Notre Dame football: Most exciting 21 moments from the 2021 season
By Brad Weiss
Notre Dame football: Most exciting 21 moments from the 2021 season
No. 18: Coan goes off in the Fiesta Bowl
After winning seven straight to close out the regular season, the Notre Dame football team figured to have an outside shot at a possible College Football Playoff berth. To get in, they needed Oklahoma State to lose to Baylor, and then Georgia to knock off Alabama, but got only one-half of that equation.
With Oklahoma State losing in the Big 12 title game, but Alabama winning, that meant that both Oklahoma State and Notre Dame would match up in the Playstation Fiesta Bowl. From the outset, it looked like this game would be all Irish, as Jack Coan was picking apart the Cowboys’ defense throughout the first half of the game.
Unfortunately for Notre Dame, Oklahoma State came all the way back, erasing a 28-7 second-quarter deficit to win 37-35. In that game, however, Coan went off, setting a Fiesta Bowl record with 509 yards, which was also second all-time in school history behind Joe Theismann’s 526 against USC back in 1970.
All told, Coan also threw five touchdowns, but the offense stalled in the second half, allowing the Cowboys to come away with the victory.