[2024] Notre Dame Fighting Irish Stories – Week 16/CFP Round 1 Recap

[LordLittlebutt]

This article was originally published August 10, 2024, in The Observer, a student run publication serving the University of Notre Dame, St. Mary’s College and Holy Cross College. Re-posted as agreed to with co-editors J.J. Jameson, P. White, reporters V. Vale, L. Lane and photographer J. Olsen, Jr. Photographer P. Parker.  

 

Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame,

Wake up the echoes cheering her name,

Send a volley cheer on high,

Shake down the thunder from the sky.

What though the odds be great or small

Old Notre Dame will win over all,

While her loyal sons and daughters

March on to victory.

 

Notre Dame travelled to the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida to take on the Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech in the first round of the College Football Playoffs. On a clear but blustery day, the Fighting Irish would indeed March on to Victory!  We’ll cover all the scoring action and catch up with Coach LordLittlebutt for some comments after the very close game.

 

CFP Championship Playoffs, Round 1 at the Gator Bowl – Game Statistics

Team	Points	Total Yards	Passing Yards	Rushing Yards	Passing TDs	Rushing TDs	INT
GT	38	609	556	53	4	1	1
ND	41	570	374	196	2	3	0

 

Notre Dame kicked off to begin the 2024 Gator Bowl and right away the Yellowjacket’s aerial assault commenced. On the first play from scrimmage, a 46 yard completion moved the ball to the Notre Dame 29 yard line. After two incomplete passes set up a third and ten, the second completion of the game put Georgia Tech on the board.

Georgia Tech 7 – Notre Dame 0

 

Not to be outdone, from the Irish 38, QB Izaah Plawecki ran a play action pass delivering a short completion to WR Josh Gaudin who sprinted down the sideline before being forced out at the Georgia Tech 5 yard line. Two plays later RB Zaire Philon took the handoff inside on the RPO and the score was evened.

Georgia Tech 7 – Notre Dame 7

 

After trading punts on their next possessions, the Yellowjackets started at their own 24 yard line. An incompletion and a catch for zero yards had Georgia Tech facing 3^rd and 10 to go. A 40 yard bomb moved the chains to the Notre Dame 36 and on the very next play the Yellowjackets connected on another long pass for their second touchdown of the game.

Georgia Tech 14 – Notre Dame 7

 

The Irish would go three and out on their next possession, and while Georgia Tech converted a first down, they too were forced to punt to put Notre Dame at its own 20 yard line. The Irish moved the ball out to their 45 on the strength of three solid runs, and then went to the air. A 17 yard completion to WR Derrick Muno and a 12 yard toss to Philon off another RPO put the Irish on the Georgia Tech 28 yard line. Losing 9 yards to a sack and only a short run from Philon meant 4^th and 17 at the Yellowjacket 35.  Notre Dame K Danny Cole came on for the 52 yard field goal attempt, which sailed through the uprights to make up some ground in the game.

Georgia Tech 14 – Notre Dame 10

 

Notre Dame’s kickoff coincided with the start of the second quarter and put the Yellowjackets at their 27 yard line. Alternating completions and missed catches with a sack thrown in for good measure, Georgia Tech moved the ball to the Notre Dame 7 yard line with minimal resistance. From there another touchdown pass added to the Yelllowjacket lead.

Georgia Tech 21 – Notre Dame 10

 

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish would own the ball for the next six minutes of the game. Starting from their own 20 yard line, the 14 play drive would consist of four Zhaire Philon runs for 25 yard, and Plawecki thrown completions to Barbato (3 for 39 yards), Gaudin (1 for 7 yards) and Muno (1 for 8 yards) before the handoff to Philon from the Georgia Tech 2 yard line led to another Irish touchdown.

Georgia Tech 21 – Notre Dame 17

 

Neither team would score in the remainder of the first half. Georgia Tech kicks off to start the second half, putting the Irish at their 27 to start the drive. A seven yard Philon run would be followed by a seven yard completion to Gaudin. From there Notre Dame stayed on the ground, with seven consecutive runs, the first by RB Taylor Goodwin for 10 yards and the balance by Philon showing his skills to move the ball to the Yellowjacket 1 yard line where Philon squirted through the A gap on a well executed Plawecki RPO.

The Irish take the lead for the first time in the game.

Notre Dame 24 – Georgia Tech 21

 

It only took six plays for the Yellowjackets to regain the lead. Highlighted by a 67 yard catch and run, a quick pass from the Notre Dame 2 yard line put Georgia Tech back on top.

Georgia Tech 28 – Notre Dame 24

 

The Irish started their possession on the 25 yard line after a touchback. A 12 yard sack pushed Notre Dame back to a 2^nd and 22, where Philon gained back 10 of those yards. On 3^rd and 12, Plawecki connected with Barbato, as he has all season, to move the chains 24 yards out to the Irish 47 yard line. An incomplete pass and a 2 yard run meant another 3^rd down for Notre Dame. This time Plawecki hit Gaudin on a play-action pass for 51 glorious yards, giving the Irish the lead again.

Notre Dame 31 – Georgia Tech 28

 

The Yellowjacket’s potent offense came back on the field with 6:26 remaining in the third quarter, but would only be out for two plays, as a Notre Dame interception on 2^nd and 13 gave the Irish the ball on their opponent’s 26 yard line. Facing 4^th and 3 from the 19 yard line, Notre Dame elected for a field goal attempt to increase their lead, but a Georgia Tech rusher got just enough of the ball to push it wide and the Yellowjackets took over. A nine play drive highlighted by a 60 yard bomb led to Georgia Tech having first and goal from the Irish 7 yard line. The Notre Dame defense did just enough to force a fourth and goal from the one yard line!  The potent Yellowjacket offense was on the sidelines to watch the field goal attempt be successful and tie the game.

