Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com OCT. 30, 2021 25 IRISH INTERCEPTION SQUASHES EARLY MOMENTUM Bo Bauer's teammates made sure to let him hear it. The Notre Dame senior linebacker came up four yards shy of his first career pick-six in the No. 13 Irish's 31-16 win over USC. He snatched a deflected pass out of the air to end a Trojans red-zone possession and took off. Ten yards into his sprint, there was nothing but block- ers and green grass in front of him. He could smell the end zone with every pump of his arms and every stride. Until his peripheral vision alerted him to a pursuer. It was USC quarterback Kedon Slovis, who began a dead sprint when Bauer picked off the throw and never stopped running. He pulled even with Bauer, fought off a stiff arm and tackled him at the 4-yard line. Once the celebration died down, the playful ribbing began. A quarterback had chased him down, after all. Teammates couldn't resist the chance to poke fun. "Yeah, absolutely," Bauer said, laugh- ing and acknowledging it. Touchdown or not, it was a momen- tum-swinging play. USC had marched into the red zone early in the second quarter with every intent of tying the score 7-7. The Trojans had first-and-10 from Notre Dame's 14-yard line. A sack sent the drive temporarily backward and eventually led to a third-and-eight from the 12. Slovis wound up to throw, but graduate student defensive end Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa tipped the ball as he released it, sending it skyward. Bauer plucked it out of the air and hit the gas pedal. Even though his tank hit empty before the end zone, the 79- yard return still changed the second quarter's tune. Presumably, it took at least three points away from USC, if not seven. Notre Dame sputtered despite starting on the 4-yard line and settled for a field goal, but give Bauer an unof- ficial assist for those points. That's a six-point swing, at minimum. Perhaps a 10-point swing. Either way, it squashed the Trojans' best chance to tie the game. They didn't get another. USC never had possession with the opportunity to tie again and it trailed by multiple scores for most of the final three quarters. Bauer's interception ended the first of four straight USC drives that went at least 50 yards but did not reach the end zone. On the next drive, Notre Dame forced a field goal after USC entered the red zone. Following that, USC's 52- yard march ended at halftime with no field goal attempt after some poor clock management decisions. The Irish allowed USC to reach its 25- yard line on the first drive of the second half, but two passes broken up and a tackle for no gain led to a 42-yard field goal attempt that Trojans kicker Parker Lewis missed. That was bend-but-don't-break, epitomized. Notre Dame, though, calls it "RBI defense." Neither Bauer nor se- nior cornerback TaRiq Bracy revealed the words that make up the RBI acro- nym in their postgame media sessions, but Bracy summed it up as "we just don't want to give up any touchdowns and force field goals." Bauer did his part, even if it ended with him as the butt of some teammates' lighthearted jokes. If nothing else, he went nearly twice as far on this return as he did when he intercepted a two-point conversion attempt in Notre Dame's win at Virginia Tech Oct. 9. That one may as well have been a dress rehearsal. "I was just warming up the wheels," Bauer said. NOTRE DAME USES 'UNIT STRENGTH' TO OVERCOME LOSS OF KYLE HAMILTON You could hear a pin drop at Notre Dame Stadium late in the first quarter on Saturday. And with more than 77,000 in attendance to watch the Fighting Irish take on USC in a heated rivalry game that normally demands nothing but bel- lowing cacophony, that couldn't have been a good thing for the home team. It wasn't. All-American junior safety Kyle Ham- ilton squirmed on the ground clutching and clawing at his right knee. He needed the assistance of two trainers to help him to the sideline. Notre Dame fans watched, hoped. Some probably prayed. Hamilton didn't return to the game. Nobody knew in real time what that meant. ACL? MCL? How soon would he be able to return in this season, if at all? Head coach Brian Kelly answered those queries in his postgame press con- ference. He said Hamilton has a "pinched fat pad" in his knee. No structural dam- age. The prognosis is good. He might be able to play as soon as Oct. 30 against North Carolina. But for three quarters, USC GAME NOTES BY PATRICK ENGEL AND TYLER HORKA Graduate student defensive end Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa's pressure and deflected pass led to a momen- tum-changing red-zone interception early in the second quarter. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER