Notre Dame Can't Afford a Similar Sloppy, Unfocused Effort vs. Stanford
BOSTON — The venerable grounds at Fenway Park hadn’t hosted football since 1968, and Notre Dame football did little on the field to push the sport forward Saturday.
Take away the green, glitzy glamour of the seventh Shamrock Series—Notre Dame’s annual off-site home game—and focus on the 60 minutes of game action inside the warning track. The Irish did trudge away from Boston College with a 19-16 win and a 10-1 record, but Notre Dame left much to be desired and plenty to be developed before it meets Stanford next weekend in what could prove to be a playoff-clinching regular-season finale.
From the opening kickoff that knuckleballed out of bounds, the Fighting Irish and Eagles bludgeoned one another with an unending slew of sloppiness. In addition to Notre Dame’s five turnovers, including three in the red zone, the Irish muffed three punts, dropped multiple sure receptions and batted around would-be interceptions. In the final tune-up before Notre Dame’s main event next weekend, the Irish only created more questions.
“Tonight it was turnovers,” Irish head coach Brian Kelly said. “Just found a way to win against a very spirited Boston College team despite the amount of turnovers that we had tonight. … Would we have planned to turn it over this many times and thought we could’ve won? Probably not.”
In describing the turnovers, Kelly said freshman running back Josh Adams’ fumble “should’ve been secured” and called a pair of quarterback DeShone Kizer’s interceptions “ill-advised” and “careless.”
“If we take care of the football, this game separates,” Kelly said.
Beyond merely the turnovers, the Irish were messy.
There was Will Fuller with a fourth-quarter drop near the goal line, three drives after the standout wideout dropped a crossing pattern over the middle.
Three plays later, there were Jaylon Smith and Matthias Farley deflecting a lifeless John Fadule pass and elongating the Eagles’ life.
There was a kick off the upright, back-foot throws and plenty of worm-burning ground balls that grazed over the would-be infield dirt. In seven trips to the red zone, the Irish scored just two touchdowns.
“It’s like leaving runners in scoring position,” Kelly cracked from Red Sox manager John Farrell’s standard postgame perch. “To keep stubbing our toe down there becomes concerning.”
And no matter how much bite the Boston College defense boasts or how valued each November win should be, there’s no denying the victory was woefully lacking. Take Kizer, who unknowingly misspoke and, in the process, acknowledged how many Irish fans likely felt.
“It’s ugly to have this loss at this time of the year, but at the same time, it’s gonna be a great learning experience for me and the rest of the offense,” Kizer said.
A loss? Not this week.
“It is so hard to win football games. It is so hard,” Irish senior linebacker Joe Schmidt said. “I honestly have no idea what happened in the college football landscape today, but I can guarantee you there was a lot of stuff that happened today that you didn’t exactly think was gonna happen. That’s college football. That’s why people love it. It’s hard to win football games. And we’re happy that we won today.”
But even Schmidt will tell you Notre Dame needs to be better against Stanford. It needs enough to win and maybe even more to convince a committee presented with potential alternatives like Oklahoma, Baylor, Iowa and Michigan State.
“We want to go in and play a clean game against Stanford,” Schmidt said. “Really, we’re not thinking about style points.”
Wins aren’t easy and shouldn’t be taken for granted. But as Schmidt acknowledged, the Irish must be crisper against the Cardinal to accomplish their mission.
All quotes were obtained firsthand and all stats courtesy of CFBStats.com unless otherwise noted.
Mike Monaco is the lead Notre Dame writer for Bleacher Report. Follow @MikeMonaco_ on Twitter.
