Blue and Gold Illustrated

the talented young back made his pres- ence felt immediately. His first career carry came with just more than a minute left in the opening quarter. Adams took a jet sweep to the right, and beat the Longhorn defense to the edge before cutting inside of junior safety Dylan Haines on his way to the end zone. The freshman scored again late in the third quarter, bursting through the middle of the line untouched for a 25- yard touchdown. Adams finished the game with 49 yards on just five carries. "He's a quick study. He was able to pick up all the protections early on," Kelly said of his freshman back. "Any time a freshman can come in and pick up all the protections early on, it's been my feeling that he's ready to play, pro- vided he's got the skill —and we saw what kind of skill he has." Despite tremendous high school pro- duction (4,445 career rushing yards and 65 touchdowns), Adams was only con- sidered a three-star running back. "We felt like he was a kid that was under the radar last year," Kelly ex- plained. "He had a knee injury that kind of took him off the radar a little bit. He's just scratching the surface." BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE In his first career start — a 31-28 vic- tory over LSU in the Music City Bowl last December — junior quarterback Malik Zaire demonstrated he can make a lot of plays with his legs. Making his first home start, Zaire showed Texas and the rest of the nation that he can also make plays with his arm. "He clearly has the ability to throw the football as much as we would need him to throw it and throw it accurately, which he did," Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said. "I think he put it to- gether tonight, and he's got room to grow." The game plan early was to establish the ground game, which the Irish did by rushing for 58 yards in the opening quarter. Notre Dame's ability to control the line of scrimmage and establish the running game opened up opportunities for Zaire to get into an early rhythm. From that point, the Irish coaches gave him a set of plays to build his confi- dence in the pass game. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES • Notre Dame's 38-3 victory provided the widest margin of victory in a season opener since the 35-0 win over Nevada on Sept. 5, 2009. • Zaire's .864 completion percentage (19 of 22) is the second highest in school history for a single game, trailing only Steve Beuerlein's .909 (10 of 11) against Colorado on Sept. 22, 1984. • Senior running back C.J. Prosise set a career high with 98 rushing yards. Prosise had just 126 rushing yards the entire 2014 season. • Prior to the game, Notre Dame honored the 1970 football team that beat Texas in the Cotton Bowl to end the Longhorns' 30-game winning streak. • Zaire's 19 completions, 22 attempts, 313 passing yards and three passing touchdowns were all career highs. It was just the fourth time a Notre Dame quarterback had a 300-yard passing game in the season opener (Terry Hanratty 303 versus Purdue in 1966, Jimmy Clausen 315 versus Nevada in 2009 and Tommy Rees 346 versus Temple in 2013).

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