In most years going on the road to face the Fighting Irish in Notre Dame Stadium is not a recipe for success. But for a Notre Dame team that is now 3-3 overall and 1-2 at home this isn’t most years and the Cardinal prevailed on the road with a Joshua Karty 43 yard field goal to give Stanford a 16-14 lead with more than ten minutes remaining. But with Notre Dame fumbling the ball on their next possession and having to turn it back over to Stanford again on the possession after that–failing to convert a 4th and 7 with just a little over a minute left–it was enough.
Tanner McKee connected on 26-of-38 for 288 yards while Stanford rushed 42 times for 97 yards with Junior RB Casey Filkins getting all but six of those and their only score on the ground. Cardinal Junior Place Kicker Joshu Karty provided the other points on three field goals and one extra point. The Notre Dame QB, Sophomore Drew Pyne, was 13-of-27 for 151 yards and 1 TD to Freshman WR Tobias Merryweather while the Fighting Irish, in a committee like approach, rushed four different guys 31 times for 162 yards and 1 TD by Sophomore RB Audric Estime.
After forcing Notre Dame to a three-and-out on the first possession of the game Stanford took an early lead 8 plays and 66 yards later on a Filkins’ 2 yard TD run to go up 7-0. But that’s where the score stayed until a Notre Dame fumble with less than a minute left in the 2nd Qtr which led to a Stanford 45 yard field goal with time expiring. The Cardinal put three more points up on the scoreboard at the end of their 2nd possession of the 3rd Qtr to go up 13-0. Six plays and 75 yards later the Fighting Irish finally got some points on a 10 yard TD run by Audric Estime and again on their next possession on a Drew Pyne 41 yard TD toss to Merryweather to get within two points at 16-14 where it stayed.
Stanford out-paced Notre Dame in 1st Downs, 21-to-16; Total Yards of Offense, 385-to-301; and had a twelve minute cushion in time-of-possession and although the Fighting Irish recorded quite a few more tackles 88-to-57, the Cardinal had twice as many sacks and twice as many tackles for loss. As the AP pointed out in their review of the game for ESPN Stanford’s win, “ended an 11-game losing streak against FBS opponents.” Regarding Notre Dame they wrote; “It’s the second embarrassing home loss of the season for the Irish [who] were beaten 26-21 by Marshall in the second game of the season, but had won three straight since.”
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said it comes down to execution. “We weren’t running the ball effectively. We also weren’t throwing the ball as effectively as we wanted. It wasn’t a lack of effort in the game. It wasn’t a lack of preparation [not my fault]. But it’s not correlating over to the results you want, so you have to look at what you are doing and how you are doing it and figure out a better way to do it.” huh!?! Man that last sentence was a mouthful and just because of that he, although just in his first year, is now on my Dead Pool Coaches list which was up to three but No. 1 on the list, Karl Dorrell, got the axe a couple of Sunday’s ago. This guy won’t last long at Notre Dame—it’s just one of those places.
Notre Dame hosts UNLV next week while Stanford comes back home to Palo Alto to take on Arizona State.