Notre Dame Football: The Play of the Year at the Bye Week

One play has stood out above the others in terms of importance so far in the 2018 Notre Dame football season.

When thinking of things like the “Play of the Year,” it is easy to get caught up in all things shiny and flashy. Our minds might become filled with visions of one-handed catches and tip-toeing near sidelines. We may think about a successful last second Hail Mary or a kickoff return for a touchdown as time expires. These are often the types of plays that get all the press. They are the plays that so often dominate the highlight reels. But Notre Dame football has had no such plays like these so far.

But what is it that truly makes a big-time play? Is is purely about athletics? Is it about theatrics? Is it more about rarity of occurrence? Or is it more about the context of the play that comes to give it the distinction of “Play of the Year”?

Notre Dame was down two points to the pesky Pittsburgh Panthers in the fourth quarter this past Saturday. On a day where the Notre Dame offense was struggling, the notion of an explosive, big-yardage play seemed less than likely to occur. But with less than six minutes left in the game, Ian Book connected with Miles Boykin for a 35-yard touchdown. The perfectly placed pass not only gave the Irish the lead, but it sparked the defense to shut down down Pitt on their next drive to secure the win.

For the purposes of this article, I choose to ascribe to the latter designation listed above. There is perhaps nothing more important than context as it relates to big-time plays. Yes, it is important to consider what the play means to a particular player. But what does that play mean to the team for that game? What does the play mean to the team in the grand scheme of the season to date? And in the world of college football where every loss could potentially mean elimination from the coveted College Football Playoff, big-time plays are coming to mean more than they ever have before.

This is what Ian Book’s pass to Boykin means to Notre Dame. It means that they stayed undefeated. It means that they still have a shot at making it to the Holy Grail that is the College Football Playoff for the first time.

It also proved that this team — a team that had yet to face too many challenges under the leadership of Ian Book — can indeed win in the face of adversity.

They were supposed to win by 21 points. They were supposed to go into the bye week having blown out a subpar opponent. None of this was the case late in the fourth quarter this past Saturday. But they won anyway.

Sure, the play was far from electric. There was no theatrical quarterback scramble. There was no superman-style catch. It was a pretty standard pitch and catch, a throw that good quarterbacks should make and even mediocre receivers should haul in.

But in the context of the game, the play was huge. And in the context of the team, it was even bigger. This play functioned as a wake up call, screaming at this undefeated Irish team that they should take nothing for granted. This play reminded this undefeated Irish team that they will all but certainly come up against adversity again before the season’s end. This play proved to a quarterback that he could lead a team to a victory while playing from behind in the last minutes of the game and proved to the team that it could overcome adversity.

This play single-handedly kept Notre Dame in the playoff hunt.

Considering all that this play did for this 2018 Fighting Irish squad, and it is hard not to see it as the “Play of the Year” thus far.