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What they’re saying about Notre Dame’s 34-24 win against USC

Singer headshotby: Mike Singer7 hours agoMikeTSinger

Notre Dame came out with a major victory in what was its biggest test left on the 2025 schedule, knocking off USC 34-24 on Saturday night. Irish running back Jeremiyah Love was the star of the show, rushing 24 times for 228 yards and a touchdown.

In this article, we’ll take a look around at what the media is saying about the Fighting Irish’s win against the Trojans, including Blue & Gold’s Mike Singer and Kyle Kelly giving their instant reaction to the game in a YouTube live show. You can watch the replay of the show in the video player above

Tyler Horka, Blue & Gold: USC in rearview, Notre Dame has clear path to College Football Playoff

It’s beginning to feel a lot like … 2024. Save the beginning of that Christmas song — and the Christmas decorations and commercials that have already started popping up in stores and on streaming services — for November. Also for November? A Notre Dame push for the College Football Playoff.

That just got a whole lot more real with the Fighting Irish’s 34-24 win over USC on Saturday.

Bye weeks are for big breathes. Big, deep breaths. And for the second consecutive season, Notre Dame gets a timely one coming right out of a ranked victory against the team that appeared to have the best chance of beating the Fighting Irish on their way to the College Football Playoff.

Yes. The College Football Playoff. We can talk about it in as serious of a fashion in relation to this Notre Dame team as we have since it was still a one-loss squad in the first week of September.

The next time Notre Dame plays, it will be the first week of November. And the Irish will still only have two losses when that game kicks off against Boston College, the worst team on the remaining slate. That’s a win. Notre Dame hasn’t lost to Navy in nearly a decade. Pencil in a win. Notre Dame hasn’t lost to Pittsburgh in a dozen years. Pencil in a win there. Syracuse without Steve Angeli? Sharpie in a win. Engrave a win in stone at Stanford.

See where we’re going with this? The only way the Irish don’t win out and qualify for the CFP is if Notre Dame beats Notre Dame, as head coach Marcus Freeman likes to say. It’s possible but not probable.

A playoff berth is very much probable at this point.

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Eric Hansen, Blue & Gold: Another surge by the Notre Dame secondary — and this one, against USC, leaves no doubt

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Somewhere Xavier Watts is smiling and probably swaggering a bit too, and not just because his alma mater, Notre Dame, rained on USC’s upset parade on Saturday night.

But because of how the 13th-ranked Irish dismissed 20th-ranked USC from the College Football Playoff conversation, perhaps for good with a 34-24 identity-confirming victory in their 99-year-old intersectional rivalry.

Particularly the Notre Dame secondary, which started the season as somewhere between punching bag and punch line. And Saturday night it evolved into another reason to believe Notre Dame (5-2) will be waiting for a placement on Selection Sunday in November somewhere much higher on the postseason food chain than the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

With their physicality. With their big-play moments. With their resilience. And with their pluck.

Like Watts, a two-time consensus All-American at ND and now an impressive NFL rookie safety with the Atlanta Falcons, used to do.

His legacy has never looked better.

Prolific and resilient

Starting cornerbacks Leonard Moore and Christian Gray played all 78 defensive snaps against USC (5-2), the nation’s No. 2 team in total offense and No. 3 in scoring offense, as did starting safeties Adon Shuler and Tae Johnson. With starting nickel DeVonta Smith out with a calf injury for the third straight game, freshman Dallas Golden played 54 snaps and played his best college game to date.

Gray and extra safety Luke Talich each had an interception, contributing to USC quarterback Jayden Maiava’s season-low pass-efficiency mark of 124.2. He came into the game ranked third nationally at 185.7.

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Chris Arledge, We Are SC: USC get bullied again in South Bend

Surprised?

It seems everybody in the country knew what was going to happen last night. Vegas knew, even though we scoffed at the point spread. The national pundits knew, even though we took offense at their almost-unanimous predictions. The Irish fans knew, and boy were they smug. The Notre Dame players and coaches absolutely knew. They had no doubt. And I wonder if our players and coaches knew, also.

We, the USC fan base, were the only people fooled. We convinced ourselves that this USC team was different. Bigger. Tougher. More physical. We convinced ourselves that the giant, waving red flag in the rear-view mirror—that embarrassing defensive effort at Illinois—was an aberration, the result of bad chicken, not bad football. Michigan showed us the real team! And after all, Notre Dame was down a center and a run-stopping defensive tackle. Big advantage for the good guys, right? Was this the first year since Carroll’s tenure that USC might even have an advantage in the trenches? 

What fools we were. That game played out exactly the way everybody not wearing cardinal-and-gold colored glasses knew it would. Everybody knew USC had some skill talent and would make some plays. But Notre Dame would just beat up the Trojans, gut punch after gut punch until USC couldn’t take any more. Just like 2013 and 2015 and 2017 and 2019 and 2021 and 2023.  

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Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman

Opening statement from postgame press conference:

“Yeah, I’m just exhausted, and I know these guys that actually were on the field are. And I appreciate — I told them in the locker room — the effort they give to this football program to give them a chance to have that type of outcome. That’s what it’s about. It’s about sacrificing for the man next to you because they need you to.

“That was the challenge, and they did. And then, you know, it wasn’t an easy win. It was a struggle, as I told them it would be, versus a good opponent. But they continued to be resilient, continued to run the football, be opportunistic on defense, and create some turnovers in the second half, and the result is the result.

“So proud of this team. Big victory over a really good program. Win at last for two weeks around here. Going to enjoy it.”

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USC head coach Lincoln Riley

Opening statement from postgame press conference:

“All right, disappointing football game. Guys fought their tails off, had our opportunities but just didn’t, we just flat out didn’t play good enough. I mean, we made some really good plays on all sides but to have some of the missed opportunities on all sides, obviously we did not stop the run well enough defensively.

“Offensively, didn’t run it good enough and obviously missed some just golden opportunities. The kickoff return obviously was a huge, huge play in the game after we had taken the lead and got the two point conversion and had a lot of momentum there in the stadium in the second half. And you just can’t do that against a good football team.

“And so we just, we have to own it. We just flat out did not play good enough tonight against a good team on the road and had some missed opportunities that make you sick right now. So we’ll own it, obviously get into this bye week and then jump back into the Big Ten Conference where we’ve worked our ass off to put ourselves in a great position like we are now.

“And so that’ll be the challenge of this team is to handle this, to learn from it. And we just, we flat out have to be better. And we got some really cool opportunities in front of us here, again, with the way that we’ve positioned ourself in this conference. So we’ll get on the bye week, get some work in, obviously get some of these guys back healthy and get ready for the stretch run.”

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