Too Little, Too Late For Notre Dame Against Michigan State

There was plenty of blame to go around following Notre Dame’s 36-28 loss to Michigan State, which dropped the Irish to 1-2 through three weeks.

It starts with Brian Kelly, and the seventh-year Notre Dame head coach didn’t shy away from shouldering most of the team’s troubles against the Spartans. The Irish coaching staff also has a large hand in the struggles, Kelly said.

It’s also on the Notre Dame offense, which stalled for most of the game and finished with just 57 rushing yards. It can also be pinned on the missed tackles and devastating penalties that continually held back the Irish.

“This is everywhere, and this is on me,” Kelly said. “We have to clean up everything. We are a sloppy football team.”

The 18th-ranked Irish allowed 36 straight points in the second and third quarters and had their fourth-quarter rally come up short, falling to the 12th-ranked Spartans in front of 80,795 spectators — the 251st straight sellout at Notre Dame Stadium.

Notre Dame cut a 29-point second-half deficit down to eight and had the ball with a chance to tie the game. But the Irish offense stalled, and facing a fourth-and-seven from their own 32, Kelly elected to punt it back to the Spartans.

And though the defense had tightened for much of the fourth quarter, Notre Dame would not get the ball back. Michigan State fifth-year senior quarterback Tyler O’Connor found freshman wide receiver Donnie Corley for a 28-yard gain on third-and-seven with 2:39 remaining to essentially end the game.

Afterward, Kelly defended his decision to punt.

“We still had two timeouts. We had gotten a couple of stops defensively and felt like they certainly were going to run the football,” Kelly said. “We got them into a good third-down situation, and we don’t do a very good job and give them an easy completion.

“We put ourselves back in a position even after that situation with another timeout. We make a stop there, and it looks like a pretty good decision.”

Similar to the issue that plagued Irish defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder’s unit in the season opener at Texas, the Irish could once again not slow down the opponent’s rushing attack. Michigan State ran for 260 yards on 52 carries and found the end zone three times on the ground. Notre Dame tallied just 57 yards on 25 carries, the team’s lowest rushing output since a 41-yard effort against Arizona State in 2014.

Overall, Michigan State outgained Notre Dame 501-401 yards.

“We had a lot of missed fits — safety fits were poor, we missed some fits with our fronts,” Kelly said. “Again, we have to coach better. This means communicating what we want to our players and then our players have to execute it.”

After the Irish took a 7-0 lead with 3:07 left in the first quarter on a 14-yard run by junior quarterback DeShone Kizer, the Spartans took control.

Following a Notre Dame defensive stand, a punt by Michigan State’s Jake Hartbarger skipped off the ground and hit Irish sophomore wideout Miles Boykin, who was blocking on the return. Michigan State recovered the ball, and on the ensuing play O’Connor found Corley for a 38-yard touchdown. Notre Dame senior cornerback Cole Luke was in good position on the coverage and nearly had an interception, but Corley ripped the ball away. The Spartans added a two-point conversion to make it 8-7 with 9:30 left in the first half.

From there it was all Michigan State. After a 71-yard punt by Notre Dame’s Tyler Newsome, Michigan State drove 92 yards on 11 plays to take a 15-7 lead with 23 seconds left in the half. The drive was capped by a 10-yard touchdown reception by senior wide receiver R.J. Shelton.

Michigan State (2-0) had a bye week before playing Notre Dame. The Spartans struggled in their season opener against Football Championship Subdivision Furman, but looked sharp as a 7.5-point underdog against the Irish.

“We’ve been working,” Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio said. “We had a little extra time to work, and when you don’t play well and people sort of write you off a little bit, you have a tendency to rise up a little bit.

“I think that’s what we did. I think we came into this football game with something to prove. We talked all along that we needed to measure up, and I thought we did that.”

During a dominant third quarter, Michigan State scored three straight touchdowns to take a commanding 36-7 lead with 3:45 left in the period. The last score — a 73-yard run by junior running back Gerald Holmes — went right through the teeth of Notre Dame’s defense and found little resistance.

“They ran the same stuff all game, pretty much the same run plays,” Irish senior linebacker James Onwualu said. “It’s just the consistency of fitting it and the toughness.”

Facing the largest margin of defeat in a home game since 2007, Kizer led the offense back into the game. In pass-only mode, Kizer found senior wide receiver Torii Hunter Jr. for a 47-yard gain down to the MSU 18 and hit sophomore wide receiver Equanimeous St. Brown three plays later for a 15-yard touchdown to make it 36-14.

On Notre Dame’s first drive of the fourth quarter, the Irish marched 80 yards on nine plays and used just 2:23 of the clock to cut the Michigan State lead to 36-21. Kizer found freshman wide receiver Chase Claypool and sophomore slot receiver C.J. Sanders for gains of 33 and 34 yards, respectively, setting up a three-yard touchdown run himself.

“We threw the ball virtually every down,” Kelly said. “We obviously tried to run the football, we had some success early and then got behind the chains. We missed some pressures, missed some protections.

“It just wasn’t clean. We never got into a good flow. We got into a better flow when we started to throw the ball on first down.”

The momentum had shifted, and Dantonio said he could feel it on his sideline.

“That wave starts to roll on you, just like it started to roll on them in the third quarter, and it’s tough to stop,” Dantonio said. “They get their momentum going, and they’re making some plays and made some nice catches, had good coverage on guys a couple times, made great catches, great throws, but we found a way.”

Notre Dame scored once more — a 12-yard pass from Kizer to senior tight end Durham Smythe — to make it 36-28 with 6:02 left.

Kizer finished 20-of-37 passing for 344 yards with two touchdowns. He was sacked twice and threw an interception. Sophomore running back Josh Adams had just 29 yards on 12 carries, while senior running back Tarean Folston had 14 yards on four carries.

“I take this 100 percent on my back,” Kizer said. “We didn’t score as many points as we should have to win the game, and as the commander of the offense that’s 100 percent on me.”