The house of cards that was previously known as the 2021 Notre Dame football season tumbled down Saturday in a 24-13 loss to a superior Cincinnati team that never trailed and led 17-0 at halftime.
To their credit, the Irish battled back and pulled to within 17-13 in the fourth quarter but would get no closer.
“We didn’t coach very well today and we didn’t play very well today,” Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said immediately after a loss that ended the nation’s second-longest home winning streak at 26 games. “That’s the long and the short of it. Cincinnati was the better football team today.”
The loss dropped the Irish (4-1) from No. 9 in the AP Top-25 Poll to No. 14 and presumably ended any playoff hopes while Cincinnati (4-0) climbed two spots to No. 5 and took a notable step to becoming the first-ever non-Power 5 Conference team to earn a College Football Playoff invite.
Three Numbers/Observations
3.0 — The per-rush average Notre Dame recorded in its 28 carries for 84 yards against Cincinnati.
Strangely, the yardage total was the third-best rushing performance for the Irish in five games this season and was actually four more yards than it averaged through the first four games, though it still dropped two spots to No. 124 nationally in rushing offense (80.8 yards per game) out of 130 FBS teams. Its 2.4 yards-per-carry average remain the fourth fewest in the country.
