Unfortunately Jude left some time ago and Tex is busy, so you’re stuck with me.  In this piece, I want to look at a couple of things that are making me feel pretty good about the Cotton Bowl game.  First, it’s being played in a dome, so we won’t be contending with hurricane-force winds and rain, which we did when we played Clemson in Death Valley but not in the Death Valley in Baton Rouge.  Second, it’s being played at 4:00 p.m. EST, so we can get a nice nap in before kickoff and have plenty o’ energy for the ‘Bama game later in the evening.

Clemson gets a huge amount of boost from its insanely productive rushing attack.  Clemson is averaging — AVERAGING — SIX POINT SEVEN FIVE YARDS PER CARRY.  That’s a lunatic amount of yards per carry and means, for you Arts and Letters majors out there, that Clemson will put themselves in very favorable gain situations, wear the opposing D-line down fast, and make you load up the box to even have a chance.  When you do that, their freshman quarterback, who stands 8’7″ with flowing locks of gold and has a quicker release than Meg Ryan’s character in Harry Met Sally, will flense your secondary like a Japanese “scientist” on an Arctic cruise.

Now, Clemson does have, legitimately, a very good offensive line and a good stable of backs to move the ball between them.  That’s the problem we face on the 29th.  But if you’re impressed by their gaudy stats, let’s deflate that balloon a little bit.  Here’s one talking-point: Clemson ran for 492 yards on 33 carries against Louisville.  That’s an average of 13.3 yards per carry.  Read that again.  That’s an average of 13.3 yards per carry.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Louisville’s defensive “coordinator” was none other than the Scribe of the Simple System, Brian “I put the Gore in Gory Defensive Play” VanGorder.  Clemson also hung 471 rushing yards on Wake Forest, so there’s that.

When Clemson played a legit rush defense, such as therefor the Iraq, or Texas A&M, or Boston College, or North Carolina State, they became mortal.  Against TA&M, they ran for 115.  Against North Carolina State, just 91.  Against BC, 129.  Point is, Clemson’s running game is not all-conquering.

Look, when you analyze Clemson, it’s hard to find flaws.  They have one in the secondary, and it’s one that aligns perfectly with ND’s strength, but you don’t get into the CFP as a one-dimensional team, unless you’re Oklahoma.

The post Finding Flaws in a Diamond: Clemson’s Rushing Offense appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

If you sat through the interminable Fox pregame show before the B1G championship, you were subjected to a host’s visible revulsion to your undefeated Fighting Irish being somehow in the mix for a CFP spot.  His ire arose from the fact that Notre Dame was not playing in a conference championship.  Cheeseburger Saturday.

“Why,” goes my paraphrase of his passion, “should Notre Dame get a look at a playoff spot when they’re not on the field playing against Pitt or Northwestern?”  If you sat on public transportation or took your place in the corporate hive on Monday, no doubt you were subjected to something similar from some co-worker from a two-loss school.  Years ago, the “problem” was that Notre Dame had descended into irrelevance.  Today, it’s that the ascent came without a thirteenth game.

Or that Florida State and Stanford and Virginia Tech were actually really awful when we played them but not when the season started — except for Michigan, who were actually awful when we played them, but that was okay for them because they’re Michigan men and they got a lot better until they played Ohio State but that’s okay too because Ohio State is a playoff-caliber team except for that game against Purdue.  See, if you apply college football “logic” to your Notre Dame experience, everything begins to make sense.

Let’s take a look at a team like, well, like Clemson.  Very talented team, they’re in the South, they’re coached by a guy named “Dabo,” and they’re in a conference.  That ticks all the boxes for the college football gods.  Clemson played and defeated eight conference opponents (Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Wake Forest, NC State, Louisville, Boston College, duke) from the ACC.  Clemson played and defeated South Carolina, an out-of-conference foe that finished 7-5, and Texas A&M, an out-of-conference foe that finished 8-4.  Clemson played and defeated Pitt, an in-conference foe that finished 7-5 in the regular season.  Clemson also played Furman and Georgia Southern.  Two teams — Boston College and North Carolina State — were ranked — 17 and 16, respectively.

Notre Dame’s 12-0 record is far better than Clemson’s 13-0.  Here’s why:  Notre Dame played and beat four ranked opponents — Michigan (#14), Stanford (#7), Virginia Tech (#24), Syracuse (#12).  Notre Dame played and defeated five ACC teams, two PAC-12 teams, two B1G teams, one MAC team, one AAC team, and one SEC team.

