Notre Dame Football: Irish win to avoid a major upset
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team went into their game against Louisville as heavy favorites, but the game was closer than some may have guessed.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are officially back in action as they had to wait until Monday night to get their season rolling. They got the national spotlight as most of the country already had their week one game in the books, but the Irish traveled to Louisville to get their season underway.
They defeated the Cardinals by a final score of 35-17. Notre Dame got the win by balancing their offense throughout the entire game. They had 14 points in the first quarter and then scored one touchdown in each of the next three quarters. Things were a little shaky at first as the Cardinals had a 14-7 lead at one point and that is always scary when you are such a heavy favorite. It was a little sloppy and they had to work harder than expected but once they shook the rust off they ended up with the 18 point victory.
The defense especially took some time to get going. Louisville’s offense had drives of 88 and 75 yards go through the Notre Dame defense in the first quarter. It was good after that as a field goal was all the Cardinals were able to muster up from that point on. This was a good way to gel and learn how they were going to play as there is some much steeper competition coming up for the Irish in the coming weeks.
Ian Book didn’t really look like his normal self in this game. He made some throws that were uncharacteristically bad for him but he got better as the game went on. He only had 63 passing yards but he ended with 193 so he turned it on. He ended with a rushing and passing touchdown and had another 81 yards rushing. He showed great versatility after dealing with some early game adversity.
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Now, Notre Dame doesn’t have another game until the 14th of September when they host New Mexico. There is no game next week for the Irish so they have extra time to prepare and shake whatever rust they may have left off. It wasn’t as dominant as they may have hoped, but they got the week one win and that is all that matters.