Notre Dame Football: Irish Can't Win with Turnovers

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — A seemingly inexplicable game gave way to one simple truism as Northwestern shocked Notre Dame, 43-40, on Saturday.

The Wildcats and the Irish combined for 1,045 yards of total offense, including 474 total rushing yards. As perplexing as it was to see a 3-6 Northwestern squad, fresh off a 10-9 stinker against Michigan, giving the Irish all they could handle, it made perfect sense, in a way. It’s actually quite simple.

Notre Dame cannot continue to turn the football over at such a prolific clip and expect to win games.

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“You can't start winning until you stop losing,” Irish head coach Brian Kelly said after the loss, resuscitating his popular refrain from his first two seasons in South Bend, when the Irish committed a combined 53 turnovers.

And, recently, the Irish are losing. Notre Dame has lost three of its last four games—the first such stretch since the Irish lost three of the first four games of the Brian Kelly era way back in 2010. For the most part, Notre Dame has lost with self-inflicted wounds.

“All the credit in the world to Northwestern, them going out and playing a great football game, but we should have won,” said Irish senior running back Cam McDaniel, who coughed up a fumble with Notre Dame ahead 40-37 with 1:28 remaining in the fourth quarter and the Irish looking to salt away the win at a cold, icy Notre Dame Stadium.

McDaniel’s miscue was one of four Notre Dame turnovers. Three Irish possessions earlier, with Notre Dame up five points at the time, junior receiver Chris Brown fumbled at the Northwestern 1-yard line.

“We’re not making small errors,” Kelly said. “We’re making critical errors.”

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The major mishaps, of course, aren’t isolated incidents. And they’re not without precedent. In Kelly’s first season, Notre Dame committed four turnovers against both Tulsa and USC. In 2011, the Irish gave it up five times against both South Florida and Michigan.

But after that five-turnover showing in the second game of the 2011 season, Notre Dame went 40 games without committing more than three turnovers in a single game. The Irish only had one turnover total in the first three games of this season. That has all changed drastically.

Notre Dame has at least one turnover in eight consecutive games—the longest consecutive stretch in the Kelly era—including addictive performances such as Syracuse (five turnovers), Arizona State (five) and Northwestern.

“We just don't play clean enough as a football team, and those are the things that prevent us from winning.” Kelly said.

Now, Notre Dame’s string of struggles isn’t exactly comparable to the three losses in 2010, when No. 16 Stanford was the only Top 25 team to which to Irish lost. To be fair, No. 3 Florida State and No. 6 Arizona State present stout challenges. But, still, the turnovers are proving costly.

“The way we lost football games then [in 2010] was pretty similar, wasn’t it?” said graduate student safety Austin Collinsworth, who was mostly a special teamer in his rookie season. “It was turnovers and mental mistakes and stuff that you really can’t do if you want to win at this level.”

For now, Notre Dame isn’t winning. It’s clear why, but the deeper cause isn’t as obvious.

“They’re really just showing up on Saturdays,” McDaniel said of the turnover issues, the critical errors. “… You can’t win football games if you turn the ball over.”

Irish sophomore running back Tarean Folston said Notre Dame has done the same ball-protection drills every day this season.

Whatever the answer is, Notre Dame hasn’t found it yet.

All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

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