Notre Dame Obliterates Syracuse: Key Stats Behind the Historic Win

Notre Dame obliterated Syracuse on Saturday, routing the Orange 70-7 as it moved to 9-2 on the season. The Fighting Irish are seemingly one win away from a return trip to the College Football Playoff, as the regular season finale at Stanford awaits next Saturday.

Before that though, what happened Saturday in South Bend needs to be celebrated and further explored. It was a historic day for Notre Dame football, as it had a scoring output not seen since before World War II.

Here are the key numbers and statistics from Saturday's rout of Syracuse.

70 Points Historic for Notre Dame

If you thought it had been a while since Notre Dame reached the 70-point mark before Saturday, then you'd be right. However, it last happened probably longer ago than you even thought.

The 70 points set a modern record for Notre Dame, passing the 69 points it put up against Georgia Tech back in 1977. The 70 points are the most Notre Dame has scored in a single game since its 73-0 win over Haskell in 1932.

21 Points on 0 Offensive Yards

I feel like I'm in roughly the 99th percentile in the world for how much football I watch. I don't say that to say I know more than others, but I do have a pretty good memory when it comes to these kind of things. For the life of me I can't remember watching a football game at any level where a team has scored the first 21 points of a game despite not running a single offensive play.

Notre Dame did that with an early pick-six followed by a blocked punt being returned for a touchdown, and a second pick-six.

The game was over before CJ Carr even took a single snap.

Notre Dame: More Points than Passing Yards

It's not that Notre Dame scored 70 points on Saturday, but it's how it went about scoring those 70 points. Usually you see a team throw all over the field when they score that much, but not in the case of the Fighting Irish on Saturday.

Notre Dame starting quarterback CJ Carr threw for just 49 yards (again, the game was over before he even took a single snap) while backup Kenny Minchey stepped in and threw for 18 more. In total it was 67 passing yards for Notre Dame, or three less than points it scored.

The blowout win coupled with the lack of passing attack made it feel like a Lou Holtz blowout from the late 1980s.

Jeremiyah Love's Heisman Case on Few Touches

Have you ever heard the saying that it's not about the amount of years but instead about what goes into them? That could be said for Jeremiyah Love's total numbers on Saturday.

The Heisman Trophy candidate had just eight touches, all rushes, but totaled 171 yards and three touchdowns in them. That's good for an average of 21.4 yards per rush.

He also became only the third player since 1996 to rush for three touchdowns and 170 or more yards on eight or fewer carries.

Notre Dame Senior Day Dominance Continues

Notre Dame's 70-7 victory over Syracuse was just the latest in a long line of dominating Senior Day performances of late. Since 2018's Senior Day win over Florida State, Notre Dame has now beaten its opponents on Senior Day by a combined score of 276-69.

Average that out and its an average final score of 47-8.

So much for the emotions of Senior Day negatively impacting the level of focus or ability, huh?