Ugly but still unbeaten
Irish do just enough to dodge upset bid from Commodores
On Notre Dame
SOUTH BEND, IND. — This was the kind of win that can split Notre Dame fans into two camps: ■ We survived and advanced. We’re 3-0. What else matters?
■ We barely beat Ball State and Vanderbilt. Our offense stinks.
Which side are you on after the Irish’s 22-17 victory over the Commodores? One can imagine how coach Brian Kelly and his players feel.
“Three wins,” quarterback Brandon Wimbush said. And then he shrugged.
Kelly put it like this: “Look, we’re not going to beat you 52-3. We’re going to grind it out, play tough, hard-nosed, blue-collar football.”
The season remains in doubt for Notre Dame, whose September slogan seems to be this: WE’RE A WORK IN PROGRESS.
Saturday’s game remained in doubt until the final 67 seconds. That’s when Vanderbilt’s Kyle Shurmur fired to Kalija Lipscomb on a fourth-and-4. Lipscomb appeared to have the ball for an instant, but safety Jalen Elliott knocked it away.
“He applied pressure,” fellow defensive back Julian Love said. “Jalen stayed attached to him and landed on him hard.”
Gritty plays such as that are why Kelly likes this team.
“I’m really proud of my football team and the way they competed,” he said. “It’s the third game of the season. If you’re a finished product after game three, you’re destined for greatness.
“We’re not there yet. If anyone wants to write that ‘greatness’ column, I would tap the brakes.”
A week after they beat Ball State 24-16 (Indiana whipped the Cardinals 38-10 on Saturday, by the way), the Irish scored just six points after halftime. They came when Nic Weishar, the tight end and Marist alum Kelly calls the “heartbeat” of the team, extended his arms to make a terrific catch.
Ian Book delivered the ball. Book curiously dropped in and out of the game, occasionally subbing for Wimbush, who ran well (84 net yards) but did not exactly light up the sky — 13-for-23 passing, 122 yards.
“We have bought into it,” Wimbush said of the quarterback rotation. “Whatever, whoever, however we need to get a ‘W,’ we’re going to do it.”
Wimbush also might have been trying to put on a happy face in describing a passing game that’s as electric as a library book.
“Those guys are on scholarship too,” Wimbush said of the Commodores. “They’re an SEC defense.”
Indeed, this qualified as a victory over an SEC team that came to this vaunted stadium unafraid. As coach Derek Mason put it, “Yeah, we play in the SEC. I don’t worry about going to South Bend.”
The Irish were two-touchdown favorites, but some prominent voices liked Vanderbilt. ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit predicted an outright upset in the “close, low-scoring game.”
That it was.
Notre Dame led 16-3 at the half, but some of that was luck. Vanderbilt nearly scored two touchdowns, the second one on a pass that was dropped.
The first opportunity came on this wild sequence: Shurmur hit Donaven Tennyson, who fought his way to the 1 before Alohi Gilman stripped him. The ball went soaring into the air and eventually bounced into the end zone, where Vanderbilt’s Khari Blasingame was about to roll on it. But Love saved a touchdown by jarring the ball loose.
“It was strange, but I love our aggressiveness,” Love said. “We had all four members of the secondary making an impact on that play.”
Said Kelly: “It was a rugby scrum in the end zone.”
The game’s craziest play prompted the game’s shortest replay review. Touchback, Notre Dame.
Gilman, who made the strip, is a native Hawaiian who appeared at postgame interviews wearing a lei loaded with candy instead of flowers. Last year Irish defenders called such reach-in strips a “lawn mower” play.
Gilman, in tribute to a former teammate, said, “I’m going to call it the Shaun Crawford.”
The Irish are 3-0 and naming the plays. They can’t name the final scores, even against Ball State, but maybe they will evolve.
“We’re still trying to get the kinks out, still trying to be our best self,” said running back Tony Jones Jr., who rushed for a game-high 118 yards.
When will that best self be seen?
“I don’t know,” Jones said, chuckling. “I’m learning this like y’all are.”