Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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24 OCT. 10, 2016 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED again, this time for a 67-yard score that gave Notre Dame a 16-6 lead. Kelly and St. Brown said after the game that Notre Dame had an- ticipated getting some long scoring plays. The porous Syracuse defense — which entered as the 111th-ranked unit in the country, allowing an aver- age of 466.8 yards a game — was no match for the Notre Dame offense. "It's always possible [to start like that], I always envision myself and what I'm going to do before the game," said St. Brown, who finished with four catches for 182 yards and now has six touchdowns through five games. "I don't know when it's going to happen, but it usually happens. That's good." Notre Dame and Syracuse combined for 339 yards in what was a wild first quarter. Orange star wideout Amba Etta-Tawo had a 72-yard TD catch from Dungey, and Irish sophomore slot receiver C.J. Sanders returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown to give the Irish the lead, 23-13, before the first five minutes had expired. "I don't know about street ball, but I have been in games like that," first-year Syracuse head coach Dino Babers said. "Notre Dame has a very dynamic offense, and when they come out it's a big splash. … It takes a while to get around them." Early in the second quarter, Dungey scored on a one-yard run to make it 23-20. Kizer then led a 71-yard scor- ing drive to answer, capping it with a three-yard run. Notre Dame sopho- more kicker Justin Yoon also hit a 31- yard field goal, putting the Irish up 33-20 with 5:03 left in the half. A 74-yard punt return by Syra- cuse's Brisly Estime late in the half set up a 14-yard touchdown pass from Dungey to Ervin Philips with 30 seconds left to close the Irish ad- vantage to 33-27 at halftime. The fireworks settled down after halftime. Freshman wide receiver Kevin Stepherson caught a 54-yard touchdown pass with 11:23 in the third quarter to make it 40-27, and Irish sophomore running back Dexter Williams flashed his skills on a 59-yard touchdown run with 8:26 left in the quarter to increase the lead to 47-27. "Overall, there's certainly things we can do better, but the big picture here is I'm proud of the way our kids bounced back from a disappointing loss last week," Kelly said. "We go on the road and we make a change on de- fense, and play with great energy and enthusiasm, and come up with a win." Yoon added a 39-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, while Dungey ran for a five-yard touchdown to cap the scoring. Dungey finished 31-of-51 passing for 363 yards with two touchdowns, and also ran the ball 17 times for 49 yards and three scores. Hudson, who was hired as a defen- sive analyst in June, was a stranger to most of Notre Dame's players. The for- mer Purdue defensive coordinator ral- lied the troops during a difficult week and was nearly moved to tears of joy as he exited the field after the win. "He just did a good job taking his role and not doing too much," se- nior defensive end Isaac Rochell said. "He's done a good job balancing the idea that he's new, but he also has a lot of experience. "We just trust him, we trust this staff, and we leaned on that." ✦ New coordinator Greg Hudson helped lead the Irish defense to a strong second-half perfor- mance against Syracuse, limiting the Orange to six points over the final two quarters. PHOTO BY RICK KIMBALL NOTRE DAME 50, SYRACUSE 33 Oct.. 1, 2016 ✦ Attendance: 62,794 MetLife Stadium ✦ East Rutherford, N.J. 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Tot. Notre Dame 23 10 14 3 50 Syracuse 13 14 0 6 33 FIRST QUARTER ND SU ND St. Brown 79-yard pass from Kizer (Yoon kick) 14:42 7 0 Drive: 1 play, 79 yards, 0:18 SU Dungey 3-yard run (Murphy kick blocked) 12:36 7 6 Drive: 8 plays, 75 yards, 2:06 ND Luke PAT return 12:36 9 6 ND St. Brown 67-yard pass from Kizer (Yoon kick) 11:23 16 6 Drive: 3 plays, 74 yards, 1:13 SU Etta-Tawo 72-yard pass from Dungey (Murphy kick) 10:17 16 13 Drive: 3 plays, 79 yards, 1:06 ND Sanders 93-yard kickoff return (Yoon kick) 10:06 23 13 SECOND QUARTER SU Dungey 1-yard run (Murphy kick) 13:22 23 20 Drive: 9 plays, 78 yards, 3:08 ND Kizer 3-yard run (Yoon kick) 12:11 30 20 Drive: 5 plays, 71 yards, 1:11 ND Yoon 31-Yard field goal 5:03 33 20 Drive: 7 plays, 37 yards, 3:11 SU Philips 14-yard pass from Dungey (Murphy kick) 0:30 33 27 Drive: 2 plays, 14 yards, 0:08 THIRD QUARTER ND Stepherson 54-yard pass from Kizer (Yoon kick) 11:23 40 27 Drive: 4 plays, 86 yards, 1:41 ND Williams 59-yard run (Yoon kick) 8:26 47 27 Drive: 3 plays, 70 yards, 1:22 FOURTH QUARTER ND Yoon 39-yard field goal 11:14 50 27 Drive: 11 plays, 72 yards, 3:58 SU Dungey 5-yard run (Hofrichter rush failed) 6:52 50 33 Drive: 14 plays, 75 yards, 4:22 ND SU Total First Downs 25 25 Rushing 6 6 Passing 17 16 Penalty 2 3 Rushing Attempts 37 37 Yards Gained Rushing 203 137 Yards Lost Rushing 20 11 Net Yards Rushing 183 126 Net Yards Passing 471 363 Passes Attempted 35 51 Passes Completed 23 31 Had Intercepted 1 0 Percent Completion 65.7% 60.8% Yards Per Attempt 13.5 7.1 Yards Per Completion 20.5 11.7 Total Offensive Plays 72 88 Total Net Yards 654 489 Average Gain Per Play 9.1 5.6 Fumbles: No.-Lost 0-0 1-0 Penalties: No.-Yards 6-55 5-45 Punts: No.-Yards 5-196 9-349 Average Per Punt 39.2 38.8 Average Net Punt 13.6 36.6 Punt Returns: No.-Yards 1-0 3-128 Kickoff Returns: No.-Yards 4-143 5-91 Interception Returns: No.-Yards 0-0 1-13 Fumble Returns: No.-Yards 0-0 0-0 Miscellaneous Yards 0 0 Possession Time 31:22 28:38 Third-Down Conversions 3-12 3-15 Percentage 25.0% 20.0% Fourth-Down Conversions 0-1 1-2 Percentage 0.0% 50.0% Sacks By: No.-Yards 1-1 2-19