Notre Dame Football: Big plays spark dominant Irish performance over New Mexico

It was an uneasy start to the home opener for Notre Dame football fans, but eventually the Irish hit on big plays and blew out New Mexico.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Notre Dame football team was its lack of explosive offensive plays. The Irish coaching staff talked all offseason about how creating more chunk plays was a major point of emphasis for the Irish moving into the 2019-2020 season.

In Notre Dame’s opening-week win against Louisville, it was much of the same: The Irish were good enough against a rebuilding Louisville squad, but the explosion that Irish fans were looking for just wasn’t present.

On Saturday, it wasn’t present for the Irish early, either.

Notre Dame faltered on offense in the first quarter against New Mexico. The only score of the quarter came on a Kyle Hamilton interception return for a touchdown.

Fortunately for Irish fans, the offense came alive.

With the Irish leading 14-0 in the second quarter, the Irish faked a buck sweep play to the left and Ian Book dropped a touch pass on an end-around to Avery Davis. The Irish utility man took the pass around the right end for 59 yards to paydirt and the Irish went up 21-0.

It was that play that opened up the floodgates for the Irish for the rest of the game.

Later, Javon McKinley took a crossing pattern and turned up field, breaking through the New Mexico defense 65 yards for a score. Chase Claypool scored on a 37-yard post pattern just before halftime. Finally, Chris Finke scored the same play as Davis, adding a 54-yard score to the docket early in the 3rd quarter.

In short, the Irish found their chunk plays against New Mexico and got some confidence in front of what will be a daunting task next weekend at Georgia.

After the game, Brian Kelly talked about his offense, saying that the Irish “didn’t want to show much” against New Mexico.

It will be interesting to see what the Irish offense has up its sleeve next week in Athens.