Notre Dame Dominated Its Rivalry Matchups In 2023

The Marcus Freeman era at Notre Dame certainly got off to a rough start when looking at how the Irish fared against its rivals. During the 2022 season, the first under Freeman, Notre Dame went 1-2 against its three rivals - USC, Stanford and Navy. Those three opponents outscored Notre Dame 86-76 in those games, and the only win - a 35-32 victory over Navy - saw the Midshipmen make a wild comeback.

If you want an example of Notre Dame growing from year one of the Freeman era to year two, this is certainly one area you can focus on. Notre Dame completely flipped its rivalry fortunes in 2023, and with its 56-23 win over Stanford last night, the Irish finished the 2023 season with a perfect 3-0 record against its three current rivals.

It's not just the 3-0 record that impressed, as that's something Notre Dame has done before, including as recently as 2021. Notre Dame absolutely dominated its opponents and was clearly the better team in each contest. It was quite the reversal from year one to year two.

This season was a completely different story, as Notre Dame outscored its three rivals by a 146-46 margin. That's an average score of 48.7 to 15.3 in those three games, and the 28-point margin against USC was actually the closest final score of the three rivalry games, and it was certainly the sweetest. Notre Dame gave the Trojans a beatdown loss they never seemed to recover from.

Notre Dame didn't just dominate the scoreboard in those games, they were complete whippings. Notre Dame held USC to its lowest yardage and point total of the season. The Irish outgained Navy 444-169 and outgained Stanford 521-359.

The Irish held double digit halftime leads against each team as well. Notre Dame led Navy 28-0 at halftime, led USC 24-6 at halftime, and led Stanford 28-16 at halftime.

There is plenty of analysis to be done and stories to be told about the 2023 Notre Dame football team. Some of those stories will be good, some will be not so good, and will show disappointment with the season. But this is one takeaway that shows much-needed growth and is one of the best parts of the 2023 season.

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