Love And Price Power Notre Dame Past USC
- Bruce Straughan
- Oct 20
- 4 min read
Coming into this game, there was so much talk surrounding the rivalry between Notre Dame and USC. Would this be the last face-off between the two storied historic programs for the foreseeable future? With no contract extension agreed upon by either team, we may have seen the final game between these two, which would be awful in my opinion, as this is truly one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports, dating back to 1926. I don't care what they have to do, but something has to be done to continue this rivalry forever.
If that worry wasn't enough, reports kept swirling that come game time, there was a possibility for major rainfall, and if that wasn't bad enough, lightning was being forecasted as a major part of the storm. Many started to worry. Would the game be delayed for a significant period of time, or would the game even happen at all and be cancelled? But as luck would have it, the storm seemed to be pushed back farther and farther into the night. In fact, it didn't really start to rain heavily until later into the fourth quarter.
USC received the ball to start the game and immediately went to work and marched down the field on 10 plays for 75 yards, which was capped off by a 10-yard pass from Jayden Maiava to Lake McRee. USC immediately took Notre Dame into deep water, and they weren't up to the task. Notre Dame's defense once again started the game slowly, with poor tackling, and looked lost and unsure in what they were doing. It started to feel like if Notre Dame was going to win this game; it would have to be in a shootout situation.
The Notre Dame offense on its first series had no problem getting going after the second play when Jeremiyah Love busted loose for a 63-yard run down to the USC 12, where he capped off the drive on a 12-yard run for a touchdown. Carr completed this drive with two underwhelming passes for incompletions, something that would linger with him as the game went on. This was by far his worst performance of the season and his third week in a row where, at times, he lacked accuracy and just looked overall uncomfortable. Carr made one of the worst decisions you'll ever see when he scrambled around with no one open, and instead of throwing it away and living to see another down, he panicked and threw it right to two defenders, resulting in an interception in Notre Dame's own red zone. Which begs the question, is Carr regressing? Or is this just freshman growing pains that were likely to happen all along? I'd tend to believe it's the latter.
Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price were an absolute force to be reckoned with Saturday night, and USC had no answer for the two-headed monster. Love rushed for a career high of 228 yards and a touchdown, while Jadarian Price rushed for 87 yards on 13 carries and lit the stadium up with a 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. Love and Price continue to be one of the most dynamic RB tandems in the country, and their 1-2 punch seems to be too much for any opposing team to deal with.
Special teams was once again an absolute nightmare last night, with a missed field goal, a missed extra point, and if that wasn't bad enough, kicking the ball out of bounds on kickoffs, resulting in a penalty. I don't know what's going on with the kicking game at Notre Dame, but Marcus Freeman and special teams Coach Marty Biagi better figure it out and fast. These types of kicking debacles can and will eventually cost you a game, and if they do make the College Football Playoff, they are most certainly gonna need a serviceable FG kicker. I don't care what they do to fix it, but it has to be fixed and fast. Maybe they should take a peek at the soccer team and possibly strike gold like the Dallas Cowboys did when they landed Brandon Aubrey.
The defense as bad as they started this game; they really have to be credited for helping this team beat their longtime rival in USC. They settled down, especially in the second half, and dominated the USC offense, especially in the 4th quarter, when they shut down the high-powered USC offense and held them to zero points. Chris Ash, like him or not, deserves a lot of credit for the 2nd half adjustments of the defensive side of the ball and their continuing progress from week to week. With that being said, he still has work to do with this defense when it comes to starting the game slowly and the poor tackling that shows itself at times every week.
There were certainly quite a few negatives coming out of this game, but even with Notre Dame playing as rough as they did at times, they still managed to dominate their longtime rival in USC, and at the end of the day, that's all that truly matters. If this truly is the last time that the Irish will play SoCal for the foreseeable future, what a way to go out on top and secure the jeweled shillelagh trophy, where it may now possibly live forever in South Bend. On to the next one...
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