Notre Dame 31 – Georgia Tech 31

 

Notre Dame marched down the field on their next possession, masterfully mixing the pass and the run to reach the Georgia Tech 11 yard line. On 2^nd and 8, Plawecki hit Gaudin for another Irish touchdown, moving Notre Dame back in front of the Yellowjackets for the third time with 13:10 to play in the game.

Notre Dame 38 – Georgia Tech 31

 

Georgia Tech started from their 25 and drove to the Irish 32 before three straight incompletions forced a punt with 9:31 left in the game. After the touchback, Notre Dame delivered exactly what the doctor ordered, a 14 play drive that ate almost 6 minutes off the clock. Culminating in a 22 yard field goal, the Irish extended their lead to two scores with only 3:29 remaining in the game.

Notre Dame 41 – Georgia Tech 31

 

The Yellowjackets did not have much of a problem driving the field, but the Irish slowed them down enough that the final Tech score came with only 44 seconds on the clock. Notre Dame kills the clock to win this exciting Bowl Game that featured highlight plays, and plenty of offense.

Notre Dame 41 – Georgia Tech 38

 

Notre Dame Top Performers Week 16 – Playoffs Round 1

Player & Position	Attempts	Yards Gained	TDs
QB – Izaah Plawecki	24 of 35 for 68.6% compl	374	2
RB – Zhaire Philon	27 rushes	179	3
RB – Zhaire Philon	3 catches on 5 targets	19	0
WR – Josh Gaudin	8 catches on 8 targets	167	2
TE – Torrey Barbato	8 catches on 11 targets	150	0

 

We caught up with Coach LordLittlebutt following the post game presser and had a few uninterrupted minutes for some Q&A.

 

TheO:    Big win today, congratulations Coach!

 

LLB:        Thanks, Lois. I’m really proud of the team for continuing to fight for the whole game. The start was a bit rough, and we went into halftime down by four. That GT offense is really something. I know Landrum threw for almost 600 yards and 4 scores. But, our guys stopped four of their drives in the first half, which I gotta believe is some of the best fight those Yellowjackets have seen.

 

TheO:    What were the halftime discussions about?

 

LLB:        Really about the game still being up in the air. 4 points down, knowing we’re getting the ball to start the second half, we felt like we really needed to score, and the boys delivered.

 

TheO:    Yes they did. A 10 play drive, with almost all hand-offs, we haven’t seen as much of that this year.

 

LLB:        We absolutely wanted to run the ball more today. For a couple reasons. Zhaire has been delivering for us week in and week out, running the ball and being a great receiver out of the backfield. But we know that he can carry a team, literally, and we wanted to lean into that. Our OC and staff thought we had a great opportunity on the ground today. It’s hard to stay away from Plawecki and Gaudin, Barbato, Muno, and Philon in the air, but we definitely wanted to run the ball more and kind of show Zhaire off.  And we wanted to control the clock more. Tech averages about 75 plays on offense a game, and they are a scoring machine. We needed to try and cut into that, and we did. They threw about fifty passes and ran seven or eight times, so the way we look at it is that we kept them from 15 or 20 additional plays, which for them is probably 14 to 21 points. I’m not sure there are many teams around that can survive a slugfest with Coach @ATonOfLaw's team.

 

TheO:    What about on defense? A lot more blitzing, seems like.

 

LLB:        Yes, our DC and staff had watched a ton of film and worked through quite a bit of analysis.  They felt pretty strongly that we had to pressure with the blitz to be successful.  We blitzed 28 times on 55 passing plays, probably as much as we’ve blitzed the rest of the year combined.  We are not a blitzing team, and I know it is hard to say it worked with Landrum throwing 4 TDs and only being sacked 4 times. But we did get an important pick, and we held him to about a 60% completion rate, about 10 points below his season average, so I’m chalking that up as a positive.

 

TheO:    Speaking of sacks, is Izaah OK?  10 sacks is a lot to give up.

 

LLB:        Indeed.  He’s fine, he’s a super tough kid. Our O-line is really proud of Zhaire’s 180 yards on the ground, but that’s way too many sacks and hits for Plawecki. I really bent our line coach’s ear a few times during the game, giving up ten sacks is ridiculous.  Much higher than the 3 or 4 he’s faced in the regular season.

 

TheO:    And zero interceptions today.

 

LLB:        We’ve definitely been focusing and stressing cutting down the interceptions, so it was very gratifying for Plawecki to be clean today.  We certainly didn’t have the room for any turnovers. Cam jumping on the loose ball was huge for us late in the first quarter.

 

TheO:    How is Cam’s ankle?  And Matt’s shoulder?

 

LLB:        Cam has had it rough this year. This is at least his third injury, but the trainers are hopeful he won’t miss any minutes this time. Matt’s been battling that shoulder for a while, we expect he’ll get treatment as well and like Matt be ready to go next week.

 

TheO:    You keep feeding me these segues, thanks Coach – what do you think about Toledo next week?

LLB:        You’re welcome Lois.  We really haven’t had much time to spend on Toledo, these Jacket’s were consuming all of our attention. But we know they are 12-1, beat a great Bowling Green team and got the first round bye. We’ll do some heavy analysis and see what the staff comes up with to give us the best chance at victory.

 

TheO:    Thanks for you time Coach.

 

LLB:        My pleasure Lois. GO IRISH!