C.J. Prosise rushed for 198 yards and scored three touchdowns, and a swarming Notre Dame defense slammed the door on Georgia Tech’s triple option to lead the Irish to a 30-22 victory against the Yellow Jackets. DeShone Kizer turned in a capable performance in his first career start at quarterback, completing 21 of 30 passes for 242 yards with one touchdown to Will Fuller and one interception. Tech and its highly regarded quarterback Justin Thomas were ineffective most of the day, and only a pair of last minute touchdowns made the final score respectable. Thomas was 8 for 24 for 121 yards and two scores, but was off target for most of the first 59 minutes. The Irish move to 3-0 on the season while the Yellow Jackets fell to 2-1.
The Irish started strong by handing the Jackets their first three and out series of the season. On the ensuing possession, Georgia Tech made the mistake of covering Fuller with only one defender, and Kizer made them pay with a 46-yard scoring bomb midway through the first period. Notre Dame was on the move again early in the second period when Fuller took a screen pass to the Yellow Jacket five yard line, but Kizer suffered his lone interception of the day when D. J. White out maneuvered Corey Robinson on a fade pass and intercepted it in the end zone. Thomas and tailback Broderick Snoddy then led Tech on its only successful first half march by going 80 yards in four plays to tie the game at seven with 5:26 left in the half.
Kizer bounced back by engineering a scoring drive for the Irish. Prosise swept around left end and stayed in bounds as he dove for the pylon and a 13-7 Irish lead. Kicker Justin Yoon missed the extra point, but returned later to make a clutch field goal after intermission to extend Notre Dame’s advantage to 16-7. The score was set up by a Jaylon Smith fumble recovery deep in Geeorgia Tech territory. Yoon’s counterpart, Harrison Butker, missed two field goals for the Yellow Jackets on the day, including one to end the first half. On the previous play, the Irish lost safety Drue Tranquill to a knee injury as he broke up a pass in the end zone. Tranquill jumped up to celebrate the play but immediately buckled in pain. This was the opposite knee that Tranquill had surgically repaired this past off-season.
Brian VanGorder’s defense continued its dominance in the third period and the offense got untracked. Prosise scored again early in the fourth quarter to build a 23-7 Irish lead, and capped an extraordinary day by sprinting for a 91-yard score with seven minutes left in the contest. Notre Dame let up a bit in the final minutes, and Georgia Tech capitalized by leaving in their starters. A pair of last minute scoring passes to Patrick Skov sandwiched around a successful onside kick made the final score much closer than the overall play of the two teams.
The Irish will have to move forward without Tranquill, who was a key player in the 3-4 alignment that VanGorder deployed to blanket Thomas and the option game. Tranquill, Joe Schmidt, Greer Martini and Jaylon Smith all played hard and tackled extraordinarily well for the hosts.
Let’s look at the answers to the pregame questions and try to forget that the author predicted a Georgia Tech victory:
Will Kizer make good decisions with the ball or commit costly mistakes? Kizer made a few mistakes, but he did not have to be perfect on a day where his defensive teammates picked him up and carried the load.
Can the Irish secondary bounce back after a weak performance against Virginia? The secondary was solid until garbage time when they went into containment mode. Midway through the fourth quarter, Thomas was only 5 of 20 for 54 yards.
Which offensive line can impose its will on the opponent? Notre Dame got the better of this battle, and the long touchdown by Prosise was a thing of beauty. Ronnie Stanley was uncharacteristically bad with three false starts and a holding penalty.
Will Notre Dame’s receivers have success against Tech’s veteran defensive backs? Fuller was magnificent again, while Chris Brown caught a team-high eight passes. Alize Jones also had his first three career receptions.
Which team will be able to sustain long scoring drives? Notre Dame scored four touchdowns on drives of 65, 82, 60 and 87 yards while Georgia Tech scored only once in its first 12 possessions.
Who will win the chess match between Johnson and VanGorder? Johnson had no answer for VanGorder’s punishing defense, and that was a beautiful sight to see.
After losing four key players (Jones, Folston, Zaire, Smythe), can the Irish get through this game intact? Tranquill’s knee injury definitely put a damper on the victory. Once again, it appears the team has lost a valuable contributor for the rest of the season.
