Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1481872
28 OCT. 22, 2022 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED Notre Dame had 10:20 left to respond to a 43-yard field goal that gave Stan- ford a 16-14 lead. The Irish had all three of their timeouts. The whole playbook was open. They had ample time to put together a methodical, clock-milking drive where their offensive line took over against a weak Stanford front it had finally started to move around. The Irish turned to Estime as the pri- mary back and gave him three straight carries to start the possession. He left after giving Notre Dame 19 yards, ced- ing work to sophomore Logan Diggs, but only for a moment. Estime returned after Diggs picked up 6 yards on fourth- and-2 to push Notre Dame across mid- field. Notre Dame turned to him on a first-down run from Stanford's 43. Estime bounced outside then back in, stepping through multiple tackles as he rampaged toward another first down. Before he reached the line to gain, though, Stanford safety Kendall Wil- liamson squared up and stuck his hel- met between Estime's left arm and the ball, knocking it out. It rolled 14 yards, a hot potato on the Notre Dame Stadium turf, before Car- dinal safety Jonathan McGill secured it at the Stanford 21-yard line. A potential game-winning drive went up in smoke. "You're moving the ball, you're roll- ing," Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. The Irish defense's task changed, too. It went from possibly playing with a lead to needing a stop to give the offense one more shot. "Defensively, you've got to step up, and they did," Freeman said. "We still NOTRE DAME VS. STANFORD QUARTER-BY-QUARTER COMPARISON Notre Dame 1st Qtr. 2nd Qtr. 3rd Qtr. 4th Qtr. 1st Half 2nd Half Total Time of Possession 6:40 5:49 6:19 5:05 12:29 11:24 23:53 Third-Down Conversions 1-4 1-4 1-2 0-2 2-8 1-4 3-12 Fourth-Down Conversions 0-1 1-1 0-0 1-2 1-2 1-2 2-4 Average Field Position UND-39 UND-34 UND-27 UND-17 UND-36 UND-23 UND-30 Stanford 1st Qtr. 2nd Qtr. 3rd Qtr. 4th Qtr. 1st Half 2nd Half Final Time of Possession 8:20 9:11 8:41 9:55 17:31 18:36 36:07 Third-Down Conversions 2-3 2-5 2-5 1-3 4-8 3-8 7-16 Fourth-Down Conversions 0-0 0-1 0-1 0-0 0-1 0-1 0-2 Average Field Position SU-19 SU-27 SU-21 SU-40 SU-23 SU-30 SU-27 PLAY CHART (NO. OF PLAYS) Yards UND SU Nega ve 7 6 0-5 30 47 6-9 12 12 10-19 8 14 20-29 2 2 30-39 0 1 40-49 1 0 50 or more 0 0 RED ZONE EFFICIENCY (INSIDE 20-YARD LINE) No Poss. TD FG Score Notre Dame 2 1 0 1 Stanford 1 1 0 0 BIG PLAYS (25 YARDS OR MORE) Notre Dame • 1-10 UND25 Diggs run for 26 yards to SU49 • 2-14 SU41 Pyne pass to Merriweather for 41 yards and a touchdown Stanford • 2-10 SU27 McKee pass to Higgins for 38 yards to UND35 Estime lost a fumble on a fourth-quar- ter drive where Notre Dame was in position to take the lead. PHOTO BY CHAD WEAVER MISCELLANEOUS NOTES • The best news of the day for the Fighting Irish was that they earned a commitment from 2023 running back Jeremi- yah Love, who was on campus to take in the Notre Dame- Stanford game. The St. Louis Christian Brothers four-star recruit is the nation's No. 5 running back and No. 62 overall player according to the On3 Consensus. Check out next week's issue of Blue & Gold Illustrated for a full commitment profile on Love.