Upon Further Review: Notre Dame lucky to be unbeaten
By DOUG GRIFFITHS
ISL Correspondent
Notre Dame has been playing with fire in its home games and after a triple overtime win over Pitt Saturday, the Irish finally got burned.
No, they didn’t see their undefeated season go up in smoke, but rather another close home victory cost them a spot in the ever-important BCS ratings. Notre Dame is now fourth in the BCS behind No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Kansas State and No. 3 Oregon.
The Irish enter their final three regular-season games knowing they don’t control their own destiny as far as playing in the BCS National Championship Game is concerned.
Notre Dame needs to beat Boston College, Wake Forest and USC and have two of the three teams ahead of them lose down the stretch if they hope to get a ticket to January’s title game in Miami.
A lot of people are pondering how an undefeated Irish team could possibly left out of the national championship game.
“If you told me that Alabama and Oregon were also undefeated as well as Notre Dame, I would say, ‘Well, there is a chance,'” Irish coach Brian Kelly said. “Those are teams that have been here and done that. Notre Dame hasn’t done it in a while. Those teams are undefeated, too. I would say, ‘Well, there is a chance we may get left out.’”
Notre Dame was penalized by the BCS for its less-than-impressive win over Pitt and rightfully so.
To say the Irish were lucky to escape with a 29-26 victory is an understatement.
Against the Panthers, Notre Dame didn’t play like a top-five team and hasn’t at home all season. All five of the Irish home tilts have been decided by a touchdown or less.
Now, it would serve the Irish well to not only beat the Eagles and Demon Deacons the next two weeks, but do so in convincing fashion to get any possible style points possible for the BCS.
If they’re 11-0 headed to Southern California over Thanksgiving weekend, Notre Dame will know playing the Trojans will provide them an opportunity to possibly improve their rating. But that game won’t carry the kind of clout it was believed it would since USC now has three losses.
It goes without saying over the next four weeks Irish fans will be big fans of whoever is playing the Crimson Tide, Wildcats and Ducks.
– Alabama hosts nationally-ranked Texas A&M Saturday and a week later entertains Western Carolina before hosting rival Auburn Nov. 24.
The SEC Championship Game is Dec. 1 in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
– Kansas State travels to TCU this Saturday and hits the road for a game against Baylor seven days later. The Wildcats have the weekend of Nov. 24 off before hosting nationally-ranked Texas Dec. 1.
There is no Big 12 Championship Game.
– Oregon heads to California for a game against the Golden Bears Saturday, and then hosts nationally ranked Stanford. The Ducks finish the regular season at Oregon State Nov. 24.
Assuming Oregon has the best Pac-12 record, the conference championship game will be held Nov. 30 in Eugene.
So without further ado we take a look back at Notre Dame’s improbable victory over the Panthers on Saturday.
Following, IndySportsLegends.com hands out its weekly grades from the Irish’s ninth win of the season.
QUARTERBACKS – A/F
What’s up with the two grades you ask? Everett Golson delivered another superb performance, while Tommy Rees’ was a dud.
Golson was pulled late in the second quarter for Rees.
Rees connected on 6-of-11 passes for 64 yards, but his final attempt would be his last as he found the open linebacker, which resulted in an interception halfway through the third quarter.
Golson returned with his team trailing 17-6.
He engineered two fourth-quarter touchdown drives – one of which covered 71 yards and the other 50 yards – to send the game into overtime. Both touchdowns came via passes thrown by Golson, one was an 11-yarder and the other a 5-yarder.
The second came after he had driven the Irish to the Pitt 7 and threw an interception in the end zone. That didn’t rattle Golson though as the next time Notre Dame touched the ball it tied the game at 20 thanks to his scrambling ability on the two-point conversion. Golson found a way to get into the end zone even after Tyler Eifert, the No. 1 option on the play, was covered.
Golson found the end zone again in the third OT and it was the game-winner.
Golson’s final numbers were 23-of-42 passing for 227 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, and he ran for 74 yards and the aforementioned scored.
Golson showed amazing confidence after his coach had yanked him from the game. This guy has poise and proved he can lead the Irish to victory when the game is on the line.
RUNNING BACKS – B
You couldn’t ask for much better production than to have three players gain 70 or more yards rushing the football.
Theo Riddick led the Irish with 85 yards on 22 carries. Golson had the 74 yards already mentioned and Cierre Wood accounted for 70 yards on 13 carries.
The reason the grade is not an A is because Wood’s fumble near the goal line in the second overtime nearly cost the Irish the game. It goes without saying that you can’t afford such costly turnovers with the game hanging in the balance. Notre Dame got lucky Wood’s fumble didn’t result in the first loss of the season. Next time it probably won’t get as fortunate.
RECEIVERS/TIGHT ENDS – B+
Six different players caught the 29 passes thrown by the Irish and four of those players had 50 or more yards.
DaVaris Daniels led the way with a game-high seven catches for 86 yards, while Eifert and Robby Toma each had half a dozen grabs.
It was Daniels who made a good adjustment to a Golson pass in flight that he came back for and caught at the Pitt 5, which set up the game’s-tying score in the fourth quarter.