The difference, thus, between Clemson and Notre Dame is that Notre Dame is in the North, is coached by a guy named “Brian,” and is independent.  That’s the only thing that makes sense. I mean, those are the only differences.

But they’re not.  They only meaningful difference is Clemson’s thirteenth game, against Furman.  Furman is a college, true, but it’s an FCS-school, which is meaningful in that IT’S NOT A DIVISION ONE SCHOOL GET OFF MY LAWN.  Playing Furman is the equivalent of playing Furman.  In any sport.  I’d love to think that the tens of you reading this post will somehow result in it’s becoming bulletin board material for the Notre Dame v Furman national championship in 75 years, but that’s not likely because there won’t be tackle football in 75 years and Furman won’t be competing for the national championship in 75 years.  No one will.  The post-apocalyptic, nuclear winter will have taken care of that.

The reality is that Notre Dame does and always should play a schedule that gets it in the playoffs.  Or the round of sixteen.  Or whatever the future holds.  An undefeated Notre Dame team should be a lock on a playoff berth.  A one-loss Notre Dame could be, depending on what else is going on around them.  But until no one else is playing FCS-free schedules, Notre Dame’s schedule should not be the problem.

The post Why Nobody Will Cotton to Notre Dame appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

With the Fighting Irish 11-0 and third in the CFP polls heading into the game, the Trojans had two choices: lay down or stand up.  They chose the latter.  Whether they played for pride or their beleaguered head coach, they played hard.  Whether it was their oddly unathletic-looking quarterback, JT Daniels, or any of their freaky-good receivers, e.g. Amon-Ra St. Brown or Michael Pittman, Jr., USC’s players stepped up, especially in a near perfect first half that saw Notre Dame staring down its first double-digit deficit of the season.

And yet, for all of Daniels’ bazillion completions, for all of Ian Book’s misfires, for all of Dexter Williams’ inability to find a lane, Notre Dame won.  Ian Book erased the aforementioned 10-0 deficit when he connected with Chris Finke on a twenty-four yard touchdown pass.  And despite the aforementioned misfires, all of which seemed to come in the jittery jangle of the first quarter’s onslaught, Book finished the day with 352 passing yards, two touchdowns and one interception. His 352 yards were his highest total for the season.  His previous high, 343, came against Northwestern.  His 56.4 completion percentage was his lowest for the season.  His previous low, 62.2%, came against Syracuse.

If Book was bad — and he was not — the defense was, again, there to save the day.  After surviving $C’s first half onslaught, Notre Dame’s defense kept the ball between the twenties for the rest of the game, more or less.  It was very much a performance, not so much of “bend but don’t break” as it was of “rope-a-dope” in which the Irish absorbed Troy’s blows, ultimately exhausting their options.  They held the Trojans scoreless in the third quarter and gave up the only points of the second half with 48 seconds left.

Speaking of defense, $C’s was fired up and flooded the front to stymie ND’s O-line, bother Book, and keep the Irish backs mostly contained.  Mostly.  When Notre Dame needed points, Dexter Williams was there, on a 52-yard sweep.  Credit the offensive line, the left side, whose pulling drew the linebackers just enough to put Williams in space as he darted to their side, away from their movement.  When Notre Dame needed points, Toni Jones, Jr. was there, on a 51-yard pass and run into a yawning void. A deft cut and a great Boykin block sealed the deal.  Notre Dame’s remaining three points came from a 46 yard Justin Yoon field goal.  Yoon finishes the regular season with more points scored than Arike Ogunbowale.

The Irish should finish third and make their first playoff appearance in program history.  They should.  A lot could happen between now and Tuesday and next Tuesday, after Alabama and Georgia play in the SEC championship and Clemson and Pitt (!) play in the ACC championship.  Regardless, they’ve done their part.  Winning, as ever, is hard.

The post Irish Finish Regular Season Perfect 12-0 appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Except no one with an ounce of sense cared.  Notre Dame’s performance over Syracuse’s super-prolific offense was so complete that any argument that Notre Dame did not belong in the top four was exposed as the sad ranting of a scorned bro put from the klerb.  Syracuse were the twelfth-ranked team, the fourteenth-ranked offense, and averaged 44 points per game.

And Notre Dame took them apart.  Physically.  They knocked ‘Cuse’s QB, Eric “I’m Not Tony” Dungey, out of the game in the first quarter, Alohi Gilman had his way — he just abused #80 on an interception in the second quarter, and Julian Okwara did such things to Syracuse’s left tackle, Cody Conway, Caligula would have blushed.  In all, Notre Dame sacked Syracuse’s quarterback seven times.

