Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1428488
www.BLUEANDGOLD.com NOV. 20, 2021 29 M aybe it's only fitting Notre Dame had one more hurdle added to its racecourse this week. What's another in a long line of them? The Irish were already playing with- out its All-American junior safety Kyle Hamilton for the third straight week, were entering their first game without graduate student wide receiver Av- ery Davis, weren't sure until game day which quarterback Virginia would play and had the flu sideswipe 13 players in practice this week. All in advance of the game considered to be the trickiest obstacle left on the schedule. As if that wasn't enough, graduate student linebacker Drew White arrived Friday with a 103-degree fever. Gradu- ate student defensive end Myron Ta- govailoa-Amosa popped a 101-degree temperature pregame. The bug circulat- ing the Irish clubhouse knocked out two starters and two team captains. "It was a difficult week for us," head coach Brian Kelly said. What followed was not a Michael Jordan-level flu game, but it was still plenty impressive. The final score and on-field output gave zero hints about a week's worth of snags. The No. 9 Irish beat Virginia 28-3 for their fifth straight win and 40th in a row over an unranked team. They're now 9-1 and staring an 11-win season down the barrel, with games against 3-7 foes Georgia Tech and Stanford all that remain. "They didn't think about it in the sense of, 'Wow, why all this?'" Kelly said. "They took it as, 'You know what, we're going to play our best football, we're going to play together.' They did some really good things tonight." It's worth noting up front that per- haps Notre Dame's troubles would have turned into taut tripwire if Virginia ju- nior quarterback Brennan Armstrong had played. Armstrong, the nation's leader in to- tal offense, injured his ribs in a 66-49 loss at BYU Oct. 30. Virginia kept his status intentionally under wraps and did not make a public announcement until shortly before kickoff. His replace- ment, freshman Jay Woolfolk, couldn't deliver anywhere that level of potency. Without Armstrong, Virginia's skilled receiving corps became a lesser threat. At the same time, Notre Dame has nothing to apologize for regarding Arm- strong's absence. An Irish defense with- out three of its own starters — including, you know, a potential top-five draft pick — shoved Virginia's downgraded offense in a box. The Cavaliers went three-and- out on their first two drives, gaining four total yards. They crossed Notre Dame's 40-yard line six times and scored three points. Notre Dame recorded a season- high seven sacks. "There are a lot of people on that team who can go," sophomore safety Ramon Henderson said. Among them, wide receivers Dontay- vion Wicks and Ra'Shaun Henry. Enter- ing the game, Wicks' 23.14 yards per catch led all Football Bowl Subdivision players with at least 40 receptions. His 19.9 average depth of target was tops in the FBS among qualified receivers, with Henry right behind him at 19.7. Those two high-end deep threats finished the game with three receptions for 36 yards. Offensively, Notre Dame averaged 6.8 yards per play and cleared the 400-yard mark for the third straight week. The Irish ran for 249 yards, did not allow a sack and punted only once. Yet there's a feeling this comfortable win should've been even more of a laugher. The Irish failed to convert a red-zone quarter- back sneak on fourth-and-one on their opening drive and fumbled on the Vir- ginia 5-yard line in the fourth quarter. Still, this was another week where the offense distanced itself from a futile first five games and put forth a sound perfor- mance without Davis, who was Notre Dame's most reliable receiver before his injury. Sophomore tight end Michael Mayer and senior wide receiver Braden Lenzy raised their hands to help, com- bining for 10 catches, 107 yards and two touchdowns. Lenzy also had a 30-yard run and drew a pass interference penalty. "He got himself dirty tonight, and that goes a long way to winning football games," Kelly said of Lenzy. "He was a heavy contributor for us." In a way, this game is representative of this season. It's easy to see what Notre Dame doesn't have and didn't have com- ing into the year — a top-flight quar- terback, a dominant offensive line, a consistently reliable secondary outside of Hamilton, to start — and think about how those flaws could make it vulner- able in a game like this one and overall. There's a reason winning 10 games felt like a good outcome in the preseason. The Irish, though, simply find ways to transcend all the worry and continue to find themselves in better shape down the stretch than where they started. It seems they also recognize the rarity of that. Lenzy, channeling Kelly for a mo- ment, offered that "winning is hard" during his postgame press conference. As 11-1 feels more inevitable than pos- sible, one wonders where it might lead. The College Football Playoff remains a long shot, but to be creeping closer to consideration given the speed bumps and shortcomings is a fine place for now. "We're better than we were in Sep- tember and October," Kelly said. "We're playing young players who are much more mature. We're ascending." ✦ ENGEL'S ANGLE PATRICK ENGEL Patrick Engel has been a writer for Blue & Gold Illustrated since March 2020. He can be reached at pengel@blueandgold.com Brian Kelly and the Fighting Irish won their 40th straight game against an unranked opponent. PHOTO BY KEITH LUCAS/SIDELINE MEDIA Notre Dame Can See 11-1 On The Horizon