:: Notre Dame Football ::
Notre Dame defeats Boston College 20-16, improves to 5-2
Tate has 128 receiving yards, two touchdowns on 11 catches ... Clausen throws for 246 yards, two touchdowns ... Irish defense snags five turnovers, shuts down Boston College rushing game ...
In another thriller, Notre Dame beat Boston College 20-16 to rise to 5-2 on the year. The Irish beat the Eagles for the first time in the past seven games.
Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate hooked up for a 36-yard touchdown pass with 8:12 to go for what turned out to be the winning score. Linebacker Brian Smith later intercepted Boston College at the Notre Dame 22 to seal the win for the Irish at about the 1:40 mark.
Smith's interception was the fifth turnover snagged by an opportunistic Irish defense that also shut down a previously potent Boston College rushing attack.
Tate and Clausen
Tate, one of college football's top wide receivers, finished with 128 receiving yards and 2 receiving touchdowns on 11 catches. Clausen, the rightful Heisman front-runner, completed two-thirds of his passes, 26 of 39 for 246 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions.
Turnovers 5-0, Shutting down the run
Notre Dame gave up no turnovers itself, and intercepted Boston College's 25-year-old freshman quarterback Dave Shinskie three times and recovered two of three fumbles by previously reliable Eagles running back Montel Harris.
Notre Dame tweaked its defense in several ways, including shifting safety Harrison Smith back to linebacker and apparently moving linebacker Darius Fleming, in the top-15 in the country in tackles-for-loss, to defensive end.
The Irish defense, previously giving up 420 yards per game, gave up 350 yards to Boston College and shut down the Eagles' potent running attack.
Boston College running back Montel Harris had rushed for 264 yards and five touchdowns the previous week, at home against North Carolina State, averaging 9.8 yards per carry. Notre Dame limited Harris to 38 yards on 22 carries, at only 1.7 yards per carry. Looking tough against the run, Notre Dame surrendered only 70 yards total to the Eagles on 29 rushes.
While the Irish gave up 279 yards passing, including some long gains, Boston College completed just below 50% of their passes, 17 of 35, and had three interceptions to just one touchdown.
Allen rushing
In addition to Clausen and Tate having banner days on offense, running back Armando Allen was just shy of 100 yards rushing with 98 yards on 21 carries, at 4.7 yards per carry. Allen is looking a tougher, stronger runner this year and noticeably picking up extra yards after contact.
Receiver corps
In the passing game, on a day when Boston College was often providing heavier coverage deeper, and leaving shorter gains more open.
Clausen completed passes to seven receivers including Allen.
The Irish wide receiver corps, already missing Michael Floyd, saw Robby Parris start as a third wide receiver but end up in street clothes by the second half. Parris was hammered, and suffered at least three injuries, against Southern Cal when he was Notre Dame's top receiver for receptions.
Second after Tate, Duval Kamara had 7 catches for 60 yards.
Several underclassmen got into play, with John Goodman having 3 catches for 22 yards, and Roby Toma having 2 catches for 13 yards.
Toma was one of two freshmen Notre Dame recruited from Hawai'i, the other being Toma's high school teammate Te'o. As the story goes, Toma had committed verbally to UCLA, but refrained from sending the Bruins his fax on signing day, called Notre Dame to make sure the offer still stood for Toma to join the Irish, and then committed to Notre Dame and is seeing his decision bear fruit with game action in a close one against a strong opponent.
For two games in a row, tight-end Kyle Rudolph, one of the nation's best, who actually might have the ability to play wide-out if need be, had limited receiving production. Against Boston College, Rudolph had one catch for 11 yards.
After the Southern Cal game, Weis had indicated that Rudolph had been used more as a blocker for protection, that if one paid close attention they would have seen that, when Rudolph was one the field, he was not necessarily running patterns but blocking.
Walking-wounded Robby Parris, while still suited up, had one catch for three yards.
Tacklers ... Te'o, Williams, Lewis-Moore, B. Smith, McCarthy
On defense, tweaking and all, freshman linebacker Manti Te'o is now making a habit of being a leader tackler, with 9 tackles, including 2.5 tackles for loss.
The defensive line continues its up-tick in production, with nose tackle Ian Williams registering 7 tackles, and defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore with 6 tackles. In addition to his game-sealing interception, linebacker Brian Smith had 6 tackles as well, and routinely productive safety Kyle McCarthy had 5 tackles to go with his two interceptions.
