Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/195693
Jackson were outstanding, making nine and eight tackles, respectively. Notre Dame dominated time of possession in the second half — holding the ball for 19:57 in the final two periods compared to 10:03 for Oklahoma. The Irish scored 20 fourth-period points, and their defense limited a Sooners squad averaging over 44 points per game to less than 14. The victory marked Notre Dame's second on the road over a team ranked in the top 10 and its fourth against a ranked opponent (most in the nation) — with a stadium-record crowd of 86,031 watching. Here are leftover notes from Notre Dame's 30-13 victory over Oklahoma: • Notre Dame converted seven of its last 12 third-down attempts. • The Irish now have played two top 10-rated opponents on the road and not committed a turnover in either game (the Irish are 9-0 under Brian Kelly when playing turnover-free football). • It's the first time Notre Dame has posted two road wins over top 10 teams since 1966 (that year, No. 10 Oklahoma and No. 10 USC). • Cierre Wood and Theo Riddick Saturday combined to rush 26 times for 158 yards and average 6.21 yards per carry. • The 13 points by Oklahoma marked the second-fewest ever scored by Oklahoma at home during the Bob Stoops era (begun in 1999). • The15 net rushing yards by Oklahoma marked its fewest in a game since 2009 and the seventh fewest in Oklahoma history. • Manti Te'o's five interceptions tie the Notre Dame record for most interceptions in a season by a linebacker (with John Pergine in 1966 and Lyron Cobbins in 1995). Going to Oklahoma, one thing with this group at that time that we had a feel for was that they liked playing on the road at night and in an electric environment. When we came out in that stadium, it was electric. Our guys really enjoyed that atmosphere. They relished the opportunity to play in those circumstances. I didn't know if we were going to win or lose the game, but I told our staff our guys are not intimidated by the environment. As a matter of fact, they were really comfortable in it. Once we were able to stop them early on, I think there was a lot of confidence that was being gained throughout the entire sideline. Certainly getting on the board first helped in that as well. — Brian Kelly We've got Oklahoma, and you know you have to stop the run. You have to get after the pass, which we did. They had a bunch of completions, but we said, offensively we're going to slow this game down. If it goes well, we're trying to get it to the fourth quarter and take it then. So our whole game plan for three quarters offensively was to chase time off the clock. We hit a big one early. But the third quarter was the best. We had two long drives in the third quarter and three points. At our Thursday meeting that week we talked about the plan. Then the players started believing. We told them how we could win, and there was still some doubt. Some kids had been here through some