Kevin Hogan walked out of the locker room for his last game at Stanford Stadium as a legacy.
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It comes down to this for Head Coach Brian Kelly and the No. 4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish: Beat the 9-2 Stanford Cardinal on their home field in Palo Alto, CA, and chances are good the College Football Playoff committee is going to punch a ticket to the second-annual playoff for the national championship.
Admittedly, a few dominoes must fall to make the case for the Irish – the first being a USC victory over Stanford in the Pac-12 title game.
And to cap a send-off drive for the ages, Cajuste and classmate Kevin Hogan connected one last time on a career night for both seniors with a 27-yard completion up the seam in their final act at Stanford Stadium to set up a game-winning field goal attempt.
Ukropina’s make from 45 yards sealed Stanford’s 38-36 victory and its fifth double-digit-win season since 2010.
Kizer threw for 234 yards and ran for 128.
Notre Dame had taken the lead the previous possession when Adams burst through the line for a 62-yard touchdown run as the offenses dominated. When the Irish had gotten into the red zone with more methodical drives, they stalled and settled for field goals. You can blame body clocks or poor officiating, but the fact of the matter is that if not for that hard-to-explain loss, the Cardinal would be in the playoff with a win in their de-facto home game against USC on Saturday.
Deshaun Watson ran for three touchdowns and passed for a fourth as No. 1 Clemson capped an undefeated regular season by holding off rival SC. Idle TCU was bumped from the No. 4 spot a year ago in the final week when Ohio State won the Big Ten Championship Game in stunning fashion-and we know how that ended up. Stanford needed those plays because the Cardinal had been unable to slow Notre Dame, which rushed for 299 yards and gained 533 altogether. “We had those pressure kicks the entire summer with guys yelling and screaming at him, calling him names”.
“Overcame some catastrophic injuries to key players, quarterbacks, running backs, tight ends, defensive lineman, cornerbacks, I mean we’re talking about across the board here, we’re not just talking about one position, we’re talking about impacting all positions”, Kelly said. Notre Dame made more big plays – a 93-yard kick return for a touchdown and a 73-yard touchdown pass from DeShone Kizer to Will Fuller – but Stanford was more consistent throughout the game, particularly on third down. They were, you could easily argue, the better team on the field in all 12 games and cost themselves 2 games through, hopefully, correctable mistakes. The loss – especially one coming down to the final 30 seconds – was crushing to the Irish and anything but to Stanford. In addition to the 27-yard catch that set up the winning field goal, he had four other catches for 98 yards.
After receiving the opening kickoff, Stanford marched 75 yards in 11 plays to take a 7-0 lead.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish rank at 22 for scoring 36.5 points where as Stanford Cardinal rank at 33 for allowing 21.5 scores. One play at Clemson and one play here at Stanford.
Notre Dame did not run its first offensive play until there was 1:48 remaining in the first quarter.
“We represent Stanford, we’re not carrying anybody”, he said.
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The Cardinal went back in front 14-7 on a drive that consumed 7:24 and covered 78 yards in 12 plays. “We don’t worry about the other teams in our conference, we don’t worry about what people say about us nationally”. “We don’t have anything to prove to anybody”.