The country’s twelfth-best offense didn’t manage a point until ten seconds left.  In the game.  Here’s how their possessions went: punt, interception (Jalen Elliott), punt, interception (Gilman), punt, interception (Gilman again), punt, punt, punt, punt, missed field goal (from twenty-three years) (I mean honestly), field goal.  This, from a team that passed for 192 yards and ran for 326 against Louisville — I know — the week before.

This, from a team that gave Clemson all it could handle in a 23-27 away loss in week five.  Against Notre Dame, Syracuse were limited to 115 passing yards and just 119 yards on the ground.  Their O-line was simply no match for Okwara, Tillery, Tranquill, et al.  To a Notre Dame fan of a certain age, it was a qualitative difference reminiscent of the 2012 national championship game, when our boys just couldn’t compete against wave after wave of stronger, better, faster, and longer Alabama defenders.

Ian Book ran the offense well, but there were some problems.  His O-line allowed two sacks and had more false starts than Trump’s Infrastructure Week.  Early in the game, they left points on the table like emptied trays of crabmeat ravigote and champagne glasses after Friday lunch at Galatoire’s.  Still, he threw for 292 yards and two touchdowns.  Chase Claypool caught six passes for ninety-eight yards and a score, and Miles Boykin caught seven for seventy-six yards.  Alizé Mack and Cole Kmet made big catches to exploit what defense Syracuse could manage.

Syracuse defenders will make a lot of Dungey’s absence.  But Notre Dame was man-handling his offense before he went out.  Look at their first three drives, all under Dungey.  Punt, punt, interception.  Jalen Elliott picked off the drive’s first pass — its first play — with such solidity it was as though his blue or black helmet and shirt and his pinstripe pants turned the color of frost-tinged grass.  Dungey never saw him.  Danny DeVito, Dungey’s second, had put in serviceable performances before.

The Irish came into the weekend ranked third in the country and should either stay there or move up to second, after Clemson didn’t exactly dominate Duke the way you’d expect — they “only” won 35-6.  At home.  To the unranked, 7-4 Blue Devils.  Regardless, Notre Dame stamped its ticket, again, into the playoffs and are a win against a dumpster fire program in South Central away from locking up the program’s first CFP appearance.

The post Perfect in Pinstripes, Notre Dame Squeezes Syracuse, 36-3 appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Despite the years, the games shared a meaningful connection. Both were won by a starting backup quarterback. In 1993, Kevin McDougal had been destined to finish his senior year backing up the freshman wunderkind, Ron Powlus.  In 2018, Brandon Wimbush came back from exile after Ian Book’s rib injury against Northwestern.

Wimbush was more than serviceable on Saturday night.  He guided a productive offense that punished the ‘Noles’ defense to the tune of 495 total yards.  Coach Kelly has been effusive in his praise for Wimbush’s attitude following his benching.  The student-athlete demonstrated why, playing as though he hadn’t missed a snap.

In a way, there’s criticism there.  Kelly’s decision to bench Wimbush after a 3-0 start in favor of Ian Book was considered the right, if a bold, move.  Book’s record and individual statistics, which include a nation-leading passing percentage, have validated it. With Wimbush under center on Saturday, Notre Dame’s playbook shortened again.

The Seminole defense helped.  Perhaps a lot.  Coming into the game, their defense was ranked eleventh overall, allowing just 111.1 yards per game.  The week before, though, against North Carolina they began to crack and Notre Dame exploited those cracks to tear whatever they had built to the ground.  Dexter Williams, in his senior farewell, battered the ‘Noles for two touchdowns and two hundred two yards on twenty carries.  Wimbush added twelve runs for sixty-eight yards.  Jafar Armstrong and Phil Jurkovec were able the stable of ball carriers who helped Notre Dame run up three hundred and sixty-five rushing yards.

In the air, Wimbush showed why he won the starting job in August and why he lost it in September.  His two interceptions were bad.  His three touchdowns were good.  His receivers — Mack and Boykin in particular — were just better than the Seminole defenders.  Book had been the key to unlocking their potential.  With him under center, the offense calls twelve or so more passing plays.  With Wimbush, the offense is run-centric.

The Irish defense has been the constant.  Whether it was Julian Love returning a blocked PAT for a safety or the team’s ten quarterback hurries, Florida State was under attack all night. Ranked twenty-five overall, their next opponent should be a far sterner test.

