On Saturday, Notre Dame officially punched its ticket to the College Football Playoff with a thrilling 49-35 victory over rival USC in the Coliseum. The Irish closed out the regular season on a 10-game winning run to finish 11-1, the best record of head coach Marcus Freeman’s tenure. The win all but confirmed a postseason game at Notre Dame Stadium that will take place either on Friday, Dec. 20, or Saturday, Dec. 21. That leaves the Irish with three much-needed weeks to prepare for their next opponent, who will be decided after next week’s slate of conference championship games, games Notre Dame will watch eagerly from home. Here are some of the team’s active strengths and weaknesses heading into the playoff in this week’s edition of stock up, stock down.
Stock up: the rushing attack
Notre Dame’s performance on the ground against the Trojans felt like a defining moment for an Irish offensive line that, after going through a season of unanswered questions, unproven players and midseason injuries, has come out the other side as one of the better units in the country. In the most pivotal game of the season, the group, which was nominated as a semifinalist for the Joe Moore Award, played arguably its best game, powering 258 yards and three touchdowns on the ground without a single penalty.
Behind it, star sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love looked as explosive as ever, going for 99 yards on 13 attempts and extending his touchdown streak to 12 games, a record-setting number. He managed this output before suffering a knee injury in the third quarter. Junior running back Jadarian Price more than picked up the slack, however, with 111 yards on 12 carries and a 36-yard touchdown dash. With three weeks to recover, Notre Dame will hope Love can return to full strength and continue to power the blossoming backfield.
Stock up: the resilience of the defense
Coming into the game with the best passing efficiency defense in the country, allowing fewer than two touchdowns per game, the Notre Dame defense looked like one of the most dominant units in the country. Saturday’s matchup with the Trojans proved to be a much tougher test, however. The group surrendered 35 points and 557 yards of total offense, 360 of which came through the air, all season-high totals. If you had told Irish fans that midway through the fourth quarter, Notre Dame would have put up 35 points of offense, they would have assumed a comfortable win was on the horizon. But with a little under six minutes remaining in the game, it was anything but.
At the six-minute mark, Trojan quarterback Jayden Maiava, who threw for an impressive 360 yards and three touchdowns in the game, was driving down the field trailing by only a touchdown. That was until sophomore cornerback Christian Gray, who, up to that point in the game, had been singled out in man-to-man coverage repeatedly, came up with the game-defining play. Once again in one-on-one coverage, this time with Trojan wideout Kyron Hudson, Gray made a break on a rare underthrow from Maiava and took it back 99 yards to the house.
While the game was close to sealed at that point, graduate safety Xavier Watts delivered the knockout blow with a 100-yard pick-six of his own on the following drive, giving Notre Dame a three-score advantage with a little over a minute remaining. The big plays made by the secondary late in the game made for a fitting end, as the defensive unit that has carried the Irish through much of the season secured the victory despite not playing their best game.
Stock up: the preparation of the coaching staff
While there was no question that Notre Dame would get up for the season finale against its rival with the Playoff on the line, the win over the Trojans completed a run that head coach Marcus Freeman and his staff had not yet proved he could make in his first two seasons. After the Northern Illinois loss, it looked like yet another season of high expectations would go begging as a result of poor week-to-week preparation and looking past weak competition. Freeman instead used the game as a watershed moment for the team, literally reminding his players of it on film every single week of their 10-game winning streak. Throughout this streak, he managed their emotions and got them to a place where winning became routine, even when it was not always pretty.
The USC game was a prime example of this. The Trojan offense punched the Irish in the mouth multiple times throughout the game, but each time Freeman’s team responded to take care of business when it needed to most. En route to this final test, the Irish left no doubt in any of their wins, albeit against poor competition, taking the nine games by a combined 300-point scoring margin. The defining question has always been whether or not this Notre Dame team could handle success. On Saturday, the Irish finally answered it. Their reward: the first-ever playoff game in Notre Dame Stadium.
Stock down: the strength of the secondary
For as resilient as Notre Dame’s defense was to come up with big plays at the end of the game, its performance particularly in the secondary is cause for some concern. USC’s passing attack, from a quarterback in Maiava who played his best game of the season, to talented wide receivers in Makai Lemon, Duce Robinson and Zachariah Branch, was the strongest this Irish defense had faced all season. Lemon and Branch were a threat in the open field all game, combining for 178 yards, while the 6-foot-6 Robinson terrorized corners at the catch point for his three receptions and 63 yards. Freshman cornerback Leonard Moore held up well, but sophomore Christian Gray was picked on relentlessly as the Trojan offense threw for 360 yards.
The game was a wake-up call and a reminder of what Notre Dame has ahead of it in the postseason. While it hasn’t made much of a difference during a weak regular season slate, the season-ending injury to junior cornerback and projected first-rounder Benjamin Morrison looked all the more glaring on Saturday. The Irish will remain confident that their defense can dominate, especially should they return graduate defensive lineman Howard Cross III, who sat out again against USC, to full health, but they will need to expect what they saw on Saturday to be the norm no matter who they face in the playoff.
Stock down: the kicking game
By far the most pressing concern for Notre Dame amid the pileup of injuries and question marks on either side of the ball is the kicking game. As of right now, the Irish do not have a competent kicker. Since returning from a month-long absence with a right hip issue, graduate transfer Mitch Jeter has gone 1 for 5 on kicks and missed another against USC. There appears to be little trust in backup Zac Yoakam, the junior going 1 for 3 while filling in for Jeter. Whether it is the lingering hip injury or some kind of mental block, Jeter is clearly not in a good place right now, and it is massively hurting this team. His recent misses beg the question as to whether or not he can be trusted to kick at all, which significantly impacts offensive play calling. The Irish will have three weeks to sort it out, but the alarm bells are ringing louder than ever.