Special Teams ... Tausch, Riddick, Ruffer
On special teams, Notre Dame continued to use two freshman kickers, a freshman punter, and a freshman kick-returner. Nick Tausch continues to be a mainstay on place-kicks, going 2 for 2, from 37 and 34 yards. Theo Riddick averaged 25 yards per kickoff return. And David Ruffer was looking strong on some of his kick-offs, especially one with great hang-time that came down right at about the one-foot line.
Scoring
In its opening possession, Notre Dame marched 58 yards in ten plays before settling for a 37-yard field goal by Tausch to go up 3-0.
After stopping Boston College, Notre Dame's second possession saw the unexpected. Pinned somewhat deep by the Eagles punt, Notre Dame was actually moving the ball a bit when the increasingly more mobile Clausen was scrambling across the end zone and threw it away to avoid a sack. While Clausen was out of the tackle box, he did not gun the ball hard enough for it to go past the now-distant line of scrimmage. The result, by rule, was intentional grounding, which from the end zone constitutes a safety. So that got Boston College on the scoreboard, with the score 3-2.
In the second quarter, the Irish only had to move the ball 36 yards to set up a 34-yard Tausch field goal and go up 6-2. But Boston College put together a 68-yard drive culminating in a 7-yard touchdown pass to go up 9-6. Notre Dame took over most of the final five minutes of the first half, driving decisively for 74 yards on 12 plays, using just over four minutes of clock, culminating in an 11-yard touchdown pass from Clausen to Tate.
In the second half, Boston College came out like gang-busters, driving 56 yards on 5 plays to go up 16-13 on a 2-yard run by Harris.
Boston College's next two drives ended in turnovers, while Notre Dame would not drive deep until the fourth quarter when the Irish advanced to the Boston College one-yard-line. Running the Wildcat on fourth-and-goal, the Notre Dame ball-carrier got turned at the goal-line, with his body most likely crossing the goal line, but the ball just outside it.
Notre Dame nevertheless benefited from the field position, when the defense held and Notre Dame got the ball back at the Boston College 49. After driving 13 yards on two plays, Clausen hit Tate on pass that, with a smooth and shifty run-after-the-catch by the Tate, turned into a 36-yard touchdown and a 20-16 Notre Dame lead. It would be the game-winner.
After some good defensive stands by both teams, Boston College started driving, getting into Notre Dame territory, only to have the Eagles' freshman quarterback, running to his right under pressure, throw the final interception that Brian Smith picked off at the Notre Dame 22. In the closing minutes.
Notre Dame was able to run the clock out at that point to bring home their first win against Boston College in the past seven games.
Frank Leahy
For winning the rivalry match-up, Notre Dame took home a trophy named after the legendary Frank Leahy. Leahy went 20-2 as Boston College head coach before coming to Notre Dame and guiding one of the greatest dynasties in sports history, bringing home at least five national championships, going 87-11-9, and having a four-year unbeaten streak in the midst of it.
Leahy coached Notre Dame 1941-1943, then again after the war, 1946-1953. Interestingly, towards the end of his tenure, Leahy had a season where his team struggled to finish at .500 before the program rebounded to compete for national titles again. One of Leahy's four Heisman winners, Johnny Lattner, recounted that experience at a Notre Dame pep rally during the Weis era, assessed that Notre Dame would be winning the national championship again in similar fashion in contemporary times.
Leahy is the third-winningest coach in Notre Dame history, after his own coach Knute Rockne, and Rockne's coach Jesse Harper. However, for overall winning percentage, Leahy is the second-winningest coach in college football history, after Rockne.
Institutional Memory
As with Michigan State, with Boston College Notre Dame has taken care of business with respect to huge institutional memory issues. The achievement would be notable in any event, given how good Boston College is. But to beat the Eagles a week after a huge, physically and emotionally demanding game against Southern Cal, putting to and end the quiet streak Boston College had developed, makes the achievement all the more enormous.
With this year's win, Notre Dame retakes the lead in the series, at 10-9-0.
Next year Notre Dame closes out the series with Boston College in Chestnut Hill, unless the schools make arrangements to revive or continue it. It might be interesting to see if one issue that comes up is whether Boston College is willing to move their home games to the NFL stadium in Foxboro, a concept which Notre Dame seems to be making a big push for, especially in the Northeast.
Keywords: Notre Dame Football, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Boston College Football, Boston College Eagles, Charlie Weis, Jimmy Clausen, Golden Tate, Brian Smith, Kyle McCarthy, Frank Leahy, Jesse Harper, Knute Rockne
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