Notre Dame has won the turnover battle five times this season, breaking even three times and losing it twice. By no coincidence, the Irish struggled to keep pace on those last two occurrences, five lost turnovers undoing Notre Dame (7-3) at Louisville a month ago and three more costing the Irish a chance at a definitive win at Clemson on Saturday.
The first two of those miscues gifted the Tigers (5-4) enough points to cover the margin in their 31-23 win while the last mistake snuffed out Notre Dame’s last calm hope of a late comeback.
“As I told the team in the locker room, that’s a really good team, and we knew that all week,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said. “They had four losses, and as you watched the film, it’s a good football team. It’s a Clemson football team that their record doesn’t reflect how good of a team that is.
“When you play a team like that, there are three or four plays in the game that — if you turn the ball over, if you muff a punt, if you turn the ball over to their offense, they end up creating an outcome that’s an eight-point loss.”
If being completely fair, accounting for the 10 points that the Tigers enjoyed off turnovers — one an interception returned for a touchdown, the other a field goal after recovering Chris Tyree’s muffed punt within field-goal range — should also then adjust for the touchdown the Irish scored one play after Xavier Watts returned an interception to the 2-yard line.
TOUCHDOWN IRISH
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) November 4, 2023
X sets it up. Audric delivers.#GoIrish☘️ | @AudricEstime pic.twitter.com/z7iWxqfnRm
In that respect, when removing the turnovers and their clear results, Notre Dame still would have lost Saturday, 21-16.
Even though the Irish outgained the Tigers 329 yards to 285, averaged 5.4 yards per play compared to 4.1 and averaged more yards both on pass attempts and on rush attempts, they still would have lost.
Notre Dame lost in all the margins on Saturday, rendering moot the broader, snap-to-snap successes.
Start with third downs.
“We’ve got to be better on third down on both sides of the ball,” Freeman said simply enough.
The Irish converted just 3 of 13 third-down attempts, not much worse but still worse than the Tigers’ 5-of-15. Only once did Notre Dame convert multiple third downs on a drive, unable to mount methodical drives against Clemson’s stout defense, and even that occasion ended in a third-and-goal failure before a 23-yard field goal.
Those two problems tied together for the Irish. If any one item cost Notre Dame the win and a clear path to a New Year’s Six bowl more than turnovers did, the struggles moving the chains and thus finishing drives were that one item.
“A one-score game at the end of the day is all about execution,” Irish quarterback Sam Hartman said after completing just 13 of 30 passes for 146 yards. “I didn’t do it personally well enough. We were down there.”
Hartman then detailed a third-and-goal from the five-yard line toward the end of the first half, one that yielded only an incompletion despite the veteran passer afterward saying he should have been able to connect with multiple options.
Tight ends Holden Staes and Eli Raridon motioned from the right side of the line to the left before the snap, leaving freshmen receivers Jaden Greathouse and Rico Flores Jr. stacked on the wide side of the field, Greathouse in front of Flores. They both began routes toward the inside, the first step or two resembling a slant, before Greathouse drove vertically into the end zone and Flores cut hard toward the sideline flat.
Effectively, it was a “pick” play without the risk of being flagged for offensive pass interference as long as Greathouse did not go out of his way to engage the cornerback presumably covering Flores.
Indeed, Flores was initially open in the flat.
“Rico was wide open on one of the rollouts and I didn’t throw it,” Hartman said. “I was a little late to it, I guess. I didn’t make plays when they needed to be made.”
As Hartman rolled further toward his right, Flores by that point both covered and hemmed in by the sideline, Greathouse had flattened out his route along the back of the end zone and there may have been a window, albeit a tight one, for Hartman to find him.
“Even later in that play, [Greathouse] is open in the end zone and I just overthrew him,” Hartman said. “Just unacceptable, honestly. If you want to blame somebody, you want to tweet at somebody, tweet at me, I deserve it.”
First of all, if you see fit to tweet angrily at a college athlete, even the oldest among them, for his play on a Saturday, please stop reading this website entirely. For that matter, don’t tweet angrily at professional athletes, either. They are frustrated enough with their struggles, they do not need your misplaced vitriol.
Secondly, Hartman’s pass was indeed nowhere near catchable for Greathouse.
That was one of three times in the first half that the Irish reached scoring range only to settle for a field goal. Perhaps most curiously, a 3rd-and-10 on the first Notre Dame possession was handed off to running back Gi’Bran Payne. His six-yard gain would have been worthwhile in most occurrences, particularly if the Irish were considering going for a fourth-down conversion. But no, they attempted a 43-yard field goal.
Notre Dame went 3-of-13 on third downs yesterday, again a problem.
— Douglas Farmer (@D_Farmer) November 5, 2023
Averaged 7.2 yards to go.
Eight of the 13 needed seven or more yards.
Dropped back on 12 of the 13, the exception being the 6-yard Gi'Bran Payne run when needing 10 yards in scoring range, only to kick a FG.
Payne’s rush was never a strong call to move the chains on its own, so it should not have been the play call if Notre Dame was always intent on the field goal on fourth down.
Those three field goals set the Irish behind early on, just as much so if not more so than those two costly turnovers did. The turnovers led to 10 Clemson points; the three field goals were at least 12 points less than what Notre Dame could have notched on those drives.
When Hartman missed his timing window to connect with Flores and his location window to find Greathouse, he left at least four points on the board. He made up for some of them with his 26-yard touchdown scamper in the third quarter, but the Irish intention was for both productive moments, not one or the other.
TOUCHDOWN IRISH
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) November 4, 2023
Hartman takes it himself 😤#GoIrish☘️ | @sam_hartman10 pic.twitter.com/GLac5zg44t
Unwilling to throw his players under the bus, Freeman was reluctant to pin the loss on the two turnovers, though it was somewhat unavoidable for him.
“You never just want to point your finger at one or two individuals or certain plays, but that’s the difference between winning and losing this game,” he said.
Trying to spare his players was the right approach, but Hartman shouldered that load, anyway, and the play he zeroed in on was more emblematic of Notre Dame’s crippling struggles Saturday than two turnovers since the Irish also benefited from a turnover, Watts’s seventh interception of the season leading to Estimé’s 13th rushing touchdown.
Entering this weekend, Clemson ranked No. 73 in points per scoring opportunity at 3.47.
— Douglas Farmer (@D_Farmer) November 5, 2023
Notre Dame ranked No. 17 in points against, 2.59 per.
Remove the gift of a pick-six as well as a field goal set up by a muffed point, and Clemson still scored 21 points on four such drives.
But Clemson turned its three red-zone trips into 17 points, compared to Notre Dame’s three trips equaling 13.
Along with two other squandered scoring opportunities, the sixth-year quarterback missing the rookie receivers cost the Irish the game more than the turnovers did.
“We had ample opportunities to make plays and, frankly, I just didn’t make them,” Hartman said. “The guys around me were busting their butts. Guys stepped up. People got hurt.
“It wasn’t good enough for me and for myself to go out there and play like I played. That ended up in a loss.”
