Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM DECEMBER 2025 25 FAKE PUNT LOOKED 'JUST LIKE THEY PRACTICED' No fear. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Free- man didn't care what the blowback would be if the Irish were stopped on fourth-and-9 from their own 16-yard line. He didn't worry about the pos- sibility that redshirt junior defensive end Joshua Burnham would airmail the throw or junior safety Luke Talich would drop the pass. That's not how he or the Irish roll. Notre Dame had been workshopping its Burnham-to-Talich fake-punt-pop pass for weeks now, and in the second quarter of its 49-20 Week 14 win over Stanford, it saw an opportunity to use it. Irish fans know by now that when the opportunity is there, Freeman and special teams coordinator Marty Biagi rarely pass it up. The result was an 84-yard touchdown. "We knew if we got a certain look, we would check to it," Freeman said. 'We got the look that we wanted, and we checked to it, and we executed." With a 14-0 lead and 14:45 remain- ing until halftime, Notre Dame lined up in its normal punt formation with Talich playing right tackle and Burnham as a personal protector. Talich then mo- tioned to the left side, giving the Irish an unbalanced line. No one on Stanford's front responded, which meant the Car- dinal were going for the block. That was all Burnham needed to see. Observant viewers might have noticed Burnham put his right hand in the air, signaling "Don't snap it," with 10 sec- onds left on the play clock. He made the call, shifted to the left himself and barked his cadence. Sophomore long snapper Joseph Vinci snapped the ball to Burn- ham, who took two steps forward before lofting it toward a wide-open Talich. When the football reached Talich's hands, there was not a Cardinal de- fender in his zip code. Stanford was cooked. "Credit to Coach Biagi and the special teams unit and the punt unit for their practice," Freeman said. "They've been practicing that for quite a while, and they executed just like they practiced: Really flawlessly." When Talich secured the rock in the open field, he only had one man to beat: true freshman Stanford punt returner Liam Thorpe. Poor Thorpe could only dive at air as Talich, a 2023 Wyoming Class 4A state champion in the 100 and 200 meters as a senior at Cody (Wyo.) High, raced to the house. Burnham, meanwhile, was a quarter- back in addition to a star linebacker at Traverse City (Mich.) Central. He threw for 955 yards and 14 touchdowns while rushing for 1,516 yards and 29 scores as a senior in 2021, while leading his school to the state championship game. Together, he and Talich snuffed out any chance Stanford had of making its final game of 2025 close. "It really helped," Freeman said. "It got to 21-0 after that, right? It really kind of put this game into a position that I think we knew we were pretty much in the driver's seat." As always, for Freeman, the reward was worth the risk. And the risk is minimal when the plan, personnel and preparation are, in the fourth-year head coach's words, flawless. With that in mind, what even was there to fear? — Jack Soble RUNNING BACKS HIGHLIGHT IRISH DEPTH Notre Dame waded into the muddy waters of life without Jeremiyah Love for the better part of the first half at Stanford. Well, what would have been a murky situation for most other pro- grams forced to play without their preeminent player for any prolonged stretch of a game. Notre Dame? Nothing to see here. STANFORD GAME NOTES BY JACK SOBLE AND TYLER HORKA Junior safety Luke Talich's 84-yard touchdown off a fake punt against Stanford is the longest reception by an Irish defensive player from scrimmage since 1955. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL