Seniors leave Notre Dame Stadium with 38-0 win over Wake Forest
By DOUG GRIFFITHS
ISL Assistant Editor
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Finally the Irish resembled a top five team at home, hammering Wake Forest 38-0 Saturday in Notre Dame Stadium.
The third-ranked Irish’s previous five home games were all decided by a touchdown or less, but this one was over in a hurry.
Notre Dame scored touchdowns on its first three possessions of the game and scored on five of its six first-half possessions to prove it deserves to be in the national championship discussion.
“We played very well today,” said Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly whose team improved to 11-0, the program’s best start since 1989. “We saved our best for the last home game. The goal for all of us was to be undefeated this year at home. We were able to achieve that goal.”
There’s another goal that is attainable, one that every college football program strives for.
The Irish have a chance to finish the regular season undefeated for the first time since 1988 and play in the BCS National Championship Game. To accomplish that feat Notre Dame will have to beat rival USC (7-4) Saturday in Los Angeles.
It’s a safe beat Notre Dame will beat the Trojans, who arguably are the nation’s most disappointing team this season, if quarterback Everett Golson performs like he did against Wake Forest.
The freshman took advantage of facing a poor Demon Deacon secondary, throwing for a career-high 346 yards, completing 20-of-30 passes with three touchdowns and one interception.
Golson’s three touchdown strikes came in the first half, as did 317 of his yards.
“He’s a guy that can make explosive plays,” said Kelly about his signal caller. “He’s got the ability to throw it. He can run the football. He’s elusive.
“I think we’re seeing a guy that’s growing each and every week. Now he made some mistakes young quarterbacks have a tendency to make. We’ve got to slow him down a little bit. But he’s definitely on the right path to providing us the offense we need.”
“I thought everything came together today,” Golson said. “There were still some things that we’ve got to work on collectively, and I’ve got to work on with myself.
“Wake Forest presented a challenge to us. It required a lot of film study. But as a team, we really prepared this whole week and we came out and executed.”
Golson’s performance was a welcomed sight as it allowed the Irish to finally have a laugher at home and provide their seniors the opportunity to truly soak in their final appearance in Notre Dame Stadium.
The Irish knew it would be an emotionally charged day with 29 seniors saying good-bye to their fans. The group was recognized prior to kickoff as each was introduced, ran out of the tunnel and embraced their loved ones near midfield.
Linebacker Manti Te’o, the face of Notre Dame football, had a Kodak moment when he took the field. He threw down his helmet and gave his parents quite the bear hug as the sellout crowd of 80,795 roared.
Tight end Tyler Eifert was also included in Senior Day festivities. Technically Eifert could return to Notre Dame for an additional year of eligibility, but he’s already graduated said he’s headed to the NFL after the 2012 season.
Because the Irish were blowing out Wake, Kelly had a unique opportunity early in the fourth quarter. He called time-out with 13:27 remaining in the game so seniors like Te’o, defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore and safety Zeke Motta could take a curtail call.
Te’o made the most of his opportunity. As he was making his way toward the Notre Dame sideline, the Hawaiian jumped up and down waving his arms. Once he got close to the sideline, Te’o turned and saluted the thousands of fans that absolutely adore him. It was a class move by one of the classiest players to ever don the Blue and Gold.
“I wanted to make it a special moment for the seniors on defense,” said Kelly about the moment. “They have been obviously the rock. They’ve carried us while we were trying to find ourselves offensively.
“It just seemed to me a pretty good gesture to allow us to honor those seniors.”
Te’o certainly appreciated the gesture by his coach.
“It was just magic,” said Te’o, who admitted he’d remember his Senior Day for the rest of his life. “I’m just very grateful.
“It was a TV time-out, and he (Kelly) said I’m going to send you guys out there, and then I’m going to call time-out, and one by one I’m going to sub you guys out. So that’s the type of coach that Coach Kelly is. I’m just very lucky to play for him.”
Running back Cierre Wood is not a senior eligibility wise, but he’ll have to decide whether he’ll return for his final season after he’s put together another impressive campaign.
Wood sliced and diced through the porous Wake defense, rushing for a season-high 150 yards on just 11 carries. He started the scoring with a nice 68-yard touchdown run down the Demon Deacons’ sideline just 105 seconds into the game. Wood also had a 43-yard run in the third quarter that set up another Irish touchdown.
Like Wood, receiver TJ Jones has another year of eligibility and had a big day against Wake. His six grabs went for 97 yards, including a second-quarter touchdown reception from Golson that covered 34 yards. On that strike, Jones made the Demon Deacons’ cornerback look silly with a move, which left him wide open as he caught a perfectly thrown ball in stride and went the distance. That touchdown made it 28-0 with 6:17 to go before halftime.
Eifert also had half a dozen grabs, one of which was a 2-yard touchdown reception from Golson. The Fort Wayne product was blanketed by Wake’s defensive back, but it didn’t matter as Eifert leapt over him, made a nice catch in the corner of the end zone and managed to get one foot inbounds before falling out of the back of the end zone.
Eifert’s TD increased Notre Dame’s advantage to 14-0 just 5:50 into the game.
It didn’t take the Irish long to score again as Golson went to the air to do so. This time he hooked up with senior receiver John Goodman, who got behind the Wake secondary and was the recipient of a 50-yard bomb from Golson for a touchdown. That score made it 21-0 and there was still 4:28 left in the opening quarter.
“This was just a day where Notre Dame was too much for us to handle,” Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe said. “They played great today, and we just weren’t enough for them.”
Notre Dame spent much of the second half not trying to run the score up on the visitors. The Irish only scored once in the final half. After missing a 40-yard field goal on their first possession of the third quarter, Notre Dame drove 80 yards in seven plays on its second possession of the game to conclude the scoring.
The Irish just missed setting their season high for total yards in a game. They finished with 584 yards (against Miami last month they amassed 587. In the first half alone, Notre Dame had a staggering 430 yards against the Demon Deacons.
Up next for the Irish will be rivalry week as they prep for rival USC. That game will kick at 8 p.m. ET in Los Angeles and be televised by ABC.
Notre Dame Nuggets
– In the third quarter, Eifert became Notre Dame’s all-time leading receiving tight end. He now has 130 catches in his Irish career.
Eifert now has 1,710 yards receiving in his career and 11 touchdown catches.
Currently he ranks eighth all-time at Notre Dame in receptions. Michael Floyd is the school’s leader with 271 catches.
– Wood’s performance against Wake brought his career rushing totals to 2,425 yards on 438 carries with a 5.54 yards per carry average. His total ranks seventh in school annals. Autry Denson holds the school standard with 4,318 achieved from 1995-98.
He is the 16th Irish running back to eclipse the 2,000 career yards on the ground.
– Kelly continues to be pleased with Golson’s development. In the post-game press conference, Golson was asked what he did the week during practice leading up to the Wake game that pleased his coach.
Golson said during Wednesday night he was acting like Peyton Manning.
“I wanted to emulate that the next day in practice,” Golson said. “I think that’s what he was so proud about is making the correct checks and showing that we’ve been getting the concepts.”
– Notre Dame finished its home season undefeated (6-0) for the first time since 1998.
– Kelly’s Irish teams are 9-1 in the month of November.
– Te’o needs just two tackles to hit the 100 mark for the season. He would become the second Notre Dame player to ever record at least 100 stops in three seasons.
– Sophomore defensive end Stephon Tuitt recorded Notre Dame’s only sack against Wake and in so doing moved even closer to Justin Tuck’s all-time Irish record of sacks in a season, which is 13.5. Tuitt has 12.0 sacks this fall.
