Blue and Gold Illustrated

sandwiched around his own three- yard scoring run, his second of the season. Notre Dame — led by Kizer — bat- tled until the end, a positive it can take from the loss. "We have this grit and this fire about us. We played hard," Kizer said. "As a unit, we've got to clean up some things. We've got to go back to the drawing board, learn from this game and make sure we're not in this posi- tion at the end of the game." For Kizer, that means eliminating mistakes. He fumbled in the fourth quarter, although the Irish recovered the ball. His late interception, how- ever, proved most costly. With the Irish trailing 24-16 with less than seven minutes remaining, Kizer attempted to hit senior wide receiver Chris Brown over the middle, but instead connected with Clemson middle linebacker B.J. Goodson in the hands. "DeShone tried to force a ball in there, and he had no right throw- ing the ball," Kelly said of Kizer 's interception. Clemson missed the ensuing field goal attempt, but the Irish lost valuable time in the game it could have used. SPECIAL TEAMS MISCUES PROVE COSTLY Notre Dame's special teams units had an up-and-down night, but like the rest of the team the miscues proved costly. It started early, with Clemson re- turning the opening kickoff 36 yards to give it good field position to start the game. With the defense having trouble adjusting to Clemson's tempo, the Irish special teams again put the defense in a bad spot. Already down 7-0, sophomore punter Tyler New- some shanked a ball to his right for a 15-yard punt and a short field for the Clemson offense. "Our kicking game did not help," head coach Brian Kelly said. "We gave them a short field with a poor punt." Clemson quickly capitalized, with sophomore quarterback Deshaun Watson finding sophomore wide re- ceiver Artavis Scott open for a 13-yard touchdown to make it 14-0 just less than seven minutes into the contest. • Notre Dame ran the ball 33 times against Clem- son and lost. The Irish are 31-4 in the last 35 games when they have rushed the ball at least 30 times. • The loss snaps a 16-game winning streak for the Irish when holding its opponent to less than 300 yards of total offense. Clemson gained just 296 yards. • Clemson became the first team to gain a first down on its opening drive against Notre Dame since USC on Nov. 29, 2014; the first team to score on its opening drive since Louisville on Nov. 22, 2014; and the first team to score first against the Irish since USC. • Sophomore quarterback DeShone Kizer's 56- yard touchdown pass to senior running back C.J. Prosise was the longest completion of his career. • Prosise finished the game with 100 receiving yards, marking a career high for the former wide receiver. • Freshman kicker Justin Yoon nailed a 46-yard field goal in the first quarter, which marks his ca- reer long. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

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