It’s hard not to draw a connection to 1993.  After lighting the number one, it took just under a week to snuff it out when Boston College came to town.  Many of you may remember that weekend more for Morrissey Manor’s victory in the interhall football championship to cap an undefeated season, but it was also the weekend of the stunning loss to the unranked Eagles.  Taking on the country’s fourteenth-best offense in Syracuse in Yankee Stadium, the upset alert is blinking.

If Notre Dame wins and manages to remain undefeated at season’s end, Brandon Wimbush’s contributions and his acceptance of his role, his professionalism, will be bright spots in a constellation of them.

The post Perfect 10: Notre Dame Defeats Florida State, 42-13 appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Such was the case on Saturday, when Notre Dame met the United States Naval Academy in San Diego.  The moment Miles Boykin became separated from the football in the game’s opening play, a nice thirteen yard pass from Ian Book, I experienced a feeling of horror and dread I reserve for the Navy game’s fourth quarter.  You know the one, where Notre Dame is driving, down by four and you just know something awful is going to happen.

The mood passed, thanks to Notre Dame’s defense and a Navy offense that was as limited as North Carolina basketball player forced to take a test by himself.  Navy didn’t score a point in the game’s first half.  After recovering the Boykin fumble — a turnover that resulted in exile so swift that Stalin would have blushed — Navy failed to convert on fourth down.  Their next four possessions resulted in punts and the half was over.  This gave the CBS crew, that consisted of Aaron Taylor — who apparently ran an illicit pizza scam out of Flanner Hall — Rick Neuheisel and some other guy who struggled to keep the verbal monkeys in the barrel of sanity, ample opportunity to blather.  Say what you want about the NBC crew, but CBS clearly reserves its talent for the SEC game o’ the day.

CBS also hates Halloween, which the Disney/ESPN/ABC family of networks now owns forever.

Back to the game.  Notre Dame’s defense was the star of the first half.  Forcing Ken Noodleroni to punt is an accomplishment.  To stuff Navy on their first drive and then force them go punt-punt-punt-punt-end-of-half is extraordinary. Then, to put your offense on the good side of the “punt-for-touchdown” trade, you increase your win probability by a lot.

And that’s just what the Irish did.  Scoring more points in the first half than they did all game last year, Notre Dame put itself in a position to survive a shaky start to the second.  Book, the first half Ian Book, was very effective at exploiting Notre Dame’s size and speed advantage.  Whether it was a run game fueled by the return of Jafar or the power of Dexter Williams or a passing game that distributed the ball among a legion of receivers, the Irish were mostly unstoppable.  Book would finish the game with 330 yards through the air, two touchdowns and one pick.

That Notre Dame won by such a margin is a credit to Clark Lea’s game plan and the roster’s depth.  Specifically, the defense survived the loss of Drue Tranquill and everyone survived the absence of Justin Yoon.  His understudy, Jonathan Doerer everyone, missed his first PAT since high school, but was perfect from thence forward, going 5/6 and hitting a thirty yard field goal.  Tranquill got his ankle rolled up and was carted off.  Per Coach Kelly after the game, Tranquill was ambulating without a boot and may not miss a game.

Navy adjusted to the Irish defense and tore off opening drives of seventy plus yards each, but even though they scored, even though some bad things happened, the result was never really in doubt.  On the point of Notre Dame’s second half defense, Coach Kelly blamed himself and the staff for changing from man coverage to zone.

Notre Dame scored enough though — seventeen second half points.  Now 8-0, they face the Wildcats of Northwestern in Chicago at 6:15 pm, a game that no one will watch once LSU kicks off at 7:00 pm against Alabama.  Tuesday, the Irish learn what the selection committee thinks of their record and schedule to date.

Northwestern knocked off ranked Wisconsin on Saturday and they beat Purdue and narrowly lost to Michigan.  They also narrowly beat Rutgers and Rutgers is as bad as week old crab salad.  Notre Dame should win comfortably, but it’s Northwestern and many of you won’t know how to balance your dinner reservation with the late kick.  Who knows, though, maybe we’ll get an appearance by midget zombies or stoned Eminem.  Come on ESPN. You can do it.

