Notre Dame won its eighth game of the season on Saturday in much the same fashion as they have all year with a stalwart defense and an opportunistic offense. The Irish looked like they might blow the doors off of Virginia like they have so many other opponents this year, but never quite could reach full blowout status. Still, the Irish improved to 9-1 on the season and added another 20+ point win over a P4 program to their College Football Playoff resume. Surprisingly lots to unpack in this one so lets dive in.
Defense simply dominant yet again
Thank God for Al Golden and his defense because, without it, this game might have been much closer. The Irish defense is on another level right now – even when it’s missing critical contributors like Howard Cross. Virginia couldn’t do anything in regulation without the help of the officials until the Irish emptied their bench. And even then, it was a struggle for them. Notre Dame forced five first-half turnovers, including interceptions from Xavier Watts, Adon Shuler, and Leonard Moore. Rod Heard II, who had a phenomenal game, also forced a fumble.
Virginia ended up with 300 yards of offense, but only because they got 80 yards alone on a 16-play drive at the end of the game against Notre Dame’s deep reserves while they still had in starters and were using timeouts with seconds remaining while trailing by 28 at the time. As has been the case all season long, the defense played at an elite level and showed, once again, that they are the most playoff-caliber unit on the team.
Third downs and penalties (more on that) stalled the offense
While the defense was its usual, dominant self, the offense was also its old self, which isn’t necessarily good. Like the offense has all season, it was inconsistent on Saturday afternoon. After a gift possession at the UVA 25 to start the game and a gift drive-extending penalty got them in the endzone, Notre Dame went three and out the following four drives. It took all five of those first-half turnovers for the Irish to score any points offensively before the half, somewhat inflating the 28-0 halftime score.
In the second half, the offense moved the ball a bit but couldn’t finish drives against an average-at-best defense. Riley Leonard threw three touchdown passes on the day but left multiple others on the field with poor passes to the endzone. Missed kicks and penalties wiped out some points, but in an ideal world, you’d like to see a playoff-contending offense finish the last two drives of the game that ended in failed fourth-down attempts inside the redzone.
There was some good from the offense in the game—Jeremiyah Love set a new career high in rush yards, and there was some improvement in the downfield passing—but the offense was a putrid 1 for 12 on third down. A large reason why the offense was so futile on third down is that they were playing almost constantly behind because of penalty after penalty (more on this later). Ten games in, we still see momentary glimpses from the offense while never quite seeing a well-oiled operation.
Notre Dame has a major kicking problem right now.
Marcus Freeman didn’t talk about the health of Mitch Jeter in his post-game presser since the media aren’t allowed to ask about injury questions until Monday after Notre Dame releases an injury report. Still, it seems clear Jeter isn’t 100% yet. His extra points the last two weeks haven’t had a lot on them, and when it was time for field goals, Freeman sent out Zac Yoakam and Marcello Diomede – Yoakam under 50 yards and Diomede over 50 yards. Neither kick was anywhere close to being good.
With Jeter seemingly still not 100%, Notre Dame doesn’t have a viable kicking operation outside of the 30-yard range at the moment. The Irish are 2-6 on field goals anyone other than Jeter attempted. It hasn’t mattered lately and might not matter the next two weeks. But it could be huge come the postseason should the Irish find themselves in the playoffs. The first round of the college football playoffs is still over a month away, so there’s still time. However, the kicking situation is concerning nonetheless.
The ACC officials were an abomination… AGAIN
Officiating in college football is terrible overall right now, but the ACC crew in the Notre Dame—Virginia game could give everyone else this year a run for their money in terms of incompetence. They were just brutal with some terrible missed calls while also being ridiculously quick with their flag on holding calls (on both teams).
They also gifted Virginia a free possession when they didn’t know the rules on a muffed fair catch. While the rule is admittingly kind of dumb, by rule, Virginia should not have been allowed to field the muffed Notre Dame punt until the ball hit the ground because a fair catch was called. They didn’t, but the crew let the Cavaliers the ball anyway. A few plays later, Notre Dame forced a fumble. Ball don’t lie.
Then, after Notre Dame pulled off the special teams play of the year with a fake punt touchdown, the same crew that didn’t know the muffed punt rule conferenced on the field for multiple minutes before ultimately ruling that Notre Dame was in an illegal formation. Marcus Freeman erupted, and it appeared as though he was yelling, “I showed you this,” likely referencing his pregame meetings with officials when coaching staff shows the crew trick plays and things they will be calling to make sure they’re legal. After the game, explanations were still unclear on this, but OK, whatever if it was a technicality. But then again, how is it that the staff knew this intricate rule, not the muffed punt rules?
