Notre Dame: The play that changed everything vs. Bowling Green
By Chase Eyrich
Notre Dame not only cruised to their fourth victory this season, but almost everything went as planned.
The opening spread for this weekend had Notre Dame as 45.5 points over Bowling Green. While fully capable, that is a difficult spread to cover for any team.
The Irish gave some fans a slight scare after their first drive ended with a three-and-out. After that initial let down, everything went as planned.
With the script set, the Irish followed it to the “t.”
21 points in the first quarter, 35 total in the second half and Phil Jurkovec – as well as the other second/third-string players — received valuable playing time in the second half.
Notre Dame did practically whatever they set out for. Six passing touchdowns and 573 total offensive yards highlighted the day while the defense racked up two sacks with seven quarterback hurries and eight tackles for loss.
Ian Book looked comfortable going 16-for-20 with five touchdowns and Jurkovec was able to shake off any nerves he may have had while scoring his first touchdown for the Irish.
It was a game that was over before it even started. Which makes it hard to pinpoint a play that changed everything when everything practically went as planned. Nothing stood in the way of Notre Dame’s 52-0 win, but one play was the key factor in that final score.
The victory marked Notre Dame’s first shutout since 2014. While that date holds significance to Notre Dame’s rivalry to Michigan, its reoccurrence was overdue.
While the second quarter ended with a Bowling Green pass into the end zone, the best chance for BGSU to avoid the shutout was coming out of the locker room after halftime.
It was their longest drive of the game and placed them in a position to put a few points on the board. Nate Needham lined up a 40-yard field goal with a chance to erase the goose egg by his teams’ name.
Instead, it was Julian Okwara who timed things up perfectly to get a hand on the ball and block the best opportunity Bowling Green had to avoid the shutout.
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Improving to 4-1 on the season, the Irish are favored in every game remaining on the schedule. If they can follow the script laid out before them as well as they did this past Saturday, the Irish are right back in the conversation for the College Football Playoff.