Inside a temple to our nation’s new gods, athletics and media, the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame defeated the Sun Devils of Arizona State University 37-34. In knocking off a nationally-ranked squad, the Irish gave themselves a critical win going into a bye week and, perhaps, some encouraging signs for the season’s second half. While the offense mostly did its part, it was the Notre Dame defense that doused the blazing Sun Devil offense to make it a game and, ultimately, a win.
Coming into this fifth iteration of the Shamrock Series, in which the Irish moved to 5-0, ASU had one of the more prolific offenses and was fresh on the heels of a sixty plus point shellacking of the USC Trojans. Notre Dame, on the other hand, was a team fighting for leadership on the field and in the locker-room, fighting turnovers, fighting to get the other team off the field, and fighting a withering storm of, at times, personal and vitriolic, criticism from its own fans. While last night’s win may not have been a strategic victory on all fronts, the case can be made that some of the fights were won inside the dome of decadence in Arlington.
Prince Shembo, whom I picked as the player to watch this season on defense, held a pass-rush clinic, netting three sacks against a very mobile, agile quarterback in ASU’s Taylor Kelly. The Irish D, overall, had six sacks and essentially shut down the Sun Devils’ running game, giving up only 65 yards. Notre Dame was also able to come up with turnovers at critical times, notably a Dan Fox interception and touchdown that should have iced the game at 37-27, with the PAT for you readers paying overly-close attention, and should have made the remaining minute sixteen a relaxing moment to finish your vodka and soda with limes.
But, it wasn’t, for as really good as the defense looked on most plays, ASU’s final drive was positively baffling. Starting on their own 25 with 1:08 on the clock, the Sun Devils moved down the field and into the endzone in under one minute and just seven plays, to make the score 37-34. That put the onus of victory on the hands team, and they and TJ Jones were up to the challenge.
In fact, outside of Kyle Brindza’s first FG attempt, which struck and badly injured a shopper in the stadium’s Victoria’s Secret, and a “punt” from Alex Wulfeck that Gisele Bundchen thought was kicked by a girl, the case can be made that ND’s special teams rose to the occasion in Arlington. Brindza connected from 53, to grab a host of superlative accolades, and had a 53-yard punt downed at the 1, which set up Dan Fox’s interception one play later.
On offense, Tommy Rees and the boys did enough to get the win. Tommy’s 7.3 yards per attempt was better against the Sun Devils than either Stanford or Wisconsin. TJ Jones was terrific and turned in eight catches for 135 yards and the aforementioned on-side kick recovery. Davaris Daniels had a quiet night, as did the backs, though local hero Cam McDaniel turned Irish legend, if you missed those bajillion remarks last night, put in another labor of lumber, accumulating 82 yards on 15 carries. Overall, it was enough to get the W.
So, what made the difference? A noticeably “better” defense? A competent offense that got the necessary first downs and only gave the ball away once? I think, given the circumstances, that the case can be made that, to answer the age-old question, it was, in fact, the shoes.
Hating Hurricanes Since 1990.
Bayou Irish is a Jersey boy and Double Domer who fell under New Orleans' spell in 1995. He's been through Katrina and fourteen years in the Coast Guard, so we cut him some slack, mostly in the form of HLS-subsidized sazeracs. But, when he's not face down on the bar and communing with the ghosts of Faulkner and Capote at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, he's our man in SEC-land, doing his best to convince everyone around him that Graduation Success Rate is a better indicator of success than the number of MNC's won in the last five years.
- Finding Flaws in a Diamond: Clemson’s Rushing Offense - December 17, 2018
- Why Nobody Will Cotton to Notre Dame - December 3, 2018
- Irish Finish Regular Season Perfect 12-0 - November 26, 2018
One name: Jaylon Smith. Absolutely incredible. He was al over he yet infigd man plays disrupting routes, becoming anIrsh fooball player. Thisi s a damn good sign. We are not a BCS team here byanymeanh but playing like we did last nigh, Cottn,Champs, etc bowl s not unfathomable
Holy crap, That was bad wasnt it? IOS 7 makes typing fast on forms atrocious…meant to say ‘he was all over the field’
Since it’s a Bayou Irish article, I prefer to think of your first post as a way to speak Bayou’s first language.
Hi TimsNeighbor. Thanks for reading. I gave up iOs as a first language altogether, regardless of the version.
Sorry. I actually meant it as bayou/Louisiana language joke. Now I read you’re from jersey. As my wife always reminds me, I’m not very good at jokes.
Hey Trey: not bad at all. I knew exactly what you meant. Jaylon had a great game, but I’m not ready to anoint him the new Manti. I think ASU’s protection scheme may have had something to do with it, so let’s see what happens against USC. But wow, what a game he had!
Not that I’m faulting him, because presence of mind goes out the window at times like those, but if Dan Fox kneels on the interception the game is over. ASU only had one timeout and couldn’t stop ND from killing the remaining seventy-six seconds.
Hi Michiana Comedy. Thanks for reading and commenting! I can’t fault Dan for scoring. At all. There was too much time on the clock for you not to grab the six points. You can’t make ASU work for those seven points??
Yeah, kneeling is technically the smarter move, but I’m always fine with taking the points. It’s a good problem to have.
Hi Tex. Thanks for reading and for commenting. Shouldn’t you be drunj?
After last night, I think I hit enough drunj to last me for the rest of the year.
Great win for the Irish. Still trying to recover from my ill advised decisions on Saturday. Impressed with the win and with part of Jerry World. The screen was cool, but just too damn big. Audio system sucked. Layout sucked too. From out seats the band was hard to hear and we were just above them.