Saturday turned out to be a real BLOOD WEEK and Notre Dame wasn’t immune to that college football curse against the BYU Cougars in Provo, Utah. In real BLOOD WEEK fashion, Notre Dame made their own mistakes and poor officiating at the end to hand BYU a massive victory and now they will go back home with a 28-24 loss heading into the bye week.
The Irish walked right into the Bear’s den right from the start. BYU and Bear Bachmeier took their opening drive 75 yards on 11 plays for a Bachmeier touchdown
run to take the early lead and hype up the crowd. On the fifth play of that drive, Boubacar Traore was ejected from the game after a roughing the passer call also turned into a targeting call. His absence was painfully felt throughout the game as Loghan Thomas just isn’t on the same level.
Notre Dame tried answering the BYU opening score, and moved down the field dinking and dunking with some Nolan James runs mixed in, but they were ultimately forced to kick a field goal to make it 7-3.
Notre Dame forced a 3 and out on BYU’s next possession and git the ball back from the punt on the 16 yard line. The Irish marched 84 yards on 12 plays using the same type of mix as their first drive — only this one ended in the enodzone as Nolan James ran it in from the 8 yard line to put the Irish up 10-7.
BYU wasn’t backing down and Bear Bachmeier orchestrated another big drive. This time, however, the Cougars got real tricky with it and score on a double pass from Kyler Kasper to Bachmeier to put BYU back on top 14-10.
The Irish started to break.
On the next drive, Notre Dame quickly went 3 and out after losing two yards. BYU would capitalize on Notre Dame’s inability to move the ball or cover anyone on the field, and went 72 yards in under 3 minutes to have Bear Bachmeier run it in from the one to make the game 21-10, BYU.
Notre Dame had less than a minute and a half and drove the ball down to the 6 yard line with 6 seconds left in the game, but CJ Carr fumbled the ball as he tried to spike it to stop the clock. An official review saw the clear recovery by BYU and the half ended. The officials, somehow, didn’t see the BYU defensive line flopping on the ground prior to the play and they didn’t throw a flag for delay of game — which would have possibly negated all of that.
Notre Dame didn’t come out after halftime with its hair on fire. The Irish punted on its first two possessions. Notre Dame’s defense finally found its groove a little bit though and forced a punt which saw the ensuing offensive drive get a field goal, and then BYU failed on a fake punt deep in their territory — which only resulted in a field goal for Notre Dame to make it 21-16.
The Irish defense passed the test again and forced another BYU punt, and Notre Dame got the ball back with good field position. It took some 4th down conversions, but the irish got down inside the 5 yard yard line, and Jonaz Walton ran it into the enodzone from 3 yards out to make it 24-22. Notre Dame opted to go for two to try and make the lead 3 points, and Walton again got the call — and he made it in to make it 24-21.
On BYU’s ensuing drive, Jayden Sanders intercepted the ball deep into Notre Dame’s territory — but the offense went cold and BYU got the ball back close to midfield. After holding the Cougars in check for most of the second half, the Irish couldn’t stop Bachmeier from orchestrating a final scoring drive to pull ahead of the Irish, 28-24 with less than 2 minutes left in the game.
CJ Carr led the Irish down the field, and got to the 6 yard line with 4 seconds left. Carr throws it to Jaden Greathouse, and the refs decided that DPI doesn’t exist anymore or that the clock matters — as 1 second was showing when the ball hit the ground.
Notre Dame loses during blood week, and this is a huge setback for what this team is trying to accomplish this season.
More to come on OFD
