Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Sun Devils senior defensive end Mar- cus Hardison managed to catch the de- flection at Notre Dame's 23-yard line. Brian Kelly faulted a missed block for giving Cherry the chance to get his hands into the air. Nonetheless, the onus lies with Golson, who finished with a career-high 446 yards and two touchdowns on 22-of-41 passing. "Sooner or later, he's got to take it on himself to take care of the football," Kelly said. "I don't know what else to do. We're at that point now where it hurt us in the game, obviously. He knows it." Arizona State needed all of three plays to capitalize on Hardison's inter- ception, with freshman running back Demario Richard plunging in for a one-yard score and a 17-3 advantage. After Golson kept an Irish drive to- gether for seven plays and 32 yards, Hardison deflected a pass and fifth- year senior safety Damarious Ran- dall caught the ball and returned it 59 yards for a touchdown that put ASU up 24-3. "First of all, [Golson] was 5-foot- 10, so he is pretty short," Hardison said. "I just wasn't able to get to the quarterback in time. I saw him release and just put my hands up as quick as possible." Notre Dame went three-and-out on its next possession, and the Sun Devils promptly marched 64 yards on five plays in a little less than two minutes. This time, Taylor Kelly found sopho- more wide receiver Cameron Smith streaking to the end zone with a 43- yard scoring strike for a 31-3 lead. After Arizona State tacked on a field goal with 1:09 to go in the half, Golson drove the Irish 75 yards on four plays in just 59 seconds. The big play on the drive was a 59-yard catch and run by junior slot receiver C.J. Prosise, and sophomore wide receiver Will Fuller capped it with a nine-yard touchdown grab to make it 34-10. The Irish got the ball to start the sec- ond half with a chance to build some momentum and marched all the way to the ASU 7-yard line, but a Golson pass was picked off in the end zone by junior cornerback Kweishi Brown. "It's one of the deals where you take one step forward and two steps back," Kelly said. "Then he comes back in the second half, and he does some really good things." Those good things included leading the Irish on three touchdown drives in the second half, plus a fourth that should have netted a field goal if not for a mishandled snap by junior walk- on Hunter Smith. Notre Dame relied on its aerial attack once behind, aban- doning a run game that could manage only 41 rushing yards on 38 attempts, compared to Arizona State's 188 yards on 45 carries. "We just knew that anything's pos- sible," said Fuller, who led the Irish with six catches for 95 yards. "We just knew if we could score fast, we could possibly come back." Senior running back Cam McDaniel capped the first two second-half scor- ing drives with one-yard touchdown runs, and then senior slot receiver Amir Carlisle hauled in a 25-yard touchdown catch to cut the deficit to 34-31 with 6:37 remaining in the fourth quarter. That, however, was as close as the Irish would get.