Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1529460
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM NOV. 23, 2024 21 NOTRE DAME PASSING OFFENSE: B There always seems to be so much nuance to the Notre Dame passing game. Riley Leonard's first two pass attempts were incomplete, for instance, then he completed his next nine at the beginning of a stretch of 16 of 17 completed passes. He finished with 3 touchdown passes, but what if we told you 28 of his first 32 passing yards were on checkdowns on three third- and-13 or more plays? Good and bad. Good and bad. Never fails when Notre Dame throws the football. But in the end, he completed 22 of 33 (66.7 percent) throws for 214 yards with 3 touchdowns and just 1 interception, which is a pretty good day through the air for Leonard. The Irish will take that, especially when 11 different pass catchers get involved. Solid "B" performance. NOTRE DAME RUSHING OFFENSE: A Another game that will increase Notre Dame's rushing yards per game total. Those are tough to come by considering they went into the matchup averaging around 213 yards per game. An efficient 234 will raise the bar, though; those yards came on just 38 attempts for an average of 6.2 yards per carry. The Fighting Irish achieved those numbers with- out Leonard having a typical game on the ground. He only had 32 yards on 8 attempts. Sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love was a bell cow in rushing 16 times for a career-high 137 yards plus 2 touchdowns. Junior running back Jadarian Price hit his per- sonal yards per carry average, another tough feat — it's a whopping 7.3, and that's exactly what he got with 44 yards on 6 carries. Freshman running back Aneyas Williams mopped up with 23 yards on 7 attempts. All in all, solid stuff. NOTRE DAME PASSING DEFENSE: A+ Is there another passing defense as good as Notre Dame's? If there is, we need to see it. The Fighting Irish are as stingy as it gets against the pass. Virginia's two quarterbacks combined to com- plete only 17 of 36 passes for 172 yards with 0 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Anthony Col- andrea was benched at halftime for throwing all three of those interceptions. The Irish had multiple sacks again with 2, but this game was more of a coverage masterclass. Notre Dame's defensive backs were all over Virginia's pass catchers. Former Irish wide receiver Chris Tyree only coming away with 1 catch for 3 yards is a pretty telltale sign of that. More brilliance in this area for the Irish. NOTRE DAME RUSHING DEFENSE: B Four Virginia players averaged 4.7 or more yards per carry. Backup quarterback Tony Muskett came in and rushed for 2 touchdowns, the first of which Notre Dame was totally not prepared to account for a QB keeper. The final numbers are fine, 32 carries for 128 yards for an average of 4.0 yards per carry, but that's upped to 145 and 4.8 when adjusting for sacks. Good, not great. "B" stuff. SPECIAL TEAMS: A+ We're going A+ because the more we look at Marty Biagi's unbelievable wizardry in the fake punt he dialed up the more we think it should have counted. Jack Kiser was not under center and did not take a hand-to-hand exchange. He took a shotgun snap, for the jersey number rule the offi- cials used to call the play back shouldn't have been applied. Notre Dame was probably snubbed of one of the coolest touchdowns of the year. Max Hurleman recovered a muffed kickoff but muffed a punt. The Irish were a net plus-7 on the scoreboard as a result of those plays. No harm, no foul. Irish kickers not named Mitch Jeter were 0 of 2, but James Rendell averaged 47.6 yards per punt with a long of 64 and 4 of 5 kicks downed inside the 20. This all goes back to Biagi calling the play he did from Notre Dame's own 27. Bravo. Just, bravo. The points didn't stand but the video clip will last forever. COACHING: A There might've been some bettors who weren't very happy with Virginia's touchdown with 22 sec- onds remaining, but this isn't about them. This is about a Notre Dame team that sustained a wacky, weird first quarter, still came out of it with a 7-0 lead, then put the hammer down and won by a convincing margin. The Irish never gave into the debilitating, "Oh no, are we going to be in a dog fight with a lesser team?" feeling some fans might have been over- come with. Nope. They did their thing and won comfortably. Credit to the coaches for facilitating it all. REPORT CARD BY TYLER HORKA Senior quarterback Riley Leonard had a solid day against the Cavaliers, connecting on 22 of 33 passes for 214 yards with 3 touchdowns and just 1 interception. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER