:: Notre Dame Football ::
Notre Dame says "not in our house," defeats dangerous Huskies 37-30 in overtime, improves to 4-1 (Update 1)
Clausen throws for 422 yards, Tate has 244 yards receiving, Irish defense ferocious in the clutch
One of Charlie Weis's predecessors, Knute Rockne, coined the phrase "When the going gets tough, the tough get going. A winner never quits, and a quitter never wins."
Notre Dame kept fighting to pull out a 37-30 overtime win over a resurgent Washington program that knocked off top-5 Southern Cal just two weeks ago but is now 0-8 all-time against Notre Dame.
Notre Dame junior heavy-halfback Robert Hughes scored the game-winner with a 1-yard touchdown run in overtime, set up by a 22-yard pass by junior quarterback Jimmy Clausen to junior flanker Golden Tate.
Clausen, playing All-American-caliber football and the rightful Heisman front-runner, threw for 422 yards on 22 of 31 passing, a 71% completion rate, with 2 touchdowns against 1 interception (the lone interception a good pass deflected off the receiver's hands).
Tate, emerging as one the nation's top wide receivers, had 275 all-purpose yards, including 244 receiving yards on 9 catches, averaging over 27 yards per catch. Tate's performance was the second-best receiving day in Notre Dame history. In Notre Dame's only touchdown prior to the closing moments of regulation, Clausen hooked up with Tate on a second-quarter 67-yard touchdown pass featuring a perfect pass followed by an electrifying run on which Tate broke multiple tackles.
Notre Dame freshman kicker Nick Tausch tied a Notre Dame record making good on five field goals. Tausch connected from 34, 40, 34, 21 and 24 yards out.
It was a wild game where Notre Dame spotted the hungry young Huskies a first-half touchdown on an offensive mistake and then saw both teams fighting and clawing, and battling the elements, in a dramatic back-and-forth contest featuring nine lead-changes.
Notre Dame, now 4-1, has had its past four games go down to the wire.
After the game, Notre Dame junior wide receiver Tate mused whether Notre Dame is "just a clutch team."
Playing the overtime period in front of the Notre Dame student body, Notre Dame got the ball first. Clausen — still coming off a toe injury on his plant foot — rifled a 22-yard pass to Tate, who made a spectacular aerobatic catch at the three that included Tate, high in mid-air, completing a cascading 360-degree forward flip, but still coming down with the ball.
After an offsides penalty against the Huskies, Hughes and Notre Dame's mammoth offensive line powered a hard run up the gut of the Washington defense for the go-ahead touchdown.
Washington got the ball second in overtime, under pressure to score a touchdown or lose.
The Huskies and junior star quarterback Jake Locker took to the air, and the Irish defense cranked up ... blanketing pass coverage by cornerback Robert Blanton forcing an incompletion ... a ferocious blitz for a sack for a 9-yard loss by linebacker-turned-defensive-end Kerry Neal... continued intense pressure and good coverage to force an overthrow on the run through a receiver's upstretched hands.
On fourth-and-ballgame, Locker rifled a pass to a receiver technically open around the two-yard-line, but the receiver had to leap for what would have been at least a first-down near the goal line. Safeties Kyle McCarthy and Harrison Smith, launching from opposite directions in mid-air, absolutely hammered the receiver with their torsoes in one-two fashion from back and front, sending the ball flying loose and separating the opponent from his helmet. (One on-air announcer speculated out-loud whether the receiver was knocked out, and we hope the young man was okay.) With Washington giving it up on downs, Notre Dame won 37-30.
The end of regulation also saw heroics, albeit from both teams.
In the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, Notre Dame was trailing 24-22, and Washington threatened to open up two-score lead, when the Irish defense mounted two stalwart goal-line stands on the same drive in the final minutes. As with a similar goal-line stand late in the third, the Huskies had the ball within feet of the end zone.
Notre Dame's defense stopped them and held Washington to a field goal, only for the Huskies to get a second chance. On the field goal itself, the officials called a mysterious "roughing the snapper penalty" that strained the imagination, and undoubtedly will send coaches and fans across America reaching for a copy of the rulebook (but even the rulebook will not necessarily help when viewing the fairly innocuous replay).
With Washington getting a fresh set of downs fairly leaning on the goal-line, the Irish defense stopped them again. The combined goal-line stand, across six downs, was perhaps the most heroic defensive stop made by the Fighting Irish in recent memory.
After the (one official) Washington field-goal made the score 27-22 with about three minutes to go, freshman speedster Theo Riddick took the kick-off back to the Irish 37, and Clausen led Notre Dame on a 5-play, 63-yard drive in which Clausen himself provided all 58 yards of Notre Dame's offense (there also was a five-yard penalty against the Huskies at the start of the drive, bringing the overall drive to 63 yards).
On that final Notre Dame drive of regulation, in addition to a one-yard rush in the midst of the drive, Clausen was 4 of 4 for 57 yards and a touchdown, a 12-yard pass to sophomore tight-end Kyle Rudolph. Rudolph was tightly covered, but not double-teamed, and Clausen lofted the pass high to the 6-6 tight end and to opposite side of Rudolph from the defender. The touchdown itself made it 28-27 Irish, and then Hughes rumbled in for a two-point conversion run to make it 30-27, so that a Washington field goal could only tie it.
Every play counted in this one, and Notre Dame's kick-off team rose to the occasion with a 65-yard kick-off to the Washington five, delivered by freshman Nick Tausch, who already had tied a Notre Dame record with five field goals in the game. The coverage stopped the return man at the Washington 11.
When Washington got the ball back with 1:44 left in regulation, Locker drove the Huskies 70 yards to set up a 39-yard Washington field goal to tie the game 30-30. In the overtime, however, momentum was all-Irish as Notre Dame cranked out the big-time win.
The victory over Washington was Notre Dame's first overtime win under Charlie Weis.
More on Notre Dame Offense
Overall, Notre Dame had 530 yards total offense, 422 through the air and 108 on the ground on 29 carries, 3.7 yards per rush.
Hughes, however, Notre Dame's leading rusher, averaged 8.8 yards per carry, with 71 yards on just 8 runs, including the 1-yard touchdown run in overtime for the game-winner.
Junior halfback Armando Allen, initially this-year's starter at halfback, had 12 rushes for 47 yards, or 3.2 yards per carry.
Not quite as active in the running game as against Purdue, Tate still had one electrifying run for 31 yards. Allen, rather than Tate, returned to the role of Wildcat quarterback.
For much of the game, while outgaining Washington 530 to 475, and while going 5 for 5 inside the 20, until the closing moments of the game, Notre Dame did have some difficulty closing out most of its long drives with touchdowns rather than field-goals.
Prior to Notre Dame's last-minute heroics at the end of regulation, and the game-winning two-play overtime drive, the only Notre Dame touchdown was not scored from inside the so-called "red zone." Notre Dame's second quarter touchdown was scored from the Notre Dame 33, a tremendous pass and electrifying, multiple-tackle-breaking run by Tate after the catch, for a 67-yard touchdown by Clausen and Tate.
A regrettable mistake, occurring in the first-half, ended up spotting Washington with a touchdown and enabled the Huskies to take a game to the wire that otherwise they might have lost by at least once score in regulation.
In the second quarter, Notre Dame attempted to throw the ball away, throwing sideways over the head of a running back, parallel with the line of scrimmage. Notre Dame accidentally threw the ball on a trajectory taking it slightly backyards, so that the pass would be deemed a lateral and a fumble, so that when it landed inbounds and was returned by the Huskies they were credited with a touchdown.
Another curious twist on the day was the Notre Dame, like Southern Cal in their upset loss to the Huskies, ended up with a very low conversion rate on third down. For Southern Cal it was 0 for 10, 0 for 11 when fourth down was included. For Notre Dame, it was 2 for 10.
Back on a positive note, in addition to Tate's huge receiving day, Rudolph had 4 catches for 53 yards, including the 12-yard touchdown to help Notre Dame take a brief lead late in regulation.
Interestingly, freshman wide-out Shaq Evans is building his tenure, hauling in 4 catches for 34 yards. Wide-receiver Robbie Parris had 2 catches for 46 yards, but bobbled one in the end zone, while Allen had 3 catches for 20 yards and Hughes had a catch as well for 20.
Even before Michael Floyd's injury, Weis was itching to find ways to get Evans on the field to have another burner balancing mirroring Tate.
It appears that Notre Dame is indeed deep in talent, and deep with its receiving corps. If the Irish continue to work hard and develop, and do get into a BCS bowl, or even back their way into the BCS "Title" Game, they may have a passing game featuring four All-American-quality players -- Clausen, Tate, Floyd, and Rudolph, as well as some pretty strong true receivers in Robbie Parris, Duval Kamara, and the emerging Evans as well as others floating in and out of the depth chart. One interesting question is whether Barry Gallup, Jr., will get back into the receiver rotation, but as for now he certainly is contributing as a kick returner.
