Irish mauled by Clemson in hunt for national title
ARLINGTON, Texas — The last time Notre Dame played in a game this meaningful, the stage was too big, the opponent too strong. The Irish trudged off the field as 42-14 losers to Alabama in the BCS championship game six seasons ago.
The country labeled them as frauds.
This time? History repeated itself.
Clemson walloped the Irish, 30-3, and harassed Ian Book at every turn Saturday in a College Football Playoff semifinal. While Book completed just 17 of 34 passes for 160 yards and an interception, Clemson true freshman Trevor Lawrence posted this pretty stat line: 27 for 39, 327 yards, three touchdowns, no turnovers.
The Cotton Bowl victory puts the Tigers in the national title game for the third time in the last four seasons. They will play the Alabama-Oklahoma winner Jan. 7 in Santa Clara, Calif.
Notre Dame returns to South Bend, Ind., after a 12-1 season.
“It’s hard to win a game when you score three points,” Book said. “We didn’t need super-human efforts today. We needed to do what we did all season but we weren’t able to do that.”
Angry Irish fans will say Brian Kelly should return all those coach of the year trophies. Or at least that Notre Dame’s best athletes are bronze medalists compared with the Usain Bolts that flood the rosters of the top southern teams.
Sympathetic Notre Dame fans will point to some bad breaks and ask: Where is the love?
The game was even after one quarter, with the teams exchanging field goals. Then Julian Love, the AllAmerica cornerback from Nazareth Academy in Chicago’s western suburbs, left with a hamstring injury. Everything changed. Lawrence hit another true freshman, Justyn Ross, on a perfectly lofted 52-yard touchdown pass. Ross beat backup cornerback Donte Vaughn, subbing for Love.
Clemson was wise to pick on him. Vaughn didn’t even see the field at USC and entering Saturday had allowed 16 catches on 21 targets, by far the worst percentage on the team.
Losing Love was an awful break, but if you’re assuming your cornerback won’t get sidelined by injury or a targeting penalty and don’t have a No. 2 who can avoid getting drowned, that’s a problem.
“It hurts,” Love said. “It was hurting me internally. I wanted to be out there and help our team. I let them down in that regard.”
Standout safety Alohi Gilman went down in the second quarter, returning in time to crunch Lawrence on third-down quarterback rush. Lawrence got right up. Not bad for a stringy 6-foot-6 kid who joked on the subject of drug-testing: “Y’all can tell I’m not taking anything.”
But Gilman could not keep up with Ross, who streaked down the middle for a 42-yard score that put the Tigers up 16-3.
For a moment Gilman lay in the end zone, on his back, wishing he could turn back time. Or at least get to halftime with no further damage.