ATLANTA — As Notre Dame’s band took the field at halftime, already having been booed in pregame for simply existing by the Ohio State fan base, the ND band announcer made a prescient proclamation.
“We’re about to enter the Danger Zone,” he told the Mercedes-Benz Stadium crowd, referring to an upcoming musical selection.
The Notre Dame football team fell right in step with the theme Monday night and then almost capsized it in the fourth quarter.
After Ohio State running back Quinshon Judkins exploded for a 70-yard run early in the third quarter and scored three plays later for a 28-7 Buckeye stranglehold, it felt like it would simply become a matter of how far off the big stage the eighth-seed and favored Buckeyes would shove 7 seed Notre Dame in its CFP National Championship Game coronation.
Instead the Irish (14-2) showed some pluck after the lead reached 31-7, but not enough to change history, falling 34-23.
It is Inside ND Sports’ custom to award game balls after each Irish game. Given the outcome, that feels a bit like distributing participation trophies, though ND had its share of standouts.
Instead, a more pertinent instant postgame exercise would seem to be identifying what went wrong. Here’s the top three of a longer list:
The nation’s No. 1 pass-efficiency defense was overmatched.
Ohio State QB Will Howard completed his first 13 pass attempts and rarely was hurried or pressed. He finished 17-of-21 for 231 and two touchdowns with no interceptions.
Why? It starts with too little pressure being generated by the Irish front seven, but OSU offensive coordinator Chip Kelly played chess with the X’s and O’s better than Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden did. And he had better chess pieces. The Ohio State wide receivers were every bit as good as advertised.
OSU dominated the running game on both sides.
ND head coach Marcus Freeman came into the game 29-3 when the Irish won the rushing battle and 4-6 when it went the other way. Other than an impressive first drive, in which the Irish ran 18 plays and QB Riley Leonard converted two fourth downs and ran nine times, it was all Ohio State in the ground game, 214-53 at game's end.
The Buckeyes were clutch on third down.
Ohio State wasn’t compelled to punt for the first time until the 6:34 mark of the fourth quarter. The Buckeyes were 9-of-12 on third down against the nation’s No. 5 team in thwarting third-down conversions. The biggest of those came just ahead of the 2-minute timeout of the second half when Howard connected with freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith on a 57-yard connection with Christian Gray on the coverage.
That led to a game-clinching, 33-yard field goal by Jayden Fielding with 28 seconds left.
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