Players Of The Game From The Notre Dame Win Over Syracuse
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Notre Dame (5-3) had its best all-around team victory of the season when it went on the road and blasted Syracuse by a 41-24 score. The Orange came into the matchup ranked 16th in the country, but the Irish were clearly the better team yesterday.
The nature of the all-around victory has led me to decide to hand out game balls in a different fashion. Normally I pick one player on each side of the ball, but there were two units that deserve the game balls, and for different reasons.
Let's talk players of the for the Irish from the win over Syracuse.
OFFENSE - Offensive Line
Stats: 246 rushing yards, 3 rushing touchdowns, 1 allowed sack
Runners Up: RB Audric Estime, RB Logan Diggs
I could have easily gone with Estime, who racked up 123 yards (6.2 YPC) and two touchdowns, or even Logan Diggs, who racked up 85 yards of his own and was the run game standout in the first half.
But the common theme in this game is that no matter who lined up at running back, or behind the center, the offensive line stole the show. Despite facing loaded boxes for the entire game, the Irish offensive line pushed Syracuse around all game and controlled the action.
Harry Hiestand has his unit playing at a very high level, and we saw that against Syracuse. Their timing was top notch, their push was top notch and they did a great job maximizing yards and limiting negatives.
They did a great job getting a push and opening up run lanes that led to 246 rushing yards. They also gave quarterback Drew Pyne plenty of time to throw. This unit was just outstanding, and while center Zeke Correll and right guard Josh Lugg were both standouts, the entire unit deserves the notice here.
DEFENSE - Linebackers
Stats: JD Bertrand - 5 tackles, 1 TFL; Marist Liufau - 3 tackles, 1 INT; Jack Kiser - 1 tackle, 1 TFL
Runners Up: S Brandon Joseph, DT Rylie Mills, DT Chris Smith, DE Isaiah Foskey
Notre Dame's linebackers have been the whipping boys for fans and analysts alike, and that has certainly been true of the post-game analysis from myself and other Irish Breakdown staff members. The unit played better against UNLV, but they were quite good against Syracuse and played a huge role in the win. They not only made game changing plays, but they cleaned up the run game, they limited mistakes and their aggressiveness played a key role in limiting Syracuse's ground attack, which had just 61 yards in the game.
Middle linebacker JD Bertrand was all over the field and was more active than his five tackles show. He was disciplined with his tackling, he attacked downhill and was hard to block and he did a great job sniffing out screens. We didn't see much from Jack Kiser, but he did a great job reading a Syracuse reverse and blowing it up for a six yard loss.
Marist Liufau had a quality game from start to finish, but it was his interception in the fourth quarter that played a key role in Notre Dame blowing this game open. It is obvious that Al Golden has scaled things back just a bit since head coach Marcus Freeman said that it needed to happen, but we are also seeing the linebackers start to figure out what Golden wants, and the result was very good play against the Orange.
It would be unfair to hand the ball off to one individual player, even one who made the huge plays that Brandon Joseph made, so I went with the play of the linebackers as the top performance.
SPECIAL TEAMS - Brandon Joseph
Stats: 3 returns, 23 yards
Joseph could easily have won the award on defense, especially when you consider how huge his pick six on the first play was for the Irish. I went with the linebackers because of how important their play was start to finish, but I also knew Joseph was going to get the nod on special teams.
His numbers won't blow you away - three returns, 23 yards - but Joseph was an integral part of the Irish winning the field position battle. On two of his returns he did a great job of first clearing out his teammates and then fielding the punt off a bounce instead of letting it role. He had just 23 return yards, but you can add at least 20-30 more yards of saved field position by fielding some challenging hops.
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