More on Notre Dame's Defense
Notre Dame's defense had flashes of brilliance and a lot of moments of ferocity; had not one but three incredible goal-line stands on two drives in the second-half, including a game-deciding defensive stand in the closing minutes, and was in championship form in the overtime.
Fifth-year senior safety Kyle McCarthy continued to pace Irish tacklers with 12 on the day. He also joined with safety Harrison Smith to break up a Washington pass near the two-yard-line in overtime to seal the win on the game's final play.
Quietly bursting onto the scene in decisive manner against Washington was Notre Dame's second-leader tackler, seeing his most extensive collegiate action. Freshman linebacker Manti Te'o, national defensive player of the year as a high school recruit last year, had his first sack against Purdue, started against Washington (after also starting against Michigan but not playing as extensively) and had 10 tackles.
Junior Kerry Neal, starting back at linebacker after being in the depth chart as a defensive end, had 7 tackles, including 2 tackles for loss netting 13 yards, including the huge sack in overtime.
The defensive line, coached by former long-time Washington veteran assistant coach Randy Hart, along with graduate assistant and former Notre Dame and NFL stand-out Bryant Young, is stepping up its production.
Sophomore defensive end, Kapron Lewis-Moore had 7 tackles, 2 for loss netting 9 yards, and another sack. Defensive tackle Ethan Johnson had 5 tackles, including another 2 tackles for loss, nose-tackle Ian Williams had 2 tackles, and nose tackle Paddy Mullin got into the rotation and secured a tackle.
Notre Dame gave up 457 yards on defense, including 281 passing and 176 on the ground. So after clamping down on the Purdue running game, Notre Dame allowed Washington to rush for about 70 yards more than has usually been the case for the Huskies.
But Notre Dame also sacked Washington's mobile quarterback Locker three times, including when the game was on the line in overtime.
And above all, Notre Dame played to win, and the defense came through with big-time plays in the clutch.
Special Teams
On special teams, the big story was that Tausch tied a Notre Dame record with his five field goals and appears to be both reliable and to have a strong leg. His kick-offs were superior to the opponent's kick-offs, and Notre Dame's kick coverage was strong, including pinning Washington down deep near the end of regulation.
Riddick, the fastest player on the Irish roster, continues to unleash good strong kick returns, and hopefully will elevate his game to break some huge ones. Recall that Rocket Ismail as a freshman kick-returner was essentially reliably strong in his returns, and then ended up taking two to the house against Rice later in his freshman season before exploding onto the national consciousness as a sophomore.
Freshman punter Ben Turk, making his first start, averaged about 40 yards per punt ... not stellar but solid, and above all consistent and reliable in a tight game where every play mattered.
Preliminary Final Thoughts
Nobody really knows how good Notre Dame is, but Notre Dame is playing football and Notre Dame is winning.
There is a feel to the Notre Dame wins reminiscent of the Dan Devine and Lou Holtz eras.
And, make no mistake about it, Washington is a good team.
Chances are, Notre Dame is a good top-15 team right now, that might be able to produce the results to be a decent top-10 team, but is still developing. If the FBS/Div I-A had a playoff, there might be speculation as to whether Notre Dame, playing to win, could advance through the playoffs as the big Cinderella, especially with Michael Floyd back for the postseason.
If not for bad calls against Michigan, Notre Dame would be 5-0 right now.
It looks as if Clausen might be fully healthy against Southern Cal, Tate is emerging as one of the nation's top receivers, on a par with Floyd, and Rudolph is one the top tight-ends.
An interesting question will be how Weis rotates the runners, especially with Hughes reemerging as a ball-carrier and Tate showing flash as a flanker-running back reminiscent of Rocket Ismail or Tim Brown.
Also interesting will be adjustments on defense, and how heroic Irish defenders emerge as every-down tacklers. T'eo's weekly strides are also quite interesting, with his first start making him one of the top tacklers.
All in all, a big win for the Irish, setting the stage for a storybook rest of the season where the sky's the limit. Next up for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish after the bye week, the Southern Cal Trojans and the most storied rivalry in college football.
Keywords: Notre Dame Football, Fighting Irish, Jimmy Clausen, Charlie Weis, Kyle Rudolph, Golden Tate, Robert Hughes, Armando Allen, Robbie Parris, Shaquelle Evans, Washington Football, Steve Sarkisian, Jake Locker, College Football, Manti Teo, T'eo, Kyle McCarthy, Harrison Smith
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