Notre Dame survives kicking snafus, sleepy showing to beat Boston College

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. — Marcus Freeman threw his hands in the air the direction of Notre Dame special teams coordinator Marty Biagi as if to say, “Figure it out!” That was a tame reaction in comparison to what Fighting Irish fans across the globe had to have been saying to their televisions.

What would you say if three different kickers from your team missed three kicks in a single game?

That’s what Notre Dame’s placekicking has devolved into. It didn’t bite the Irish as badly as it could’ve, considering they still won, 25-10, to claim their sixth consecutive victory, but what other teams would they have beaten had they played the same exact game they did at Alumni Stadium on Saturday? Not many.

“There’s a lot of things to clean up,” Freeman said. “Most of those things that I challenged them are things we control. We got to clean up. A lot of the plays we’re beating Notre Dame. Play cleaner. The challenges will get tougher.”

By and large, this was Notre Dame’s worst game of the season — including the two losses. And it wasn’t just the kicking woes.

It was the inability to be disciplined, racking up 7 penalties for 67 yards. Many of them of the boneheaded variety. It was the inability to effectively block for junior running back Jeremiyah Love for nearly 50 minutes of game time until he ripped off a 94-yard touchdown that effectively put Boston College to bed. It was the inability to get off the field on the Eagles’ first possession of the second half, which spanned 21 plays for 74 yards and resulted in a field goal that cut Notre Dame’s lead to 12-10.

Love finished with 17 carries for 136 yards and 2 touchdowns. Good line. But do the math on how much of it was aided that one game-icing sprint. His offensive line did him no favors in what his personal box score looked like before it. Boston College challenge Notre Dame by loading the box and the Irish couldn’t overcome it.

“You learn quickly in the first two series they weren’t going to try to let you run the ball,” Freeman said. “It was zero coverage or cover one with a low hole guy.”

Redshirt freshman quarterback CJ Carr was way more than competent, too, completing 18 of 25 pass attempts for 299 yards and 2 touchdowns without any interceptions. He was the reason Notre Dame was ahead since the first score of the game eight seconds into the second quarter.

But again, enough else went wrong for Notre Dame to leave the northeast thinking it has to be so much better the rest of the way in November to keep winning and keep its College Football Playoff hopes alive.

“BC came out with some different looks than they had shown on film in previous weeks,” Carr said. “I thought we started slow but did a really good job of adjusting to their pressure and zero coverage that they brought every time. We hit some deep ones to loosen them up, and that opened the run game up a little more. But consistently doing your job is something we could get better at.”

However, if nothing else, the Irish did one thing well all night; Boston College finished the game with officially 12 rushing yards on 33 carries. Adjusting for sacks, that number was 45 yards on 1.7 yards per carry. That still wasn’t enough to help out a quarterback platoon of Dylan Lonergan, who started and went 5 for 8 for 29 yards with an interception, and his replacement, Grayson James, who was 25 of 37 for 240 yards with 1 touchdown and 2 INTs.

“I don’t think we were perfect tonight, but I think we were relentless,” Notre Dame linebacker Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa said. “The guys never stopped playing hard to dig this win out.”

Sometimes you take the win and run. Sometimes you take the win and vow to be better. Notre Dame’s gotta do the latter to be who it wants to be in the long run.

“As you move further in the month of November, everything is magnified and we got to continue to play cleaner and execute at a higher level,” Freeman said.