Notre Dame Football: Winners and Losers from the Irish Win over Air Force

Remember when the sky was falling on Notre Dame’s 2011 season? Now, after a four-game winning streak, it seems like that rhetoric of despair took place years ago, as opposed to weeks. 

With the Fighting Irish done beating themselves, they’re now beating up on the competition. For the second straight week, Notre Dame used a zero-turnover and dominant offensive performance to roll over another overmatched opponent, this time winning 59-33 over the visiting Air Force Academy.

Believe it or not, the game wasn’t perfect for the Fighting Irish. But given the encouraging outcome against Air Force, there were plenty more winners than losers that emanated from the Irish victory.

Here are eight winners and losers.

Loser: Dayne Crist

It’s hard to label someone who didn’t play one snap a loser, but given what transpired on Saturday afternoon, it looks like Dayne Crist’s career at Notre Dame is unofficially over.

Not only has Crist’s replacement Tommy Rees played mistake-football for two straight games, now it looks like Crist has been unseated for the backup quarterback position by the upstart Andrew Hendrix.

A freshman, Hendrix saw his first snaps of the season against Air Force, and nearly all of them showed off Hendrix’s exciting dual-threat ability.  While Irish fans must be giddy over the combination of Rees and Hendrix, they must also feel a bit dejected to witness the fall of Crist.

Not only did he have to fight back from two debilitating knee injuries, the argument could be made that Crist was unjustifiably benched after one mediocre—not awful—half of football against South Florida.  And since Crist hasn’t even been given the slightest of chances by head coach Brian Kelly to win his job back, it’s obvious that Crist never won over the new coaching staff—and it looks like, unfortunately, he never will.

Loser: Notre Dame's Run Defense

Entering Saturday’s game against Air Force, it was understood that Notre Dame would have some trouble stopping the Falcons’ triple option attack.  When you don’t practice against a triple option every week, it’s tough to derail that type of ground game.

Nevertheless, Irish fans have to be concerned with how poorly the Irish fared against the run.  Notre Dame surrendered 365 yards to the Falcons on the ground—over 250 in the first half alone. 

And while that stat may have been inconsequential in an easy Notre Dame victory, Irish fans better hope that’s not a bad omen, considering that ND still has Navy and its lethal triple option left on the schedule.           

I don’t have to remind fans of what happened last year, when Navy gashed coordinator Bob Diaco’s defense en route to an easy victory.  If the Irish defense doesn’t clean that up quickly, the Midshipmen could win an unprecedented fourth straight over Notre Dame.

Loser: Aaron Lynch

In wins over Michigan State and Pittsburgh, freshman stud Aaron Lynch showed Irish fans why he’s already a beast on the defensive line.  Unfortunately against Air Force, Lynch stood out in a negative manner.

Lynch was average on Saturday, and made more of an impact for two bad penalties he committed in the second quarter—one of which came on a Falcons field goal attempt that directly led to Air Force’s first touchdown.

I’m sure this game was merely a blemish on what could be a legendary career for Lynch.  But, as Mama said, there’d be days like this.

Winner: Notre Dame's Turnover Battle

The biggest reason Notre Dame began this season 0-2 was turnovers.  They had one of the worst turnover margins in the country through two weeks, and for that, they got the dreadful beginning they deserved.

But, lo and behold, the Irish just completed their second straight turnover-free game.  And, not surprisingly, in those two games, Notre Dame spanked Purdue and Notre Dame by a combined 97-43 score.

Sometimes football is a surprisingly simple game.  If you don’t beat yourself, you usually have a great chance to beat your opponent.  Notre Dame has the talent to beat nearly anyone out there—as long as they don’t beat themselves.

As we’ve seen through this four-game winning streak, when the Irish don’t beat themselves and turn the ball over, they’re nearly unstoppable.

Winner: Tommy Rees

Through the first four games, Notre Dame quarterback Tommy Rees committed nine turnovers, which had many Notre Dame fans (including myself) clamoring for Dayne Crist’s return to the starting lineup.

But since the game-winning drive against Pitt, Rees has been masterful, with arguably the greatest game in his young career coming on Saturday, as he went 23-32 for 261 yards and four touchdowns (to four different receivers).

While it may be a tough pill for Dayne Crist fans and Rees bashers to swallow, Rees is proving he’s the ideal trigger-man for Brian Kelly’s up-tempo offense.  Rees is highly accurate between the numbers, which is good for an offense that’s heavy on short crossing patterns.

Rees also has tremendous chemistry with star wideout Michael Floyd, as he threw an incredible jump ball to Floyd on a 34-yard wheel route in the opening quarter, which Floyd plucked out of the air for the game’s first touchdown. 

Maybe Rees doesn’t have the rocket arm or star-power that Irish fans want.  But given how bad the quarterback situation is for teams like Texas, Florida, and Florida State, Notre Dame fans should be happy they have Rees in the shotgun.

Winner: Notre Dame's Running Game

The Notre Dame offense is nearly unstoppable because they’re so well balanced.  Not only do they have a plethora of weapons in the passing game, they have an emerging backfield duo of Cierre Wood and Jonas Gray that is shaping up to do some serious damage on the ground the rest of the season.

Both Wood and Gray had a field day against Purdue, and also got what they wanted against Air Force.  And Gray is now pulling off his best Jerome Bettis imitation as a power runner.  He had two rushing touchdowns Saturday, both on goal-line runs when he lowered his shoulder to out-muscle the undersized Air Force defense.

And given how well backup quarterback Andrew Hendrix ran the pigskin—including a 78-yard run in the fourth quarter—Brian Kelly can now add the element of a running quarterback to an already-potent offense.

Winner: Tyler Eifert

Anthony Fasano.  Kyle Rudloph.  Tyler Eifert?  Irish fans may have scoffed at the notion of Eifert being placed in the class of elite Notre Dame 21^st century tight ends prior to this season, but Eifert is proving

that he’s both an elite tight end and Tommy Rees’s new go-to guy.

Eifert (with the appropriate initials of TE) hauled in seven passes and one touchdown from Rees in the first half of Saturday’s win over Air Force, and he—not star Michael Floyd—has become a security blanket for Rees.

That’s no surprise; given how well Rees throws between the numbers, and how strong Eifert is over the middle, the Rees-Eifert connection has become a legitimate one that will only open things up more for the likes of Floyd, TJ Jones, and Theo Riddick as the season progresses.

Winner: Notre Dame's Season Outlook

After a 0-2 start, many Irish fans had already given up on this season.  But head coach Brian Kelly knew, even through a bad start, that he had a BCS Bowl team on his hands. 

Though the Irish were badly outclassed in the turnover margin in both losses, they still almost overcame those odds against South Florida and Michigan.  Now, as the Irish continue to clean up their game, the wins are starting to pile up in bunches.

Suddenly, a season that was quickly headed for the toilet is on the verge of being saved, and there can be legitimate talk of the Irish heading back to a BCS bowl game once again.  Coming out of the bye week, Notre Dame’s remaining schedule shapes up nicely. 

It’s not unrealistic to see Notre Dame run the table going into a regular-season finale against Andrew Luck and Stanford.  If the Irish keep minimizing the mistakes, and Mr. Luck keeps doing his thing, then that Irish-Cardinal matchup in late November will be an epic one.