“I keep them all”, Kelly said. “We take it from here, start to develop an identity”.
Advertisement
However, even with the Irish eventually recording attractive yardage statistics and enough points against a playing-softer MSU defense to make the game suspenseful, it was quarterback DeShone Kizer and his offense whose persistent struggles cost Notre Dame a shot at an essential victory. In its last five games dating to last season – since the Irish were 30 seconds away from a potential playoff berth at Stanford, which went 45 yards in 30 seconds for the win – Notre Dame is giving up 35.6 points per game, with a 1-4 record to show for it.
“These are the players we recruited to Notre Dame”, Kelly said, hammering home a point he made Saturday night. The Fighting Irish committed three turnovers, including a botched punt return that led to an early Michigan State touchdown.
“Obviously, from our perspective, we’ve got to do a better job coaching”, Kelly said. “They got two verticals, pretty standard deal, corner’s trying to midpoint two vertical, we buzz it with the underneath coverage guy, and we’re not in good position”. A good coaching staff would recognize this and simplify things moving forward.
Michigan State went for two and took an 8-7 lead in the second quarter and momentum was on the Spartans’ side. That was boosted by a 73-yard touchdown run by Gerald Holmes, but it wouldn’t have been possible without a very big opening in the middle of the line for him.
Northwestern 24, Duke 13: Clayton Thorson threw for 320 yards and three touchdowns, Justin Jackson rushed for 94 yards in Evanston, Illinois.
Kizer answered a long Holmes touchdown run with a quick, easy drive, capping it off with a 15-yard touchdown pass to a toe-tapping Equanimeous St. Unsurprisingly, the timing of the stops aligned with the Irish’s three straight touchdown drives, the last of which was a 12-yard pass to tight end Durham Smythe with 6:02 left, as they came back from a 36-7 margin.
Notre Dame’s defense spent the first quarter and a bit of the second attempting to reinvent its reputation. We’ve got to clean up everything. On the next play, Thorson found Solomon Vault wide-open in the middle of the field for the go-ahead touchdown.
Senior linebacker James Onwaulu tackles the ball carrier during Notre Dame’s 36-28 loss to Michigan State on Saturday. Kizer took the snap out of the shotgun formation and cut toward the left pylon.
With the game resembling a defensive slugfest in the 1st half, it was no surprise that Michigan State and Notre Dame once again exchanged punts to begin the 3rd quarter.
That sloppiness was often apparent in the Notre Dame defense, which once again faced issues with tackling, particularly in the secondary.
Given new life, the Spartans’ offense scored on the next play.
Michigan State, which had lost a three-year starter at quarterback, its top two receivers and its top two offensive linemen, looked the same as it ever was, which means it played like the only program in the country that has finished in the top six of the final AP poll in each of the last three years.
Advertisement
North Dakota State didn’t make the rankings, but received 74 points after upsetting Iowa. Bad idea first of all and rookie mistake with time management.
