SOUTH BEND, Ind. – At 12:10 pm on Sunday morning, the last student to frolic on the playing field at Notre Dame Stadium was wearing his sweatshirt and walking away as security got closer. The four men dressed as nuns and the girls in green pajamas had already left. The hundreds of chest bumpers, casual hugs, photographers, and other wild revelers had also reached the exits.
It was 27 minutes since the No. 4 Fighting Irish defeated Clemson No. 1 in double overtime (47:40) in the biggest and best game of the season. What followed the last piece was a euphoric, careless, cathartic, imprudent, spontaneous celebration. It was a scene from simpler times before 2020.
COVID-19 social distancing damn it, a high percentage of the advertised crowd of 11,011 stormed the field and turned it into an old-fashioned mosh pit. In a completely unusual season, it was a joyful moment of completely normal college football mayhem. Months of clinging to a buttoned-down existence were pushed aside by the emotional tidal wave triggered by a huge and dramatic victory.
Was that a super spreader event or a super sweet moment? Check back in a week or two and hope for the best.
“It was crazy,” said Notre Dame recipient Avery Davis, whose two catches in the last minute helped stave off the defeat and force the game into OT. “It’s different from the movie. You get pushed around by the fans. “
Mike Collins, the 75-year-old announcer at Notre Dame Stadium, tried the diplomatic approach to dispersing the crowd. This is his 38th and last year in action, and he clearly didn’t want to be the killjoy at the biggest soccer party in this historic building since the Irish defeated the No. 1 state of Florida in 1993.
“We want everyone here safe and sound,” said Collins. “Please get away from the field. … Please use an open corridor. … And if the ushers could help a little, that would be helpful. ”
Nobody listened.
“OK, the band is leaving,” Collins said a few minutes later. “The fans should too. The players left. “
Boys ran races from midfield to goal line. Others jumped up to touch the crossbar. A girl made cartwheels. Eventually, Collins dropped the ultimate inducement for the dawdling night owls.
“If you stay too long,” he said, “it will be the last call somewhere.”
This was an empty threat. About 45 minutes later, the bars on Eddy Street were still teeming. Notre Dame campus and the surrounding area would get long and strong in the early Sunday hours.
College football and pandemic best practices are incompatible. After all, the emotion of a great moment will win.
And this was a very big moment for Notre Dame, in a seemingly endless unfulfilled quest to awaken its own echoes of fame.
Coach Brian Kelly did a great job making the program relevant again, but there is a gap between relevance and dominance. He hadn’t closed this gap yet. There have been many wins – Kelly mentioned several times last week that his team had won 12 in a row and 29 of their last 32 – but not the kind of wins Clemson and Alabama have.
Clemson, who had a 36-game regular-season winning streak, hit that juicy goal. And the Tigers were vulnerable in the absence of the most talented player in the college game (quarterback Trevor Lawrence) and several key defensive players.
Against an opponent who beat his team by 27 points in the 2018 College Football Playoff, Kelly played his players the prophet of certainty all week. He predicted the post game scene.
“If we win this thing, our fans will storm the field,” he told the team during the pre-game walkthrough on Friday. “If they do that, we have to get off the field. We have to go to the tunnel. “
After kick-off, Kelly’s confidence was immediately rewarded. In the first official game of Scrimmage, Kyren Williams burst back from the left and walked 65 yards for a touchdown.
Notre Dame would not get an offensive touchdown until their final offensive regulation game. In between, the Irish built a 23-10 lead, saw him vanish in a 26-point tie, and found themselves after a fabulous patient touchdown drive and clutches developed by Clemson freshman quarterback DJ Uiagalelei , behind 33 to 26.
With the Notre Dame defense refusing to give up big games and deal with the tackles, the Tigers had to make a series of short wins to get off the field. It was another sign of the coming glory of Uiagalelei, whose cannon arm is one thing but keeping in large settings is another. On a night when Irish star Travis Etienne ran back, Uiagelelei threw 439 meters.
“DJ is a special player,” said Kelly. “Trevor Lawrence is a special player too. Boy I would like to have Dabo’s problems. “
But Kelly also has a special player in quarterback Ian Book. He doesn’t have the professional future or the physical talents of his Clemson colleagues, but he is an extremely successful operator of Kelly’s offenses. And he had his best college moment on Saturday night – not long after one of his darkest college moments.
Book had fumbled a possible starting signal into the end zone in the third quarter. But Kelly told him he was going to win the game and the senior decided to believe his coach.
“Things happen,” said Book. “Playmakers forget it. … quarterback is really hard. You have a lot of pressure to deal with, but when it goes right you get a lot of love. “
On an initial descent from Notre Dame’s 43-yard line in the final minute of the game, Book dropped and saw a gift: Clemson had let Davis go deep without safety assistance. Book fired the pass in the middle and Davis made the hook and was eventually tackled at the 4-yard line. Three games later, Book Davis scored for the touchdown.
That brought the game into overtime. After trading touchdowns in the first OT, Notre Dame used seven methodical games to score and create a 47-40 lead. The length of this tenure gave the Irish defense time to rest and this unit came out turbocharged, firing Uiagalelei twice and delivering great hits on receivers.
When a 4:24 game was stopped, the game was won and the stands – filled to a capacity of about 14 percent – emptied. It was the kind of unbridled celebration you see somewhere in sport a few times every year – except this year.
“It was so much fun,” said Book.
There could be more fun for these two teams. They’re the two best teams at the Atlantic Coast Conference, so a championship rematch in Charlotte for next month seems quite possible – and with Lawrence back, Clemson would be very popular. This result also does not help both teams reach the college football playoffs.
And there’s a growing rivalry between the two programs. Kelly said last week that he was well aware of Clemson’s ingenuity in stealing signals and adjusted accordingly – the Irish huddled together and called play-off bracelets. Kelly said this was “precisely” related to the Tigers not intercepting their game calls.
Then there was the moment when Swinney seemed to intimidate the ACC crew into lifting a key pass interference flag in the fourth quarter. That led to an “f – du Dabo!” Singing by the Notre Dame students.
More rivalry please.
To do this, of course, both of you have to take care of business the rest of the way. Clemson’s schedule isn’t too difficult (Florida State, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech). Notre Dame is playing three of its last four games on the street, starting at Boston College on Saturday.
And let’s just say there is a worrying precedent that the Irish have to deal with there. Their last win against a No. 1 team, the game in Florida in 1993, was followed by a loss to Boston College. That cost Notre Dame the national title.
Rely on Kelly bringing this up about 200 times over the next six days.
“I have to build this team again,” he said. “We now have a target on our back.”
Let’s hope the string of challenges ahead doesn’t include a new COVID outbreak from the field storm. It would be nice to experience that one moment of normalcy in college football in 2020 without having to pay a price on the back end.
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