Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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starting to come together as a unit." Offensively, Rees found a new target — junior tight end Ben Koyack scored the game's first touchdown, the first scoring catch of his career — but de‑ pended on his reliable veteran options in the passing game. Jones finished with eight catches for 135 yards and a touchdown to pace the Irish aerial attack. "It means a lot to me," Jones said. "I know it means a lot to the team just being that guy that they can look to to make those big plays and own up to wearing that 'C' on my chest. "We did feel it was a must-win game. We're not going to try to hide it. For us mentally and with our sched‑ ule, 4‑2 is a lot better than 3‑3. Leading into the bye week, we needed to leave on a good note and not have a loss [festering] for two weeks." Even with marked improvement from the Irish, Arizona State hung around longer than its play might have indicated, due in large part to the play of redshirt junior quarterback Taylor Kelly. He finished the game 33of-47 passing for 362 yards with three touchdowns. With the Sun Devils facing a fourthand-four from Notre Dame's 36-yard line down 7-6 late in the second quar‑ ter, Kelly delivered a strike to red‑ shirt sophomore wide receiver Jaelen Strong, who had slipped past Irish senior safety Austin Collinsworth and into the end zone to catch the goahead heave. But, again, Jones elevated his per‑ formance to ensure the Irish carried a lead into the locker room. With Notre Dame in its two-minute offense, Rees found Jones along the sideline for a 35-yard gain that preceded the duo's eight-yard touchdown with 10 sec‑ onds left in the half to send the Irish into the locker room up 14-13. "I'm so happy for TJ," Rees said. "He and I came in together four years ago, and you can't say enough about how the kid has grown since he's been here. "First of all, he's a tremendous player; but the way he's grown off the field, the leadership and everything he's gone through. He had to grow up fast for his family; I'm so happy for him and all the success. It's not a surprise; he's a hard-working and very talented player." For much of the first half, the of‑ fenses struggled to gain their footing in the contest. Kelly said his team set the tone with an eight-minute open‑ ing drive that, despite ending with a missed field goal, effectively used the Irish game plan to keep the Sun Devils' explosive offense from taking the field. "We have been looking for some consistency offensively, and we knew that coming into this game, we had to control the football and keep that offense off the field," Kelly said. "I thought we started the game on a long drive which set the tone for the game and limited some possessions for them. I think that really helped set us into a flow offensively." Notre Dame rushed for 145 yards, but managed only 3.9 yards per carry while struggling to find consistency with that phase at times. Junior run‑ ning back and Coppell, Texas, native Cam McDaniel received the bulk of