Must-win mentality suits Notre Dame just fine as Irish streak toward another playoff appearance

PITTSBURGH – It might not have been a must-win game for Pittsburgh.

And, no, the final score wasn’t 110-10 (Pat Narduzzi’s words, not mine), nor were there any “A.I.” claims as Urban Meyer suggested when seeing Narduzzi’s puzzling comments from earlier in the week.

But when it comes to a must-win mentality, Notre Dame has cornered the market on that plight each of the past two seasons, the latest a 37-15 win over No. 22 Pittsburgh on Saturday at Acrisure Stadium.

The Irish, No. 9 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, won their eighth straight game after starting the season 0-2 and took their biggest step yet toward a second straight trip to the playoff.

“We’re really just getting started with playing Notre Dame football,” said Jeremiyah Love, the Fighting Irish’s football version of the Human Highlight Reel.

Indeed, it was about this time a year ago that the Irish — stung by a Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois — shifted into overdrive and stayed in overdrive all the way to the national championship game before losing to Ohio State. It was a week earlier last year, but the Irish played away against a nationally ranked team, Army, and won convincingly, 49-14, at Yankee Stadium. The defense was dominant. Notre Dame built a big lead early. There were explosive plays all over the place, and Love was spectacular.

That formula was almost identical against the Panthers, who still have hopes of making it to the ACC championship game. But only one team looked like a championship team Saturday, and it was the one that came within a game of winning college football’s top prize a year ago.

“I think sometimes you’ve got to pull back and look at a quality win over a good opponent, and it’s hard because you evaluate every single play,” said Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, who’s won 21 of his last 24 games. “That’s why you say that we’re getting better, but we’re not perfect.”

Plenty resilient, though.

In keeping with the must-win theme, Love has long since reached must-see status. His spin move and 56-yard touchdown dash in the first quarter was a mixture of incredible footwork, balance and speed. Love finished with 147 rushing yards against a Pitt defense that was ranked third nationally in rushing defense and allowing just 80.8 rushing yards per game.

Moreover, the 6-foot, 214-pound junior demonstrated once again that he’s the kind of offensive weapon capable of carrying a team and equally dynamic enough that he opens up opportunities for his teammates, a crucial piece to making a deep playoff run. The Irish have specialized in making big plays, and it’s not just Love.

While he’s making a move up the Heisman Trophy lists, his teammate, senior receiver Malachi Fields, is carving apart defenses down the field. He had a pair of acrobatic catches against Pittsburgh, the second one a 25-yard touchdown to give Notre Dame a 21-3 lead at the half, and he finished with two touchdown grabs.

“It’s always great when we’re playing complementary football, the defense is doing good, the offense is doing good and complementing each other, and the special teams are doing good. … At the end of the day, everybody did their job, and we played off each other,” said Love, who’s now had a rushing touchdown in nine straight games.

One of the things that has set this Notre Dame team apart during its winning streak is the number of game-changing plays it’s made in all phases of the game.

Not even 20 seconds after Love’s jaw-dropping touchdown to open the scoring, redshirt freshman safety Tae Johnson stepped in front of a pass from Pitt freshman quarterback Mason Heintschel and returned it 48 yards for a touchdown.

Love, Fields or even Johnson didn’t even get top billing in the big-play category. Safety Adon Shuler intercepted a pass in the end zone on a two-point attempt (after Pitt scored its first touchdown on a third-quarter interception return) and somehow navigated his way 100 yards to tack on two points for the Irish. That might not have been Shuler’s most impactful play. He delivered a crushing hit to break up a pass on a third-down play to set the tone for a Notre Dame defense that keeps getting better.

“Today, what you saw was if the offense struggled, the defense stepped up and really did some good things, and that’s complementary football team too,” Freeman said. “When one group is down, you’ve got to make sure you don’t go bad-bad. Bad-bad equals points, and that’s what we can’t have. Again, I was pleased. That’s a good team.”

In its two losses to open the season, Notre Dame gave up 27 points to Miami and 41 to Miami, and while Notre Dame has beaten just two ranked teams during its turnaround, the Irish defense has now gone 13 quarters and given up just three touchdowns. Plus, Pitt’s last touchdown came on the final play of the game after the Panthers called a timeout with just seconds remaining.

Freeman bit his lip when asked about Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi calling that late timeout.

“I’ll answer that this way: To each their own. You know what I mean?” Freeman said. “ I mean? I don’t ever comment about another program, but also I don’t have time to think about that. They called a timeout. All right guys, let’s get ’em stopped. That’s my challenge with our guys.”

Notre Dame, which held Pitt to 219 total yards and 0-of-13 on third-down conversions, has been an especially good tackling team this season, and Johnson said a lot of that is going against Love and Jadarian Price in practice.

“We’re not going to play two dynamic running backs like that, so just going up against them in practice and working on our technique … we feel like we could tackle anybody else,” Johnson said.

Notre Dame still has work to do before completing its encore of going from early-season disappointment to one of the teams to beat in the playoff. But the last two games are against Syracuse at home and Stanford on the road, two teams that are a combined 6-14.

College football can get especially wacky in November. Just ask Texas A&M, which had to come from behind 30-3 at home to beat South Carolina.

Love said there’s no secret sauce to what the Irish have been able to pull off the past two seasons.

“We’ve just got great coaches and great people in our program. … coaches who motivate us to never give up and do what we’ve got to do to finish the season and how we want to finish it,” Love said. “And then just the players, speaking on our brotherhood. We’re a really close-knit group. Everybody cares for each other. There’s no offense on this side of the locker room and defense on this side of the locker room. Everybody’s together at all times.

“That togetherness has helped us to fight through adversity and stand together through hard times.”

Once again, they’re making a stand at just the right time.