Notre Dame improved to 4-0 with a sloppy 31-15 win over
Syracuse last Saturday night. The Fighting Irish overcame five turnovers and
actually won pretty handily despite all of the miscues. The fact that Notre
Dame was able to still win by 16 points after committing five turnovers speaks
volumes for how much more talent the Irish were and how well they executed
their offensive and defensive game plans. If the Irish didn’t turn the ball
over multiple times, then this score would have been a much bigger margin of victory.
The obvious negative to the game offensively were the
careless mistakes that resulted in the five turnovers. Everett Golson was
responsible for four of those turnovers by throwing two interceptions and
fumbling twice. Both interceptions were poor decisions and throws, while one
fumble was due to carrying the ball too loosely and the other was a botched attempt
at spiking the ball. I’ll give Golson a break on the fumble while attempting to
spike the ball because it was a fluky play, but the other three turnovers need
to be corrected before Stanford comes to South Bend this Saturday. Hopefully,
Golson and the Irish got their turnovers out of the way and will be more
careful going forward.
Other than the turnovers, the Irish moved the ball
tremendously well against the Orange. Notre Dame racked up 523 yards of total
offense, with 362 yards passing and 161 yards rushing. The Orange tried to
blitz Golson all night, so Brian Kelly called numerous screens and short passes
that led to Golson completing 25 consecutive passes at one point, and 32 of 39
passes overall. Golson connected on four touchdowns to Will Fuller (2), Corey
Robinson, and Torii Hunter Jr. Both Fuller and Robinson had huge nights with
119 yards and 91 yards respectively, and it was nice to see Torii Hunter Jr.
get involved in the offense after returning from an injury. The play of the
game was probably a 72-yard touchdown strike from Golson to Fuller on a play
action pass. Golson hit Fuller in-stride and gave the Irish a 14-0 lead. The
long touchdown was the first play of the drive immediately following an 11-play,
95-yard touchdown drive earlier in the second quarter. After a sluggish start,
the Irish would maintain at least a two-score lead throughout the rest of the
night. While the passing game was clicking, the rushing attack was just okay.
Notre Dame did manage to gain 161 yards on 41 carries, but there weren’t many
big holes opened up to result in big gains. Greg Bryant lead the way with 55
yards, but the only rushing attempt to exceed 15 yards was a 22-yard scamper by
Golson that resulted in a fumble. I give Brian Kelly credit for committing to
the run and having a balanced attack (41 runs, 39 passes), but Notre Dame still
needs to work on the running game if they want to win some bigger games later
in the year. Overall, it was a good night for the Irish offensively, but there
are certainly areas in which they can improve.
Considering that Syracuse had a plus-four turnover margin,
it is pretty impressive that Notre Dame only gave up 15 points. Then when you
take into account that six of those points came from a pick-six, the Irish
defense only allowed nine points despite being put in some bad situations by
the Notre Dame offense. I thought Notre
Dame did a great job slowing down Syracuse’s running game by holding the Orange
to 135 yards on 30 carries. If you take out a 42 yard run by Riley Dixon, then
the Orange only averaged 3.2 yards per carry. Notre Dame also did an
outstanding job making sure that quarterback Terrel Hunt wouldn’t kill them
with his legs. Hunt had just 26 yards on seven carries after coming off of a
156 yard performance the previous week. Notre Dame did allow Hunt to throw for
294 yards on 38 passing attempts, but most of that production was due in large
part to Notre Dame having a big lead that forced Syracuse to throw more often
than they would like. Once again, Jaylon Smith and Joe Schmidt led the defense
with nine and seven tackles respectively. Sheldon Day also had a good night
with two tackles for loss and five total tackles. Matthias Farley added five
tackles and came away with the lone turnover for the Irish with an interception
in the third quarter that would set up a touchdown drive to give the Irish a
commanding 21-3 lead. Notre Dame’s defense played well for the fourth straight
week and they have allowed just 11.5 points per game this season. That number
is good for the fourth best scoring defense in the nation, which is impressive
given how inexperienced the defense is as a whole. However, there is still room
for improvement because Notre Dame hasn’t played a great offense yet, so we’ll see
how they respond versus tougher opponents as the season progresses.
-Eric Tichelbaut
Twitter: @etichel07
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