Golden Golson and Dynamite D have Notre Dame thinking national title
By DOUG GRIFFITHS
ISL Correspondent
Notre Dame is for real.
If there was any doubt, Brian Kelly’s fifth-ranked Irish silenced the critics with an extremely impressive 30-13 win at No. 8 Oklahoma.
Go ahead start the national championship talk because it’s warranted.
Barring something out of the ordinary, Notre Dame will be 11-0 when it heads to USC for a date with the Trojans over Thanksgiving weekend.
It feels good to know we’re heading in that direction, Irish linebacker Manti Te’o said. Eight-and-o, all that means is we have a chance. That’s all it means.
We have four more games we have to really pay attention to. We’re going to start one game at a time, like we’ve always done.
It just states that we are a contender in college football this year, receiver TJ Jones said. We have the mental and physical toughness to be a top contender.
Like Te’o alluded to, the Irish will need to take care of business in the form of Pitt, Boston College and Wake Forest – all unranked teams and none with better than a .500 record – over the next three weeks. They’ll be big favorites in all those games.
As long as Notre Dame beats the Panthers, Eagles and Demon Deacons, it will set up the program’s biggest regular-season game since 1988 in the Los Angeles Coliseum on Nov. 8. That’s when the Irish will renew their annual rivalry with the Trojans, a team that was expected to contend for the national championship but is somewhat reeling now after its 39-36 loss to Arizona to fall to 6-2.
If we start listening to ˜national championship’ and ˜BCS,’ we’ll lose a football game, Kelly said.
They’re a pretty smart group. If they start thinking about all those other things, we’ll lose. It’s what I told them in the locker room: Enjoy a great victory against Oklahoma, now let’s find a way to beat Pittsburgh.
I’m going to enjoy it, Te’o said. We’re all going to enjoy it. Then we’re going to wake up and realize it wasn’t a dream, and we’re going to enjoy it some more.
Of course, Kelly will try to temper any and all enthusiasm about a possible national championship run. He’ll say all the right things in the coming days. His players will say their lone focus is on Pitt, but behind closed doors, you know there has to be chatter about how if the Irish play their remaining four games like they have the previous eight, there is a good chance they’ll be in the BCS national title game.
Notre Dame is relevant again on the national landscape thanks to its 8-0 start. It has beaten four ranked teams along the way, but none of those were of the caliber of Oklahoma. The Sooners entered the season as one of the serious contenders to win the national championship with a lofty No. 4 ranking.
Now the Irish will likely be no worse than fourth and perhaps even jump to third in the BCS Standings when those are released later today. Sure, Alabama, Kansas State and Oregon are ahead of Notre Dame, but the Irish have a much easier road to Miami – the site of this year’s BCS National Championship Game – than any of the aforementioned.
No longer can the notion of Notre Dame playing in South Florida on Jan. 7 be laughed off either.
The Sooners certainly weren’t laughing late Saturday night after enduring a 17-point home loss to the Irish.
OU entered the game as an 11-point favorite, but quarterback Everett Golson decided to have his coming out party and provided quite the offensive punch to a team that really doesn’t need a whole lot of that from that side of the ball since their defense is terrific.
Golson was very good against a talent-rich Sooner defense. He threw for 177 yards and scored on a 1-yard touchdown run, which was set up by a 50-yard bomb to receiver Chris Brown. Golson led an Irish offense that hung 20 points on OU in the fourth quarter.
What we’ve been hearing was, a lot of people didn’t think we could win this game, Golson said. That kind of added fuel to my fire that was already burning.
Kelly loved how Golson led.
He was communicating, he was talking, he was doing things that you hope, as you go through this process, you start to see, the Irish boss said. He was confident. He was calm. All the things you need to see from your quarterback.
As impressive as Golson was, Notre Dame’s defense was spectacular. We should come to expect that now from the Irish defenders, but to go into Norman and for all practical purposes shut down one of the most explosive offenses in the nation is something worthy of high praise.
OU, which averaged 52 points in its last three games, could only muster 13 points against what is arguably the greatest defense Notre Dame has ever had.
What’s truly remarkable is none of the eight opponents the Irish have faced this season have scored more than 17 points and only one has scored more than 14.
Te’o spearheaded Notre Dame’s defensive effort. What else is new, right?
If another defensive player besides Michigan’s Charles Woodson ever deserves to win the Heisman Trophy, it’s Te’o. He once again solidified his legendary status in Notre Dame lore with his late fourth-quarter interception, which all but sealed the victory over the Sooners.
Te’o finished with 11 tackles, including a sack and the interception.
He and his teammates pitched the perfect game in Norman.
Their offense was impressive, not only scoring 30 points, but also possessing the ball for five minutes longer than Oklahoma thanks to long, time-consuming drives keeping Sooner quarterback Landry Jones on the sideline.
Much of winning the time possession battle had to do with Notre Dame rushing for 215 yards. The Irish’s three touchdowns all came via the ground. Cierre Wood and Theo Riddick are to be commended for their outings. Both had 74 yards rushing. Wood’s 62-yard first-quarter touchdown run, where he wasn’t touched up the middle, gave Notre Dame the early momentum it needed.
The defensive effort should be made into an instructional video. Notre Dame’s open-field tackling and tackling in general was excellent.
It was a defense that was so good against OU’s run that it made the Sooners one-dimensional. The Sooners managed just 15 yards rushing and had to rely solely on their passing game, which finished with 364 yards, as its mode of transportation.
Furthermore, this is a Notre Dame team that simply doesn’t beat itself. It didn’t commit a turnover against OU and was penalized just once. The Irish now rank eighth in the FBS in turnover margin.
Notre Dame is getting exceptional play from its defense, its offense proved it can get the job done against a top-10 team, its special teams are solid and it keeps its errors to a minimum.
Now, that’s what national championship contenders are made of.
ND Nuggets
– The win was Notre Dame’s first over a top-10 team since 1996 when it defeated Texas. Prior to Saturday night, the Irish had lost six straight games to top-10 teams.
– The loss to Notre Dame was Oklahoma’s second home defeat of the season, something none of Sooner coach Bob Stoops’ previous teams had ever suffered.
– Oklahoma did score a rushing touchdown against the Irish, becoming the first team this season to accomplish the feat.
– Irish running back George Atkinson did not make the trip to Norman because he had the flu.
Also: Chuck Samples look back at weekend in college football
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