Brian Kelly and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame finally got their game going as they manhandled Michigan State 31-13 from South Bend.
Saturday’s victory for the Irish marked their second win in the past three years and their fifth victory out of the past fifteen meetings between the two teams.
“I though Notre Dame played very well, especially on the defensive side of the ball,” Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio said. “And they ran the football in the first half, which I think was the key to some of their success.”
Notre Dame, who got their first win of the season were able to eat up a lot of time with two long scoring drives as well as two plays on special teams. At half time the Irish had a 21-10 lead.
Turnovers seemed to be the biggest problem in the first two games for Notre Dame as they turned over the ball overall a total of ten times. Against Michigan State Notre Dame had two turnovers in the first half and one in the second half which came off of a fumbled punt. However, Michigan State had turnover trouble of their own including MSU QB Kirk Cousins throwing an interception that Notre Dame CB Robert Blanton returned 82 yards to ice the game for the Irish with 3:32 remaining.
In the end though it wasn’t turnovers that doomed the Spartans, it was penalties and lack of success on third down.
“I don’t know if it was any one thing, we just came up short,” Cousins said. “We were in the red zone twice and came up with no points. That’s tough.”
Michigan State even tried to repeat some of the magic last year at Spartan Stadium by trying a fake field goal. On a fourth down at the Notre Dame 2-yard line holder Brad Sonntag tried a shovel pass to RB Le’Veon Bell but the ball fell incomplete.
“My call,” Dantonio said. “Didn’t work. Three points. I don’t think that’s where we lost the game, but I will take the blame for that thing.”
“We’ve got to establish a running game and be more balanced on offense,” Dantonio said. “The defense played well in the second half and came up with turnovers in the first half, but offensively we have to do something with those turnovers.”
Ref: Grand Rapids Press, New York Times