On Saturday, Notre Dame added another blowout to their college football playoff resume by dispatching hapless Florida State 52-3. Even though the Irish handed Florida State one of their largest margins of defeat in their program’s history, it probably could have been even worse had it not been for some missed opportunities for the Irish offense. It was that kind of night for the Irish and that sound of a beating.
Rylie Mills played like a man-possessed
Notre Dame’s defense harassed Florida State quarterbacks all night long while collecting eight sacks on the night – their most since the 2019 Virginia game. Rylie Mills led the way, who had a career-high 3.0 on his own. After a slow start to the season, Mills has become absolutely dominant over the last two months. Earlier this season, clips floated surfaced each week of rough effort plays from Mills; since then, however, Mills has been playing possessed. Saturday night was a prime example of that. Florida State had no answer for Mills – even after the Irish lost Howard Cross to an ankle injury, leaving their depth on the interior of the line perilously thin.
Mills has 6.0 sacks on the season, all of which have come over the last five games. Mills had a combined 6.0 sacks in the previous two seasons combined. If he continues at this pace, reaching double-digit sack totals is not out of the question for him this year.
Total defensive dominance from the Irish
As has been the case a few times this season, Florida State had success on its first drive of the game against Al Golden’s defense. The Seminoles converted two fourth-down attempts on their way to their only three points of the night. From that point on, the Irish defense was suffocating. There were no receivers open, no running lanes for Seminole running backs, and little time for Florida State quarterbacks to throw.
On top of the eight sacks, Notre Dame picked off two passes, with Jordan Clark getting his first in a Notre Dame uniform and Luke Talich adding the cherry on top of the sundae with his first career interception – a 78-yard pick six in the final minute.
Opponents like Stanford and Georgia Tech also had early success on the Irish defense before Golden’s unit put the clamps down on them and shut them down.
The passing game felt a little off, but maybe that’s good
In a 52-3 blowout, it seems off to say that the passing game felt a little off, but in many ways, it did. Unlike previous when Riley Leonard was efficient but feasted on short passing, Leonard wasn’t overly efficient but did hit on big pass plays. Four different Notre Dame receivers recorded receptions of 20+ yards – Aneyas Williams, Jordan Faison, Jaden Greathouse, and Jayden Harrison. And it felt like there was a lot more out there for the Irish with better execution.
Leonard and the passing game is still a work in progress – it will be all year – but we continued to see Leonard look more comfortable throwing the ball downfield and, for maybe the first time this year, saw him throw a couple of balls up for grabs to receivers trusting they’d come down with. That trust was not there earlier this year. You’d have liked to see Leonard complete a higher percentage of his passes and not leave as many plays on the field, but there was still some progress made in the passing game again this week. If Notre Dame can strike a balance between the efficiency we’ve seen from Leonard in recent weeks and more downfield plays like we saw last night, this offense will be even more dangerous.
It was a slow day for Jeremiyah Love, but big plays power rushing attack
Almost no one would have predicted a Notre Dame blowout if they knew that Jeremiyah Love would be bottled up to the tune of 19 yards on 9 carries, but that’s precisely what happened. Florida State sold out to stop Love, and they did a better job than anyone else this entire season. Love still found the endzone for the ninth straight game but couldn’t get anything going. Jadarian Price, on the other hand, was able to bust a 65-yard touchdown that salvaged the Irish ground game on the night. Notre Dame ran for 201 yards on 32 attempts on the night. Without that run, they totaled 136 on 31 attempts.
Leonard added 70 yards of his own and another two rushing scores, putting him on the doorstep of Brandon Wimbush’s record for single-season touchdown runs by a Notre Dame quarterback.
Mike Norvell’s end of half sequence is an all-time LOL
Florida State is a terrible football – almost unfathomably bad for Florida State. The end of the first-half sequence for Mike Norvell is a microcosm of just how bad Florida State has been this season, though. After Notre Dame lined up to attempt a 52-yard field with its backup kicker, who has been wildly inaccurate this year, Norvell inexplicably called timeout. Freeman wisely decided against the attempt after the timeout and sent his offense out on the field for a 4th and 10 attempt. Not only did the Irish convert, but Florida State played the down with 12 men on the field and still left Jordan Faison WIDE open. Two plays later, Notre Dame scored a touchdown to make it 21-3 heading into the half.
The odds of Notre Dame making the 52-yard field goal were extremely low. Norvell’s timeout gifted Notre Dame 7 points and changed the entire dynamic of the game. Had the Irish missed, Florida State would have had the ball in position to score before the end of the half and maybe head into the locker room down 14-6, knowing they were getting the ball to start the 2nd half. Instead, it was 21-3, and the rout was on—just an all-time headscratcher from Norvell.
All eyes turn to the health of Howard Cross
While there was a ton of good in the blowout win, all eyes now turn to the health of Howard Cross. According to Marcus Freeman, the injury that knocked him out of the game was an ankle sprain, so it sounds like the Irish avoid the worst, but ankles can still be tricky – especially for defensive linemen. Cross had his ankle tapped up and his helmet on for the second half, but wisely, the Irish didn’t send him back out there with the game firmly in hand. Like Mills, Cross started the season slowly but had been on fire before his injury.
What this means for his availability this weekend is unknown, but the long-term impact is more critical for the Irish. They probably don’t need Cross to take care of Virginia at home this weekend, but having Cross on the inside of the defensive line for their likely top-25 showdown with Army in two weeks would be ideal.
NBC announcers contradicted themselves
It was refreshing not to listen to Jason Garrett for a change. Still, the NBC announcers simultaneously saying that Notre Dame needed to impress the committee and then criticize them for trying to score late was something. Notre Dame was playing with players that the casual Notre Dame fan probably didn’t know were even on the roster. They were right, though, that the Irish needed to impress the committee since Notre Dame’s opponents had not done them any favors by destroying the Irish’s strength of schedule. Florida State is a prime example of that. The Seminoles, a pre-season top-10 team, were supposed to be one of the season’s marquee matchups, not a glorified exhibition.
Notre Dame’s only opportunity for a ranked opponent over the season’s final month is Army in two weeks, and we all know how that will go even if Army enters the game undefeated and Notre Dame wins. Because it’s Army, no victory will be seen as impressive to most because the narrative will be “oh it’s just Army.” The Irish need as many resounding wins on their resumes as possible to position themselves as favorably as possible in the college football playoff rankings.
