'It's ecstatic': Notre Dame takes down Duke in a thriller in Durham

DURHAM, N.C. — They could feel it in Durham when the neon-green shirts filed onto the field.

With Notre Dame staring at fourth-and-16 with 51 seconds left and a 1-point deficit, stadium crew members in neon-green shirts walked along the sideline and lined up in front of the stands at Wallace Wade Stadium. Anyone who’s sat in a student section recently knows what that means: field-storming watch. Some Duke students tried to sneak their way toward the front of the bleachers for a head start.

A short time later, they went back to their seats.

Sam Hartman scrambled for 17 yards to convert the fourth down. On the very next play, Audric Estimé found a seam. Notre Dame escaped Durham, N.C. with a 21-14 win over Duke, and the Irish moved to 4-1.

“There’s a lot to clean up,” Irish head coach Marcus Freeman said. “But for those guys to keep battling, keep believing, it’s a great feeling as a coach for them.”

After the Irish offense struggled to get anything going throughout the second, third and fourth quarters, Notre Dame got the ball with 2:35 to go at its own 5-yard line, down by 1. 

Rushing lanes were sparse. Open receivers were almost non-existent. Notre Dame’s defense kept the Irish in the game, shutting Duke out until two touchdowns in the late-third, early-fourth quarter. 

There was little reason to believe Notre Dame could break through, needing 95 yards to score. But the Irish did anyway.

“We knew that we had them,” Estimé said. “We knew that something was gonna pop. We just had to stay strong.”

Freeman huddled the offense up and told them, “Win the interval.” What happened before that moment didn’t matter. He even heard a couple players repeating that phrase — “Win the interval. Win the interval.” — before they trotted onto the field.

“That’s what they ended up doing,” Freeman said.

The drive began with a false-start penalty, which bugged the Irish all night. Hartman went to work, as the graduate quarterback found junior tight end Mitchell Evans on third-and-10 and freshman wide receiver Rico Flores Jr. on the next play for a combined gain of 43 yards. 

With junior wide receiver Jayden Thomas and freshman wideout Jaden Greathouse sidelined with hamstring injuries (Freeman hopes both can return next week against Louisville), Evans stepped up. He led the Irish with 6 receptions for 134 yards.

However, an offensive pass interference penalty on sophomore wide receiver Tobias Merriweather set Notre Dame back, and the Irish wound up with fourth-and-16. 

Hartman rolled to his right, pump-faked once and realized he needed to run. He had open field for about 14 yards before Duke defenders started closing in, then he quite literally threw himself at the Blue Devils to pick up the first down.

“You can make it whatever,” Hartman said when asked if he pump-faked because he realized he had to buy time to run. “It was a lot of run-and-shoot. There’s not a lot of good calls for fourth and that long.”

One play later, Estimé ran for a 30-yard score to take the lead with 31 seconds left. Freeman said he would have preferred Estimé slide down at the 1-yard line to set up a field goal as time expired. Was Estimé thinking about that?

“Not gonna lie, I wasn’t,” Estimé said. “I just saw the opportunity, and that’s it.”

Duke’s ensuing drive ended with a strip-sack of junior Blue Devils quarterback Riley Leonard by graduate Irish defensive tackle Howard Cross III. Cross was a monster all night, finishing with 13 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 2 forced fumbles and the 1 sack.

Previously, the Irish were 0/10 in recovering their opponents’ fumbles. They got that one.

“It’s ecstatic,” Cross said. “There’s really no other feeling like it.”

“I was yelling and screaming,” Hartman said. “It was great.”

Notre Dame was ecstatic after the final whistle blew. Freeman fired up the crowd. Estimé flexed his muscles and screamed as he walked toward the locker room.

Hartman ended his postgame interview early. He walked toward the Duke sideline to check on Leonard, who injured his leg Cross’ sack.

“Hopefully anything that he had happen to him injury-wise was minor,” Hartman said. “I don’t know what he’s feeling, but I’ve been there and it’s a dark place you can go to. He played a hell of a game and he’s a hell of a player.”

Notre Dame visits Louisville at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday. That will be game No. 7. Halfway through the season, the Irish have a signature moment.