Take Drew White at his word, and you’d have to believe he and his Notre Dame defensive comrades compiled every media question, every stat, every film session regarding North Carolina’s offensive proficiency and stored them in the motivation bank.
They surely ingested enough to tire of it. But no, the more public and private recognition of the challenge at hand, the bigger the chance to make the statement White felt the Irish could make.
“Just reinforce we believe we’re the best defense in the country,” said White, Notre Dame’s senior middle linebacker.
Or at the very least, doing much more than mere damage control. That’s the expectation these days when a top-flight defense encounters an elite offense. Hold ‘em to under 30 and that’ll do, especially against a team with a consistently leaky defense.
Pfffft.
As reasonable and supported by statistical evidence as expecting bend-but-don’t-break defense is, No. 2 Notre Dame (9-0, 8-0 ACC) squashed the notion that it can lock up a middling offense but is resigned to going full Big 12 when facing the best. Notre Dame met North Carolina’s offense and, after an initial sputter, squeezed any life out of it like a boa constrictor. The resulting 31-17 win was a testament to talent, resolve, depth, coaching and trust.
“One of those road wins that really shows the mettle of your football team,” coach Brian Kelly said.
A sampling of the defensive numbers: North Carolina had scored fewer than four touchdowns just once and put up at least three in every game. Notre Dame held the Tar Heels to a pair. The Irish didn’t allow a second-half point to a team that had scored 103 in fourth quarters alone.
North Carolina’s 298 total yards are the lowest in 22 games since coach Mack Brown’s return. After 14 plays produced 14 points, Brown’s oft-dangerous offense produced 148 yards on 44 plays the rest of the way. After scoring those first two touchdowns, The Tar Heels had two drives longer than four plays. An offense that averaged a nation-best 22.6 plays of at least 10 yards mustered 13 of them.
“We came out in the second half guns blazing,” White said.
Elsewhere, North Carolina running backs Javonte Williams and Michael Carter, a tandem that averaged a combined 7.1 yards per carry coming in, combined for 85 yards on 19 carries and no touchdowns. Quarterback Sam Howell, who entered with 17 career fourth-quarter touchdown passes, had 34 pass yards in the final 15 minutes.
A unit that had barely been bothered in recent weeks was stuffed into a straitjacket in another performance that illustrated why defensive coordinator Clark Lea may not be long for South Bend. His players, though, get plenty of credit here.
The Irish did all of this without safety Kyle Hamilton, who was ejected in the second quarter after a targeting penalty. They made a swap at buck linebacker, inserting Marist Liufau for Shayne Simon. Same at field corner, with Clarence Lewis relieving TaRiq Bracy. Hamilton’s replacement, Houston Griffith, had been a nickel back and special teamer. Liufau seemed to be losing ground at buck. Lewis, a freshman, was battling Bracy for snaps.
In the moment, it felt like Lea was frantically attempting to patch holes.
Yet the defense’s cohesion never wavered. The penalty on Hamilton and his departure gave North Carolina a first down on third-and-20 from inside its own 20. That was the Tar Heels’ last third-down conversion of the game.
The fill-ins had a hand in their futility. Griffith made an important open-field stop to bring up a third-and-long in the fourth quarter. Liufau was active in passing lanes and as a pass rusher. Lewis had a pass breakup and kept everything in front of him.
“The most important thing tonight was the belief we have in the guys that stepped in,” Kelly said.
Notre Dame gets nowhere without its unflinching faith in the next men in who sometimes need to occupy important seats. Or without the mainstays trusting themselves, their track record and their preparation when they took an early haymaker for the first time this year. Nothing much seems to irk the Irish these days.
“You can’t just come to the sideline and be mad,” White said. “That’s not going to help anybody.”
Added Kelly: “Having a little bit of the time off and then playing a prolific offense like North Carolina, it was a little bit – I gave the analogy to our staff – like coming out against the triple option. It was fast. We needed to acclimate a little bit.”
Notre Dame did some game-plan tweaking, Kelly admitted, after the two early touchdowns. North Carolina’s run-pass options were at work early, and the Irish needed to slow them. They moved safeties around and dropped defensive ends into shallow coverage to take away some of Howell’s initial reads in RPOs. White, Liufau and the rest of the linebackers were active in passing lanes and made Howell hesitate on his RPO reads.
No matter who has been involved, the Irish are within one victory from an ACC title game appearance because they have a roster full of guys who understand their jobs and make the right plays. Winning plays. At game’s end, they have a way of being a play or two or 10 better than their opponents and a way of finding answers in the same critical moments where adversaries remain searching for them.
“By and large the game plan was in and it was executed flawlessly,” Kelly said. “It was well developed, well-planned.”
A recipe for going beyond damage control.
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