Perhaps the best example of this crew’s utter incompetence, however, came in the third quarter when they gifted Virginia a 38-yard completion to set up their only non-garbage time touchdown of the game when it was clear as day the ball was nowhere close to being completed. There is no level of football where an officiating crew should be so utterly incompetent that they rule a play like that to be complete. It’s a total clown show from the ACC. It is almost expected at this point, given that the ACC allows it to happen every week.
Aneyas Williams Emergence as 3rd Down Back
With how good Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price are, it never made sense to me why Notre Dame seemed to force the use of a third-down back earlier this season when they kept giving Devyn Ford that role. However, over the last few weeks, Aneyas Williams has taken over that role, and it is now clear to everyone why. He’s become really good in that role. Williams has been a threat as a receiver and a runner on third down, and the Irish’s lack of success on third down yesterday was far from his fault.
Notre Dame’s backfield is loaded, and it looks like the running back pipeline is well-stocked between Williams and Kreden Young, who also looked great when given opportunities this year.
Emergence of Jayden Harrison
Of the three wide receiver transfers this off-season, Jayden Harrison was projected to have the smallest impact as a receiver. Harrison was expected to be more a special teams threat. While that hasn’t materialized, Harrison has emerged as the best of the trio of transfers at receiver. His stat sheet shows three catches for 41 yards, but he had a beautiful 76-yard touchdown called back because of a legit hands-to-the-face penalty on Pat Coogan. However, Harrison found the endzone earlier in the game, hauling in some high heat from Leonard at the goal line.
While Harrison has progressed over the season, the opposite has been true for transfer Beaux Collins, who struggled again with drops against Virginia. For whatever reason, Notre Dame can’t seem to find a way to get Kris Mitchell going, even with several calls designed for him.
Xavier Watts deserves every last flower thrown his way.
I hope Notre Dame fans realize how special the run that Xavier Watts has been on the last two years has been because it’s pretty damn special. Watts had another interception and another fumble recovery on Saturday on Senior Day. He is always around the ball and always making plays. The young safeties look like they are really talented. Still, it will be impossible for this defense not to miss Watts because it’s impossible to teach the instincts he has that seemingly have him always around the football. The fact that several major publications didn’t have Watts on their All-American teams this summer is still mind-boggling.
James Rendell has figured things out
Hats off to transfer punter James Rendell and special teams coach Marty Biagi for figuring things out for the Australian import. Rendell was struggling mightily at the beginning of the season, but he has become a damn unit at punter over the last few weeks. He sent Virginia running backward with one kick that went 58 yards in the air and carried the return man back even further. He punted five times on Saturday with an average of 47.5 while pinning the Cavaliers inside the 20 four times. When the offense was struggling, Rendell helped bail them out by putting Virginia in bad field position time and time again. Considering what the punting operation looked like earlier this season, Rendell and Biagi both deserve a ton of credit.
Tony Elliott chasing points at the end was weak
Opposing coaches really are embarrassing themselves against the Irish defense these days. First, Brent Key nearly got his backup quarterback (who was his starting quarterback of the day because his starter was injured) banged up desperately trying to score garbage time points. Then, yesterday, Tony Elliott called timeouts with seconds left on the clock while trailing by 28 points and facing Notre Dame’s deep bench. Even Dino Babers was probably blushing over that end-of-game sequence.
The vibes from the UVA team, in general, were also really weak
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised with the end-of-game sequence because the entire Virginia team had bad vibes all game. Early on, running back Xavier Brown ran for a first down after the Virginia offense couldn’t move the ball at all and proceeded to try to get in Rod Heard II’s face. Heard forced a Virginia fumble two plays later, and the Irish had the ball. Karma.
In the third quarter, linebacker Trey McDonald made a nice play on Riley Leonard’s only interception of the day, and then proceeded to do a celebration dance on the field and then appeared to be taunting the crowd from the sidelines. Virginia trailed Notre Dame by 28 points at the time.
Then backup quarterback Tony Muskett gave the crowd a hush gesture after he scored Virginia’s first points of the day, cutting into Notre Dame’s lead to make it 35-7. It was just weird vibes from a .500 program in arguably one of the weakest major conferences in the country.