Hopefully, Notre Dame will have enough players to finish the season, but right now the players must focus on the next game. Fortunately, it will be a home field encounter with an unheralded opponent, Massachusetts. Fans should be able to witness the debut of freshman quarterback Brandon Wimbush, who was all set to enter the game in relief of Kizer in the fourth quarter before the Yellow Jackets decided to hang onto the ball and score a late flurry of points.
Brian says:
Great effort all around and hats off to the defense today! Even after loosing Drew for the day they held strong and came up big. Deshone is coming along and Fuller and Prosise are just unstoppable! O-line still needs to clean up the penalties but I like that they never quit especially on the 91 yard run by CJ! Hope fully Deshon can get the same results next week and get even more comfortable with this offense. GO IRISH!
irishhawk50 says:
A great victory for the Irish! VanGorder earned his keep. Not sure what is wrong with Stanley. How many penalties? Kizer was fine in his first start. Need to give Prosise a light load against UMass. Get some of the 2 and 3 deep into the game early. I’ll sleep well tonight.
kjnrun says:
Big, big kudos to the defense. They were the star of the game.
GOND89 says:
Up’s to BVG and the whole D. Winning-the-line proved to be pivotal. And the positioning of the rest of the D in relation to winning-the-line was masterful. GO IRISH! (even though VanGorder is questionbly Irish – but hey, Rock & Parseghian weren’t neither…)
Pat Moran says:
We all relaxed up 30 – 7 and Coach Kelly even put his play cards down. Too soon. Instead of a headline “irish Throttle Ga Tech” we ended up with “Irish Hang on to Beat Ga Tech”. Coach – please don’t feel the need to make things more exciting than necessary for every single one of the 60 minutes!
a68domer says:
Loss of focus at end somewhat disappointing. Biggest drawback – Brandon didn’t get any game reps. D was AWESOME until last few minutes. Kudos to BVG and his staff and players. GO IRISH!!
pjcaulfield says:
Dominant performance by the defense, not tainted by taking our foot off the pedal in the last couple of minutes after the game was long since decided with a 30-7 lead. Brilliant defensive scheme with 3-5-3 and 4-4-3 sets using Tranquil and Farley as linebackers with pass coverage responsibilities as well. Kudos to VanGorder. Jaylon Smith was an absolute beast and Joe Schmidt was solid and at times spectacular. Monster game from Prosise. Agree with the comment about Ronnie Stanley. Three offsides penalties and one holding penalty are totally unacceptable for any offensive lineman, and all the more so for an All American senior. One of those offsides turned a first and goal at the 5 into first and goal at the 10 and directly contributed to passing the ball instead of running it into the end zone, culminating in the interception a few plays later. BTW, that interception was as much on Corey Robinson as it was on Kizer, as the ball was already out of Kizer’s hands when Robinson broke inside instead of outside where the ball was thrown. Will Fuller was Will Fuller – a first team All American. Kier player very well overall in his first start. One thing he needs to do is hand off the ball more quickly, as the slow handoffs give the defense too much time to react. One correction – the knee Tranquil hurt was not the same one he injured last year. Suspect that it is another ACL tear. Hope I’m wrong.
Paul Bleim says:
“DeShone Kizer turned in a capable performance in his first career start at quarterback, completing 21 of 30 passes for 242 yards with one touchdown to Will Fuller and one interception.”
He did great for his first start. What were your expectations?
John Vannie says:
I thought Kizer did a good job, but it was a far cry from Zaire’s performance against Texas. He threw a long pass to Fuller, who also turned a screen pass into a long gain. Not including those two passes, Kizer completed 19 others for about 150 yards, so there was a lot of dinking and dunking going on. Many of the throws were low and one out pattern was almost picked off and returned for a touchdown. He also forced a couple of ill-advised throws when under pressure in the pocket. Kizer did not throw the intermediate passes as I’m sure Kelly does not fully trust his decision-making yet.
If we are not able to demonstrate more versatility in the passing game and expand Kizer’s comfort zone, opponents will play those short routes very tight and make him beat them with higher risk throws. Smart teams will also double up on Fuller. Kizer needs to be able to get to the level Zaire was at in the passing game or close to it if ND is going to be a contender. He’s not a huge running threat which also allows linebackers to drop into the passing lanes.
