It’s bordering on ridiculous and closing quickly on beyond description.
The Irish once again pull out a miracle football game and win one for the ages. Maybe it’s not for the ages, but merely for the season, as the Irish are making a case for reserving their own ESPN Classic channel. As Jake Locker’s fourth down heave to the middle of the field rattled out of the hands of D’Andre Goodwin (thanks to a fierce sandwich hit by safeties Kyle McCarthy and Harrison Smith), Notre Dame again escaped improbably, walking away with a 37-30 overtime victory.
During a game where driving rain fell sideways and a sloppy track befuddled Irish defenders and quarterback Jimmy Clausen, the Irish may not have played perfectly, but they certainly had a flair for the dramatic. The Irish defense, battered by the arm of Locker and the running of Chris Polk, stood strong when the going got toughest, pulling out two goal-line stands, the final one a tour-de-force performance that included 8 plays that started after the Huskies got to the Irish one-yard-line, and a mulligan for the Huskies after a bizarre roughing the snapper penalty was called. The Irish forced Steve Sarkisian to attempt a second field goal after running over nine-minutes off the 4th quarter clock, and gave the Irish its chance to win the ballgame by keeping the contest a one-possession game.
It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t pretty, but it was certainly gutty. The Irish stand 4-1 with a bye week before the Trojans of Southern Cal come to town. Here’s what we learned today:
1) Golden Tate has answered the bell.
Tate’s herculean numbers explode from the stat sheet: 9 catches for 244 yards (27.1 per catch), 1 carry for 31 yards, and a TD. With the absence of Michael Floyd, Tate has stepped up his game, getting the ball in every way possible and wreaking havoc on defenses that struggle to contain him. While the Irish offense is certainly a different beast with Floyd out, Tate has done everything he could to put the Irish passing game on his back and create plays.
2) Jimmy Clausen is ready for his closeup.
In a monsoon, Jimmy Clausen completed 74% of his passes for 422 yards. An incredible feat that’s almost becoming a regular occurrence by the junior quarterback. 31 times Clausen dropped back to pass, and 23 times Irish players came down with the ball. Of his 8 misses, off the top of my head, I can think of two throwaways, two drops (one a TD by Robby Parris, the other an INT through Armando Allen’s hands), and only one truly bad decision -- a backwards pass that didn’t technically count against Clausen’s passing numbers. The only thing that stopped Clausen today were his suspect feet, already battered before they had to deal with the sloppy sod of Notre Dame Stadium. We’re running out of things to say about Clausen, who was once again cool under pressure in his final two possessions. With 2:52 remaining in regulation, Clausen marched the Irish offense down the field with remarkable efficiency, 5 plays for 63 yards, in only 104 seconds. Most people wait at stoplights longer. With a bye week, expect Clausen to have his foot on ice for the next 9 days, resting for the biggest challenge of his career.
3) The Irish defense continues to pick itself back up.
Let’s start with the bad: 457 total yards -- 176 on the ground, 281 in the air -- and countless missed tackles. The Irish looked like a powder puff team trying to tackle 200-pound running back Chris Polk, who carried defenders countless times for 136 tough yards, many after first contact. But the defense stood tall when it mattered the most. Bend but don’t break would be an insult to this unit -- the Irish defense looked like Rocky Balboa pulling itself off of the mat and miraculously stopping the Huskies when things were at their bleakest. With the Huskies up 24-19 and time running out in the 3rd quarter, the Irish stuffed Locker three times from inside the three-yard-line, getting a turnover on downs at the one-foot line. Then, in a goal-line stand that has to match up with the greatest in school history, the Irish survived 8 plays of do-or-die football, and forced a field goal by Sarkisian’s Huskies when a touchdown would’ve put the game out of reach. The Irish gave up two field goals in the two-minute drill, but when backed up against it all, somehow came out alive.
4) The red zone offense without Michael Floyd is a question mark.
Five field goals. Five. For those who don’t have Nick Tausch in their college football fantasy league, this is a nightmare. The Irish only punted the ball twice today, but when they drove the ball inside the Husky 20, the offense that was running in overdrive seemed to stall out. It’s clear that Notre Dame missing their jump ball threat in Floyd is forcing the Irish to find different ways to score, and today the Irish couldn’t figure a way into the end zone. The running game got stuffed several times today, and while Tausch’s accuracy today was exemplary, Notre Dame needs to get 6 instead of settling for 3, especially in games like this.
5) There’s a magic in the sound of their name...
Say what you will, but there is something going on here. Another miracle finish and another celebration for the Irish and their fans. The goal line stands, the late game heroics, the two-point conversion, it’s as if Notre Dame actually believes that these games should go this way. Even with Locker and the Huskies miraculously marching 70 yards on 9 plays in the final 1:20, the Irish offense calmly went down the field in overtime and scored in two plays. Two minutes earlier, with a one-point lead and two points needed to make it a field goal game, Notre Dame’s trick shotgun draw was snuffed out, but Robert Hughes and a squadron of offensive lineman willed their way into the end zone. That’s the kind of play that becomes a signature moment. That’s the kind of play that wakes up the echoes.
The Irish once again played a dangerous game with fate, but walked away victorious. After years of feeling like nothing can go right, the Irish have reversed course over the last three games and walk into their bye week knowing that the luck of the Irish may have been restored.