TJ Jones, who made five catches for 53 yards, was the only receiver to haul in a TD pass. His 11-yard grab got the Irish to within 20-12 with 13:40 remaining in regulation.
The Irish were the huge beneficiaries of a pass interference call on Pitt cornerback K’Waun Williams as he was defending Eifert. Williams made a good play on the ball, going straight up and knocking the ball away from Eifert without making much of any contact. However the back judge threw the flag on Williams, which kept the drive alive. Had a flag not been thrown, Pitt would’ve taken possession as the penalty came on a fourth-and-four from the Pitt 23. One play later Notre Dame made it 20-12.
OFFENSIVE LINE – B+
After somewhat of a rough start due to some first-quarter penalties, the line settled down.
The o-line only allowed one sack and helped the running attack average 4.5 yards per carry en route to a 231-yard rushing performance.
The sack total was helped because of Golson’s uncanny knack for finding running lanes and staying out of trouble when he’s scrambling.
DEFENSIVE LINE – C
It was an up and down affair for the defensive line.
They did sack Pitt QB Tino Sunseri five times, but allowed talented running back Ray Graham to average 7.2 yards per carry as he finished with 172 yards rushing on 24 carries and had a couple of long runs. Graham’s 55-yard run, which came on the Panther’s first snap from scrimmage, was the longest offensive play of the season allowed by the Irish. He also had a 48-yard run.
With that said, the line once again delivered a memorable goal-line stand, which hasn’t been talked about much.
Pitt led 17-6 in the third quarter and had a first-and-goal situation from the Irish 2. On the first play, Graham was thrown for a 2-yard loss, which forced the Panthers into a couple of passing situations, both of which were incomplete. Pitt settled for a field goal to make it 20-6, but it could’ve been 24-6 had Notre Dame’s defense not come up big there.
LINEBACKERS – C
As good as the Irish backers have been this season, they weren’t impressive against Pitt.
The Panthers finished with 144 yards rushing on 33 carries.
Over the previous 31 games, the Irish linebacking corps had helped its defense allow just one rush of 48 yards or longer. Pitt had two.
You knew things just weren’t right for the linebackers when Manti Te’o had just one tackle at halftime. Te’o finished with seven as Dan Fox led the way with nine and Prince Shembo had eight, including a pair for losses.
SECONDARY – B
The secondary did give up a 9-yard touchdown pass to J.P. Holtz in the third quarter, but time and again they came up big down the stretch and in overtime to give the Irish a chance to rally and eventually win the game.
The Irish did give up their longest reception of the season as Holtz had a 43-yard catch to set up a touchdown, which gave the Panthers a 17-6 in the third quarter.
Sunseri completed 19-of-29 passes for 164 yards to seven different receivers.
Considering this unit’s youth, it continues to play well as there are few occasions where opposing receivers are running free and aren’t at least guarded closely.
SPECIAL TEAMS – B+
Irish kicker Kyle Brindza delivered in a big way and saved the game by hitting a huge 37-yard field goal to send the game into a second overtime.
Had Brindza, who connected on 3-of-4 fields on the day, missed that pressure-filled kick, Notre Dame would’ve been 8-1 instead of 9-0.
In the following overtime, the Irish caught a gigantic break on Pitt’s 33-yard missed field goal as they had two No. 2s – Bennett Jackson and Chris Brown – on the field at the same times, but no penalty flag was thrown despite that being an infraction.
Kelly called the mistake a coaching snafu.
“It was a coaching mistake,” he said. “We had out our ‘Desperado’ team out there, and Chris Brown was part of Desperado.’ We have to do a better job. An oversight that can’t happen.”
Had the flag been thrown, Pitt would’ve had a first-and-10 at the Irish 11-yard line.
It’s better to be lucky than good sometimes, right?
COACHING – D
Benching Golson in favor of Rees warrants Kelly’s poor grade. He only passes because the Irish somehow won the game.
I’ve grown tired of Kelly’s musical chairs at quarterbacks. I know he said Golson was missing reads that he should be picking up at this point in the season, but that’s what young quarterbacks do.
I go back to the preseason when Kelly continually said there were going to be some growing pains with Golson and he and his coaching staff were going to have to live with those. Well, he hasn’t.
The fact is, Golson gives this Irish team its best chance to win, period.
Kelly needs to stop panicking when Golson struggles. Leave him in the game and let him work it out on the field instead of on the sideline. Not many players could be yanked out of a game and then re-inserted and lead the team to victory with so much on the line. Golson did and that’s pretty impressive for a rookie quarterback.
OVERALL – B-
As I wrote about after the game, somehow, someway Notre Dame survived.
The Irish are 9-0 for the first time since 1993, but are they a top-five team? They looked like it a week earlier at Oklahoma, but at home this season they’ve looked anything but an undefeated team in November and one vying for a trip to the national championship game.
Had it not been for a couple huge breaks against Pitt – the pass interference call in the fourth quarter and the two players wearing the same number on the field at the same time – the Irish would be entering their final three regular-season games fighting for their BCS lives.
Instead, Notre Dame is in position to play for it all. Sure, it will need some help down the stretch, but considering how the Irish got here, Notre Dame fans should be thankful their team is in the position it is in.
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