No Let Up For Notre Dame In 35-14 Victory Versus North Carolina State
Notre Dame’s 2017 Revenge Tour continued with a 35-14 victory versus No. 14 North Carolina State on Saturday afternoon at Notre Dame Stadium, improving the No. 9-ranked Fighting Irish to 7-1.
It was the third Notre Dame win against a team that defeated them last year, with the previous ones coming the week prior versus USC (49-14) and Sept. 23 against Michigan State (38-18). Still left on the docket to help avenge last season are the final two regular season games versus Navy (Nov. 18) and at Stanford (Nov. 25) while continuing the quest to advance to the four-team College Football Playoff.
It also was Notre Dame’s sixth straight win by at least 20 points, the most since the 1966 national champions had seven in a row.
Junior running back Josh Adams continued his assault on the Irish record book with 202 yards rushing on 27 carries, highlighted by a 77-yard touchdown in the third quarter that broke the game open and was the final tally. The NC State run defense entered the game ranked No. 6 nationally against the run with a 91.3 average and had not allowed any player to rush for more than 100 yards.
The Irish totaled 422 yards total offense, with 318 coming on the ground, although junior quarterback Brandon Wimbush also tossed first-half 25- and 11-yard touchdown passes to fifth-year senior tight end Durham Smythe and sophomore wideout Kevin Stepherson, respectively. Wimbush also tallied a Notre Dame single season record 11th rushing touchdown by a quarterback.
North Carolina State held a 14-7 advantage early in the second quarter before the Irish scored 28 consecutive points, held the Wolfpack scoreless and allowed a mere 89 yards total offense in the second half.
On the opening series of the second half, NC State drove to Notre Dame’s 42-yard line and threatened to tie the game at 21 when sophomore cornerback Julian Love jumped on an out pattern and intercepted a Ryan Finley pass — the quarterback’s first such error this season in 339 attempts — and returned it 69 yards along the Notre Dame sideline.
Here is a quarter by quarter breakdown of the action:
FIRST QUARTER: 7-7
Top Moment: Twenty-nine seconds after North Carolina State took a 7-0 lead, Notre Dame responded with a two-play drive in which Adams first romped for a 35-yard gain followed by Wimbush finding Smythe for a 25-yard score at the 9:36 mark.
“Most impressive for me, coaching for as long as I have, when you get a punt block, it has a tendency to really affect your football team,” Kelly said. “Our guys never flinched. It was as if nothing ever occurred other than let's get back out on the field and get back to work.
“That's hard to build. It took us a long way, a long time to get to that, and our guys just have that never-flinch, keep-playing, one play at a time [attitude].”
Top Performers: Love broke up two passes and had excellent coverage on an incomplete deep ball before getting beat on a double move by Stephen Louis for a 42-yard gain in the closing minute of the quarter to set up the Wolfpack at the Irish 15.
For NC State, All-America defensive end Bradley Chubb recorded a sack and a QB hurry.
Stats: North Carolina State had 112 yards total offense (83 passing, 29 rushing) to Notre Dame’s 81 (58 rushing, 23 passing).
Items: With 10:05 left and punting from his end zone, Notre Dame junior Tyler Newsome’s kick was blocked by James Smith-Williams and recovered in the end zone by Germaine Pratt for a 7-0 lead.
Wolfpack leading rushing Nyheim Hines was injured near the eight-minute mark and did not return to the game.
SECOND QUARTER: Notre Dame 21, NC State 14
Top Moment: On back-to-back plays, Smythe and Stepherson made acrobatic 11-yard receptions, the latter for a touchdown to give Notre Dame its first lead, 21-14, with 5:30 left. Both plays went to officials review that showed them keeping at least one foot in-bounds. Smythe’s catch came on third-and-six to keep the drive alive.
Top Performers: Senior rover Drue Tranquill was a factor against both the pass and run, recording a team high six tackles, one for loss and a half-sack on the final Wolfpack series in the first half.
Smythe finished the half with three catches for 52 yards.
Stats: Notre Dame had 40 plays in the first half for 216 yards, with 28 rushes for 136 yards and 8 of 12 passing for 80 yards. NC State totaled 174 yards, rushing 11 times for 20 yards and completing 10 of 23 passes for 154 yards.
The Wolfpack committed 11 first-half penalties for 74 yards compared to Notre Dame’s three for 25 yards.
Items: Once again after the Wolfpack took a 14-7 lead (14:42) on a third-and-10 pass from quarterback Ryan Finley to Kelvin Harmon for 15 yards, Notre Dame responded with a 14-play, 72-yard drive, capped by Wimbush’s three-yard touchdown run on third-and-goal with 9:37 remaining.
THIRD QUARTER: Notre Dame 35, NC State 14
Top Moment: On the opening series of the second half, NC State faced third-and-10 at the Notre Dame 42. Finley then threw his first interception of the season that Love broke on perfectly on an out to the sideline and returned it for a 69-yard touchdown. That provided Notre Dame a 28-14 cushion with 12:05 left.
Top Performer: The Notre Dame offensive line opened a massive hole for Adams for a 77-yard touchdown jaunt in which he was untouched and increased Notre Dame’s lead to 35-14 with 4:11 remaining. It was Adams’ national high seventh run of at least 60 yards (plus a 59-yard scamper), and fourth of at least 70 yards, which also leads the country. Adams surpassed the 200-yard rushing mark for the second time this season (both before the end of the third quarter) with 201 yards on 23 attempts.
Per usual, he credited the offensive line for his success.
“They lead this team and they bring all the energy, and [we] do the best that we can to kind of feed off of them and really try to push the tempo.,” Adams said. “They bring the aggression and have the mindset to dominate, and it kind of spreads out throughout the entire offense.”
Stats: Notre Dame accumulated 332 yards total offense after three quarters, 252 rushing and 80 passing. North Carolina State had 258, with 211 through the air and 47 on the ground.
Items: Following Love’s touchdown, the Wolfpack drove to Notre Dame’s six-yard line, where it faced fourth-and-one. There, NC State running back Jaylen Samuels was stuffed for a one-yard loss by freshman tackle Myron Tagovailoa-Amosa and junior linebacker Te’von Coney to give Notre Dame possession at the seven-yard line with 7:31 left.
FOURTH QUARTER: Notre Dame 35, NC State 14
Top Moment: Instead of running up the score for “style points,” the Irish ran out the clock inside North Carolina State’s five-yard line.
Top Performer: Sophomore running back Deon McIntosh was the workhorse for the Irish over the final 15 minutes with 11 carries for 63 yards while Notre Dame basically ran clock.
Stats: The Irish defense held North Carolina State to 89 yards total offense on 27 plays in the second half. The Irish outgained the Wolfpack 422-263, notably 318-50 on the ground.
Items: For the sixth time in eight games, Notre Dame finished with more than 300 yards rushing. In the 13 seasons from 2004-16, the Irish had only two such games (versus Miami in 2012 and UMass in 2015).
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