Great review, I feel it’s a bit too critical of the linebackers, and just including an “oh by the way, Bo Bauer made the definitive play of a game and instead of seeing it turn into a 7-7 game, his INT and run was a 10-point swing to make it a 10-0 ND lead” was a hell of an after thought to discuss LB performance..
Agree on the Mayer note, doesn’t it always seem like he gets 1-2 catches on the first drive while looking really strong….And then by the end of most games he has 4-5 catches total. Wish they would go out of their way to feed him the ball a bit more.
After a bit, I give USC some credit they played really hard, even though the game slipped away pretty quickly. Their RB was running strong, London is a machine and their defense must have been playing better than most the games with all the yards and points they gave up to the mediocre teams they’ve lost to.
Yea according to PFF, White and Bauer were among the top 5 performers for the defense in this game (out of 21 guys). Though Betrand and Kiser were at the bottom (19th and 20th out of 21 guys who got snaps).
This is abnormal for Kiser who is basically the 9th best performer on the defense out of 24 guys for the season. But this is pretty par for the course for Betrand who is 22nd out of 24 guys for the season.
Betrand has been starter worthy in run-defense but he’s worse than that as a tackler and as a pass-rusher. But where he is really bad is in coverage (just about the worst grade of any defensive player on any “skill”) and the problem is that he is in coverage over 52% of the time. The other problem – he is 2nd on the team in snaps.
Nice adds. Ideally Bertrand should be the MLB and then he’ll be just fine, looking forward to him make that switch for next season. Having Bertand playing the Will spot exposes him, especially late in games when his snaps are sky high. Still feeling that Liufau injury, but I guess the good news is they have all those great LBs coming in next year that should be ready soon.
Would be nice one day to have a bit of a breather game and get Kollie in the game.
From a bigger picture stand-point when was the last time we only played 1 team ranked in the top 25 at the end of the season?
2005, I think? I believe SC was the only team we played that finished ranked.
Also, in alarming news, we are now projected to play either the Fiesta or Peach Bowl against…
…
…
…
Pitt.
Pitt is scary this year, loved seeing them beat Clemson though.
I hadn’t watched Kenny Pickett play this year until yesterday. He is throwing dimes 25+ yards downfield. Joe Burrow-esque.
His PFF grade has him ranked #2 overall in pure passing and tied for 2nd with his overall grade. He’s legit.
And yet, Pitt lost to Western Michigan. The duality of college football.
Pickett is really good, which makes them fairly dangerous but Pitt will Pitt at some point here.
I kinda hope the stars align to play Michigan in a NY6. That would make for a very satisfying end to the season
We’ll know very soon how real UM is, brutal stretch coming for them.
Pitt feels different this year.
I’m pretty confident UM is not for real. Their QB play has been sub-par (at best) and against better teams that just won’t cut it. They aren’t THAT much better at every other position to make up for bad QB play.
No idea how good MSU is, but I’d expect a pretty sizeable OSU win over UM.
That is the only non-ND streak I care about.
*pat narduzzi’s heart rate intensifies*
I forgot to mention, both QB sneaks from Coan to convert were huge. ND scored touchdowns on both of those possessions.
Was that Lenzy carry the first jet sweep of the season? Sure seems like it.
Yes, it was. It was only the 2nd carry by a WR this year (Avery Davis was first).
That’s wild to me, considering how it’s been used in the past. I wonder if we’re going to get more of that moving forward now that our OL seems to gelling. I thought I remember someone speculating that we couldn’t pull off the jet sweeps in practice because of the OL and so Rees probably didn’t want to run them too much in games.
great win and even better write up! thanks for plugging away at this. I think we’ll take any win over southern cal. Personally i’ve always felt more hate towards Michigan and MSU but alas.
Light show was cool. I dont think anyone is having a hard time dealing with the success of the crossroads project LOL. I still cant find the boogey-man that half the fan base claims to find under their beds. The boogeyman being some geezer who hates kelly and nameplates and has a fetish for blue collar ways. There’s maybe a couple on twitter and i’d say half those are being sarcastic, like most folks on the internet.
What’s wrong with blue collar ways?
because it’s archaic and only the boomers like it
It’s also the bedrock of the country. You must be one of those effete elitists who can’t change a lightbulb.
Mature
Nah, not nearly as mature as dissing blue collar folks because they…..what?
You’re weird.
Yeah, tell me that next time you need a plumber, electrician, tiler, mechanic, policeman, roofer, US serviceman etc.
You started this stupid blue collar nonsense, if I recall.
As for weird, I think your uniform fetish is what’s weird. Not sure how it ties in with pill selling.
Well, I guess there’s only one thing left to do.
Stop all this weird uniform nonsense and build a college football culture and ethos around Dale the plumber from Harrisburg.
its worked pretty well for the Patriots over the years. Glad you finally see things my way.
Sure did, sadly they appear to have misplaced their shrine to Norm the electrician and have fallen on hard times lately.
Maybe Marcus Freeman stole it?
Blue Collar Ways = Circumventing the rules ?
I have no problem with Big E being a football fashionista.
Not that you probably need validation, but I really enjoy your uniform articles.
As a tangent from this conversation, can you design a few uniforms that channel a white collar ethos? 😄
Those blue collar founding fathers, like George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were all famously blacksmiths and buggy mechanics.
George Washington University doesn’t even have a football team!
Well, I went over to TOS to look for info about the start time of the Virginia game and made the mistake of reading some of the posts on their “Prestige” board. Oh my goodness, what a bunch of pompous jerksb(to put it lightly). They complained about EVERYTHING. They made fun of or belittled pretty much everything about the game, coaching staff, and administration. They have a bizarre conspiracy theory thread pinned to the top about how Jack Swarbrick is essentially responsible for the sexual assaults on the USA gymnastics team. One complained that Brock Wright never got a fair shake from Brian Kelly and the fact that he was just recently promoted from the practice squad to the full NFL roster is Brian Kelly’s fault for not developing him better. Hmm. Maybe it was because he played at the same time as Cole Kmet, Tommy Tremble, and Michael Mayer? Another bragged that he sat with his back to the big screen so he would not have to look at it. Another mentioned that he actually liked the “Here Come the Irish” song when he first heard it years ago, but had to qualify that by saying he hates it now. Even then, he was ridiculed. That was in a thread wondering why we have no original music at games – ignoring the fact that the song was written by ND ALL AMERICAN FOOTBALL PLAYER and professional song writer, musician (and all around great guy) John Scully. The negativity, arrogance, and pettiness there is astounding.
I am SO glad to have so many other, reasonable, places to get ND news and commentary.