The post Yo ho 8-0: Notre Dame Sails in San Diego appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

In an effort to make the experience less bad for you, I thought it would be helpful to crack open my weather beaten copy of Spindrift and give you, our loyal reader, a glossary of sorts.  Let’s get underway:

abaft – a mispronunciation of “a raft” and came into popular parlance when Lord Nelson caught a cold at Aboukir Bay.

bumpkin – someone from West Lafayette.  Not to be confused with a “blumpkin.”

clew – what a Brian VanGorder defense generally lacks.

deadeye – Ian Book reading an intermediate route.

escutcheon – the part of the stern of the ship where the name goes unless its a Notre Dame ship because we don’t use names duh.

frap – to draw a sail tight. Just don’t omit the “r.”

grapnel – a small anchor Navy offensive linemen use to hold Notre Dame players without penalty or consequence.

holystone – the little beads on a rosary.  You are welcome.

inboard – part of the running game, i.e. “we’re gonna go inboard and outboard!”

jack-block – a type of block in which the opposing player is hit in the knee with a roll of quarters.

kedge – a type of block in which a Navy player kicks his opponent in the knee.

leech – a wacky coach

moonraker – an arcing pass in which the apex of the trajectory is greater than sixty feet.

oakum – somebody that we used to know.

poop – what one does after Navy goes ahead by a score.

quarterdeck – where the quarterback stands to throw.

rowlock – a maneuver in which two Navy players lock arms and strike an opponents knees.

scuttlebutt – a type of offensive move in which the ball-carrier advances himself on his posterior.

tranship – a truck that identifies as a ship.

wheelhouse – for Navy, illegal blocks.

yawl – all of you.

I hope you get a chance to use some or all of these words tonight at your game watch or tailgater. Enjoy. Go Irish.

The post Nautical Knowledge: Surviving Navy appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Here are the top plays.  Somehow they found more than one.

Pitt is a team that combines Purdue-level talent with an SEC-worthy sense of entitlement.  They brought a defense that gives cheesecloth a good name to South Bend, but something happened as they ran out of the visitor’s maze.  They transmogrified.  They sacked Ian Book a billion times, gave ND’s usually competent offensive line fits, and held the running game to 80 yards, or just about fourteen yards fewer than Dexter Williams’ longest run against Virginia Tech.

Notre Dame could do nothing to solve Pitt’s corner blitzes.  Whatever genius there had been in the blocking, in the play-calling, or whatever was there, was gone.  There’s a good chance the players were exhausted from a week of beating Virginia Tech, listening to Enter Sandman, and then having to study for mid-terms.  There’s a good chance the coaches and players were sluggish from an awkward early-afternoon kickoff.  Whatever it was, the Irish of games one through six didn’t show up until the fourth quarter.

Pitt scored a touchdown in the first quarter on its first possession, after a hot mess of a Notre Dame possession in which Ian Book made a great case to sit his ass down in favor of Brandon Wimbush.  He was awful.  Then Pitt marched down the field for an eighty-eight yard drive and score.  You knew it was “that” game at that very moment.  Evening passed, morning came. It was the second quarter.

Justin Yoon did his thing in the second quarter, hitting FG’s from twenty and forty-something yards.  Then it was half time and it was just gut-churning listening to Flutie and, frankly, anything.  My dog started to aggravate me.  Then Pitt ran the opening kick for a touchdown to make it 14-6 and the wheels were off the crazy train.

Then, inexplicably, Pitt decided to help us put the wheels back on.  The second half saw them miss not one, but two — two! — field goals and, then, somehow trailing 19-14, they tried the dumbest fake punt in the history of dumb fake punts.  This was freshman year on South Padre Island-level bad decision making.  With about four minutes to go, and trailing, the Panther sent some guy who turned out to be Jeff George, Jr. out to “punt.”  Now, I am no super spy, but if your regular punter’s name is Nick Papagiorgio and you put that name on his shirt, you might want to do better than run no name Nelson out there to “punt.”  It ended badly, and the Irish won.

Notwithstanding any of that, or his two interceptions, Ian Book woke up Sunday with the highest passing percentage — 75.2 — despite his worst performance as a starter.  Notwithstanding any of that, Notre Dame did something that neither Auburn, West Virginia, Penn State, nor Miami could do: beat an unranked team.  Notwithstanding any of that, all we have to do is beat Navy on the road.

