Everett Golson's Ability to Carry Notre Dame Is Key Difference in 2014

INDIANAPOLIS — On a night when Notre Dame football quarterback Everett Golson wasn’t at his best, he showed how far he has come.

A quick glance at Golson’s stat line tells one story. He completed a career-high 25 passes for 259 yards and two touchdowns. He rushed for a team-best 56 yards and a score. He didn’t turn the ball over.

A conversation with Golson and Fighting Irish head coach Brian Kelly tells another.

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“Offensively, missed opportunities for the most part,” Kelly said after Notre Dame’s 30-14 win over Purdue in the Shamrock Series at Lucas Oil Stadium. “We needed to play better. Everett is going to get a lot of the blame. Obviously, he's the quarterback. He'll tell you he needs to play better.”

While Kelly went on to say it’s the entire offense that needs to improve—from the offensive line to the wide receivers to the running backs—Golson agreed he wasn’t at his best.

“We didn’t play to the best of our abilities,” Golson said. “There’s still things that we have to correct. We have to execute better obviously. We have to communicate better.”

But with the Irish defense lethargic in the first half and the rushing attack anemic throughout the contest, Golson proved he could carry the team. And that was one major difference in an otherwise standard Purdue-Notre Dame matchup of recent years—when the Irish play a little below the expectation and the Boilermakers rise above. Golson, however, made sure the meeting point wasn’t all that central in the end.

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After Notre Dame fell behind for the first time this season with three minutes to play in the second quarter, Golson went to work. He maneuvered the offense in slow, choppy bits—eight yards here, seven there, five here and six more there—before Notre Dame burned a timeout with 51 seconds remaining in the half. With an empty backfield, Golson fired a 32-yard strike to Corey Robinson over the top of the Purdue defense. Two plays later, Golson ran 15 yards around the right side to put the Irish ahead 17-14, a lead they would never relinquish.

It was sometime right around then—Golson and his teammates didn’t remember the exact moment—that the senior leader called the offense together.

“He just said, look guys, we need to focus,” Robinson said. “I know we’re going through some really tough adversity right now. It’s not going our way, but we’ve got to pull together—not for anyone else, just for us. We put too much work in for us not to succeed.”

With the defense holding stronger in the second half, Golson started moving the chains as the offense looked to pull away. He converted four of five third downs through the air on the first two drives in the second half. With relative ease, Golson made the right reads, and Notre Dame kept driving. The Irish soon padded their lead and rolled to the victory.

It wasn’t a perfect Golson on display Saturday—and it was only Purdue—but it was a different Golson from his redshirt freshman season in 2012.

“He just understands the game,” Kelly said. “The game is slower for him than it was when he was here in his first year. The game has slowed down. He sees the field better.”

And it adds up to a much-improved Golson and a much-improved Irish offense. Despite the first-half stupor, Golson is good enough to key a Notre Dame victory—even when he doesn’t play exceptionally well.

“I had confidence through it all,” Golson said. “For me there never was a point … that I thought we were going to lose.”

If Golson keeps developing quickly, Irish fans could start feeling the same way.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Mike Monaco is a lead Notre Dame writer for Bleacher Report. Follow @MikeMonaco_ on Twitter.