What They Are Saying: Georgia 23, Notre Dame 17
A look at what outlasts and experts are saying about Notre Dame's close loss to the Georgia Bulldogs 23-17 Saturday night at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Ga.
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Bryan Driskell, BlueandGold.com: Game Observations: Georgia 23, Notre Dame 17
Notre Dame showed a lot of heart in this game. But in the end the Irish were good enough to win in two phases of the game (defense, special teams) but Georgia’s offense in the second half made enough plays to win the game and Notre Dame’s didn’t.
OFFENSE
*** Notre Dame came out aggressive offensively early in the game, and in the first half the Irish moved the ball well against the Georgia defense. If not for self-destructive mistakes (false starts, a muffed snap on 4th-down) the Irish could have had much more than a 10-7 lead at the half. And that’s exactly why Notre Dame got beat. You cannot make those kinds of mistakes and leave a team like Georgia in the game when you are on the road. The defense played well enough to win this game, the offense did not.
*** In the second half the offense came out tentatively, and its veteran players did not make plays. Notre Dame was able to attack Georgia on short routes early in the game with the Bulldogs playing its secondary to protect deep and its front seven to attack the run game. That opened up Cole Kmet for 7 catches in the first half. In the second half, UGA adjusted and took away all the short stuff, and Notre Dame was unable at times and unwilling at times to attack down the field like it did late in the first half.
Well, we got it Saturday night in a red-basked Athens, when No. 3 Georgia mounted a defensive-led second half comeback and then hung on to beat No. 7 Notre Dame, 23–17. We got a playoff game, with playoff teams in a playoff atmosphere. If it walks like a playoff and if it talks like a playoff, is it a playoff? The only thing missing was the reality that for some silly reason we don’t have an eight-team playoff with quarterfinals on college campuses. We’ve now experienced two of these type games in a matter of two weeks (we had a nice cushy seat in the press box for then-No. 6 LSU’s 45–38 win over then-No. 9 Texas in Austin on Sept. 7). If we do add another round to the playoff, would it water down games like these? Potentially. But I digress. Let’s move on to this bout in Sanford Stadium, a slugfest of football yesteryear compromised of game-changing interceptions, significant fourth-down stops and a whole lot of punting.
Talent vs. experience
Seniors and returning starters are important, but there comes a time when the talent trumps equity.
Some of the Bulldogs most gifted players didn’t appear to be part of the game plan against Notre Dame, and that’s likely something Smart and his staff will chew on during the bye week.
The competition is real at most positions, as former UGA great David Pollack pointed out, and October will be a month to let it play out against middling SEC competition.
By November, the best players need to have the ball in their hands and get targets. That didn’t seem to be the case against Notre Dame on Saturday night.
The Fans
Every fanbase likes to think they affect the game, and to some extent they all do.
But Saturday night in Athens was special, and it’s fair to suggest that without the fans Georgia would not have beaten Notre Dame. The Irish had six false starts and burned at least three timeouts due to the noise, including two in the second half.
Did the motion penalty yardage prevent the upset? Would Notre Dame’s final drive led to a touchdown if Brian Kelly had two more timeouts up his sleeve on the final drive?
Georgia’s fans bailed out the Bulldogs and made a difference to proportions very rarely seen in recent history.
Chuck Culpepper, Washington Post: Georgia holds on to beat Notre Dame 23-17
In a tussle Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly called one of the most physical of the 328 he has coached — “You could hear it out there,” he said — Georgia worked long and hard before treating their blaring fans to less-labored breathing. Relative ease came only after an an eight-play, 82-yard drive for a 20-10 lead with 13:19 remaining, a march that brimmed with refined skill. Not only did it include running back D’Andre Swift’s leap over a Notre Dame defender to thrill fans on a 10-yard run, but it had two primo catches by Lawrence Cager from the pinpoint quarterback Jake Fromm, one for 36 yards on the left sideline, and one for 15 yards rich in gymnastics on the left edge of the end zone.
Careful students of game film might have spotted Cager snaring two receptions for 45 yards for Miami (Fla.) against Notre Dame in an alleged showdown in November 2017, but if that 41-8 bludgeoning roiled among the evidence that Notre Dame couldn’t handle the really big boys, this game did not. Notre Dame fell to 1-18 against top-five teams this century, but only after a turn as — pardon the expression — a revelation.
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