Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM FEBRUARY 2025 21 knocking him to the turf, and stepped through an attempted tackle from the other. First down on a play he had no business even gaining positive yardage. Indiana being in position to take Love down was actually indicative of how the Hoosiers' No. 1 FBS rushing de- fense fared for most of the night. Love finished with 108 yards on 8 carries, most of the total obviously coming on the long score. Junior tailback Jadarian Price was bottled up for 32 yards on 11 carries. Senior quarterback Riley Leon- ard went for 30 yards on 11 attempts. As a team, Notre Dame ran for just shy of 200 yards. Again, so much of that coming on one play. "You had to claw and scratch for ev- ery yard you got, and they battled, and they battled, and they battled, and they battled," Freeman said. Leonard completed 23 of 32 passes for 201 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 inter- ception. Modest numbers carried by a 44-yard step-up dime to Jordan Faison to get the Irish to the 1-yard line with just more than six minutes left in the fourth quarter. Modest, though, was good enough because the Notre Dame defense was even better than that of Indiana. Hoosiers redshirt senior quarterback Kurtis Rourke didn't look comfortable until it was too late. Welcome to the club. That's what this Irish defense has done to opposing signal-callers all sea- son. This was no different. Rourke connected on 20 of 33 throws for 215 yards with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception, with more than 100 of those yards coming on Indiana's two inconsequential touchdown drives late in the fourth quarter. It was none other than graduate student safety Xavier Watts who picked him off. "He just attacked, executed and fin- ished no matter what," Notre Dame de- fensive coordinator Al Golden said. Watts was the best football player in the game. Even better than Love. He led Notre Dame with 10 total tackles, many of which were made in situa- tions that broke the will of the Hoo- siers. When it feels like there are five No. 0's on the field at once, there isn't much you can do. In other words, Watts was Watts. "At the end of the day, it's just regular football," Watts said. "Obviously it's got the playoff tag with it, but it's just a reg- ular football game to me. I go out there with the utmost confidence in myself and my teammates that we're going to go out there and do our jobs." Indiana ended up with 278 total yards and an average of 4.6 yards per play, including a meager 2.3 yards per rush. The Irish won up front. Won at every level, quite frankly. They were better. Are better. And now they get to see if they can say the same against the class of college football lately in the Bulldogs from Athens. FIRST QUARTER NOTRE DAME 7, INDIANA 0 Top moment: Sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love ran left from the 2-yard line. He broke through the line of scrimmage on a terrific block from freshman left tackle Anthonie Knapp. He got the angle at the second level. He got the sideline at the third. Love went 98 yards to the house, giving Notre Dame a 7-0 lead. Feature performer: Indiana redshirt senior quarterback Kurtis Rourke tested freshman Irish cornerback Leonard Moore twice on back-shoulder throws down the sideline. Both times, Moore rose to the occasion. Stats: Rourke completed only 1 of 6 passes for 28 yards with an interception. Notre Dame averaged 11.4 yards per play to Indiana's 4.6. Items: Graduate student Irish safety Xavier Watts picked off his sixth pass of the season on an errant throw over the middle from Rourke … Watts' intercep- tion came on the heels of senior Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard's first pass of the game being deflected at the line of scrimmage and picked … Junior defensive end Joshua Burnham stopped IU's first play of the game for a 3-yard loss … Junior running back Jadarian Price powered Notre Dame's second touchdown drive with 5 carries for 28 yards. SECOND QUARTER NOTRE DAME 17, INDIANA 3 Top moment: On one of Notre Dame's favorite goal-line plays — the play-action pop pass — Leonard found a wide-open senior wide receiver Jayden Thomas for a 5-yard touchdown pass and a 14-0 lead. Feature performer: Watts was ev- erywhere. He led the Irish with 5 tack- les, including half a tackle for loss and solo tackles for gains of 0, 1 and 1. Stats: Notre Dame converted 3 of 5 third-down attempts, while Indiana went 1 of 5. Items: Watts and junior linebacker Jaylen Sneed came up with key run stops on Hoosier third-down plays … Indiana got on the board with a 34-yard field goal from redshirt freshman kicker Nicolas Radicic … Freshman running back Aneyas Williams caught 2 passes for 14 yards on Notre Dame's two- minute drive … Graduate student Irish kicker Mitch Jeter made a 49-yard field goal, his first successful try since Nov. 9. THIRD QUARTER NOTRE DAME 20, INDIANA 3 Top moment: Freshman defensive end Bryce Young came screaming off the edge, virtually untouched, for his first career solo sack on third-and-11 from the Indiana 11-yard line. The en-