The post Pitt Problem? Notre Dame Survives 19-14 appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

In their biggest game since the last one, the Fighting Irish pummeled the then twenty-fourth-ranked Virginia Tech Hokies, 45-23.  The match had been pitched as a test of Brian Kelly’s boys’ ability to win an important game away from the friendly confines between the mums.  If crushing a twenty-fourth-ranked team before sixty-seven thousand somewhere in the rural South can exorcise the demons of last season’s self-immolation on South Beach, then Dexter Williams is Father Karras.  ABC’s Kirk Herbstreit said the Notre Dame back ran with “desperation,” to exorcise the demons that kept him from the field for the season’s first four games.  Whatever the motivation, he punished the Hokie D to the tune of 178 yards and 3 touchdowns, one of which was a 97-yard dash and the longest score in their stadium’s history.

There were minutes in the second quarter, long minutes in which the Irish defense was unable to stop the Hokie’s offense between the thirties, and a palpable sense of dread rose across Notre Dame nation.  With the Irish leading on the strength of a solid opening drive for a touchdown and then a field goal from Justin Yoon, now the highest scorer in Irish history, the Hokies started picking away with field goals of their own.  Ian Book stumbled.  An all-too-familiar story was unfolding.

But then Julian Love scored on a scoop and score off a Ryan Willis fumble on a Khalid Kareem sack.  Put aside the Hokie touchdown that followed to end the half.  Notre Dame took a 17-16 lead into the locker room.  That locker room may as well have been a forge, for the players who came out were steeled.  The Hokies were not ready.

After a Tech punt that pinned Notre Dame deep, Dexter Williams went the length of the field in two carries, the first of which went for negative two yards.  On the next possession, Ian Book connected with Miles Boykin for a forty yard score.  Boykin was a favorite target who notched 117 yards and two touchdowns.  Virginia Tech would score in the third quarter.  In the second half, Notre Dame outscored their opponent 28-7.

By Sunday evening, Notre Dame was ranked fifth in the country, behind Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, and Clemson.  By Sunday evening, Notre Dame was squarely in the mix for the playoffs, given the likelihood of running the table.  By Sunday evening, Sandman had come and gone.  His sand had nothing on Irish steel.

The post Six and Oh! Mettle Beats Metal appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

Football is often referred to as “a game of two halves.” To Stanford’s detriment, Notre Dame took their second half away. Consider these tidbits: Stanford ran just seven plays in the game’s fourth quarter, gained just 31 yards in the half, managed 1.6 yards per play, and scored just three points.  Stanford ran just 55 plays in the entire game.  For an Irish squad rightly criticized for not finishing, Notre Dame combined a suffocating, vicious defense with fourteen fourth quarter points.  Stanford never had a chance.

Along with the Legends trophy, Stanford left Bryce Love’s Heisman hopes in South Bend. Aside from a first quarter touchdown romp of thirty-nine yards, Love was neutered by Clark Lea’s charges and held to just 73 yards on 17 carries.  Notre Dame exploited Stanford’s shaky offensive line to the tune of five sacks, of which Jerry Tillery collected four, and nine tackles-for-loss.

The Irish defense, the team’s consistent strength throughout the first five games, elevated itself. Tillery’s performance was singular, equaling the individual game performances of former greats and Nyles Morgan’s entire 2016 sack production. Speaking of 2016, this year’s defense is one sack shy of equaling that season’s tally of fourteen.

On offense, Ian Book conducted a vivisection of Stanford’s defense.  Dexter Williams returned to the field and took his first touch to the house. He would carry the ball 21 times for 161 yards and one score. The Irish ran for a total of 272 yards. Through the air, Book was 24 for 33, four touchdowns, and 278 yards.  Miles Boykin caught 11 of those passes, one for a score, thereby proving the old football adage that “you should probably cover Miles Boykin.”  Nine other receivers caught balls as Book showed a great ability to extend plays with his feet to allow his guys to find the open spaces — even if those spaces existed for mere breaths of time.

All of the rivalry trophies are now belong to us.  That, in itself, is an accomplishment but one that now seems not enough, given this team’s potential.  Of the five wins, three (Michigan, Wake Forest, Stanford) are noteworthy.  Michigan, a team now ranked fifteenth in the country, fell to Brandon Wimbush’s best performance.  Wake Forest allowed Notre Dame and Ian Book complete access to the playbook and let Irish fans experience a runaway win for once.  Stanford put Notre Dame squarely in the post season conversation.  Ranked sixth in the AP poll, an upward move of two spots, and with games against Virginia Tech and Syracuse looming as the most difficult remaining, an undefeated season is, on paper, a statistical likelihood.  Performances like those on Saturday against Stanford should make Notre Dame a lock on the playoffs.

The post The Tree Falls: Notre Dame Savages Stanford appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.