Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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and reached that number for the fifth time in the last six games. Smith had all of his dynamic traits on full display against the Cardinal offense. He used his speed to play sideline to sideline, he filled hard on downhill runs and when asked to de- fend the pass game he more than held his own. After two straight high-production seasons — combined with his recent run of outstanding play — Smith is expected to dominate. "Normal day. That's Jaylon's normal effort," head coach Brian Kelly said of his All-American linebacker. "He's all over the field, and he has been every single week that he's played. I don't think he's had an off week. "He may have had a play that he didn't make once or twice, but each and every week he has had that kind of impact on our defense." Smith was a primary reason the Irish were able to slow down Heis- man Trophy contender Christian Mc- Caffrey, who entered as the nation's leader in all-purpose yards per game. With Smith spying him at times, the Irish defense held McCaffrey in check all game long. The Stanford sopho- more finished with 94 rushing yards on 27 carries, his lowest output since Sept. 12 against Central Florida. "He's the No. 1 game wrecker and the best player on their team," Smith said of McCaffrey. "The idea was to contain him. Based on the numbers, we did that." THIRD-DOWN WOES The Cardinal finished the game 8 of 12 (67.7 percent) on third down, a problem that was exacerbated by the offense's own issues with moving the chains. Notre Dame finished just 3 of 9 (33.3 percent) on its own third-down chances. Not only did Stanford move the chains on third down, some of its big- gest plays of the game came when the Irish defense had an opportunity to get off the field. Stanford had gains of 42, 31, 16 and 10 yards on third down against the Irish defense. Notre Dame was especially ineffec- tive on third-down defense in the red zone. Stanford had two touchdown passes on third down inside the 10- MISCELLANEOUS NOTES • Junior Devin Butler started his first game of the season at cornerback in the place of the in- jured senior KeiVarae Russell. He became the 37th different player to start a game for Notre Dame this season and the 17th on defense. • Notre Dame had scoring drives of 88, 86 and 84 yards against Stanford, giving it 19 scoring drives of at least 80 yards on the season. • Freshman running back Josh Adams and sophomore quarterback DeShone Kizer became the first Irish duo to surpass 100 yards in the same game on the road since Nov. 18, 1995, when Randy Kinder (121) and Autry Denson (109) achieved the mark against Air Force. • Freshman CJ Sanders' 93-yard kickoff return was the fourth score of the Irish special teams this year — the most since the 2000 season. • Junior wideout Will Fuller's 73-yard touch- down reception in the second quarter was his ninth TD of the season of at least 30 yards and his 14th reception overall of at least 30 yards. • With 136 receiving yards, Fuller now stands fifth all time on Notre Dame's single-season list with 1,145 yards and seventh on the career chart with 2,399.