Tbone says:
Vannie,
In regards to your Kizer Comments:
1. GT is a far better team than Texas
2. MZ was horrible passing against Virginia.
3. Watch for more improvement and more diversity in the offense this week for Kizer.
4. JT Barrett and Cardale Jones are about as opposite as qb’s get. How’d that work out?
flirish says:
This was a huge win. Given the QB situation and injury situation it may be Kelly’s biggest win in five years. Defensive plan was executed to perfection until we quit early and almost paid for it. It made a truly dominating performance seem as though we struggled to pull out a victory. The right side of the offensive line has been terrific. Stanley is a highly over rated player. We run better to the right and he continues to make stupid errors. With all the good, once again certain kelly trademarks continue to surface and until they are corrected we will struggle with good teams. Inability to score TDS in the red zone is remarkable. Special teams continue to be among the worst in the country. Kick off returns have not improved at all. punt returns are rare and punting is erratic. our on sides kick return team needs some attention. In summary fantastic game but we still have to be able to play a complete game including the special teams aspects to compete at the highest level.
GOND88 says:
A great win, but as usual it comes at the cost of a season ending injury to a key player and the red zone offense still stinks. ND is still plagued by breakdowns, penalties, mental mistakes and turnovers in the red zone which could bite ND at some point this season if not corrected.
Without the big plays and heroics of Will Fuller and CJ Prosise ND would have a tough time getting into the end zone.
ElkhartIrish says:
Just one little question about the overall Kelly strategy: why doesn’t ND use a fullback in its scheme?
goirish67 says:
Great game for the entire team with the exceptions noted by previous folks. One thing I would like to see…….No more quick sideline passes, or at least only one or two per game. It has been used too often and has rarely been effective.
NDBonecrusher says:
Working yesterday-finally got a chance to watch game. Easy there Pat-the issue was never really in doubt. The selection committee will remember that 2/3 of Tech’s points came in garbage time.
The big players played big. In no order, Schmidt, Smith, Day, Brown, Fuller, Kizer, and of course PROSISE (what an awesome day for him!) had magnificent performances and provided the necessary leadership. Good for BVG too. Last night probably his best nights sleep in weeks. Well done Lads! But don’t get cocky. It’s a loooong season. Enjoy the win everybody!
Aaron says:
Once again, the team needs to play the WHOLE GAME!!!!
Made a solid win vs a good team to just hanging on in the end…..awful!!!
Not a top 10 team…yet
Another injury with possible of Schimdty on that last on-sides kick. Did anyine hear that hit he took!?!?! 80,000 and change were ROCKIN’ the Stadium and you could still hear the hit he took!!!!
Lastly, O-Line played well at times, and didn’t at times…when the weather gets colder, they will be called upon to control the game!!!!
I dont like this match up for the simple fact Army should be a regular on the schedule (they are back on next year thank god) instead of UMASS!
Go Irish!!!
Tee Scott says:
Son, that was the sound of the hit he delivered.
Aaron says:
Are you sure because he was slow to get up and his left shoulder was hung low like he hurt or popped it?
Fitz says:
Does anybody else take glee in the fact that Golson was outplayed this weekend by his last year’s 3rd string? Yes, FSU’s offense put up a whopping 7 points on Friday and Golson’s highlight of the night was escaping a safety in his own end zone.
After a great win let’s not overlook UMass, as that trip to Clemson looms. They’re showing a lot more fight this year. After all, as ND fans we should be all too aware of how our team can rise or sink to many levels. Having said that I hope it turns out we can rest CJ a lot and give Wimbush some good playing time.
flirish says:
Regarding Golson —I watched that game and thought he played pretty well. he has NO offensive line. His receives drop a lot of easy balls. BC hs the number one rated defense in DI right now as of three weeks into the season. Not sure any QB could have done better given the O line he has. His move in the end zone to elude a safety was fantastic. No need to be a hater. I wish him all the best
2015 says:
Major props to D. Excellent job with option. Stuffed the fullback which was key. I can’t believe I saw the QB under center twice. The RB seems to get more momentum in that situation vs. just standing up and taking handoff. Play action may better for new QB, as he is not a runner. OL (minus penalties) and DL have ability to take over games, haven’t had that in a long time.