Notre Dame responds to early blunder, beats Louisville for season-saving win

Notre Dame Stadium fell so silent you could hear an individual rain drop hit the steel of a stadium bleacher seat, if there was any unoccupied one. Spoiler — there wasn’t. Not for this game. Not for No. 15 Louisville at No. 16 Notre Dame, a matchup that quickly became the biggest of the 2024 season for the Fighting Irish.

They didn’t seem to treat it as such in the first 90 seconds.

Veteran special teams enthusiast Devyn Ford fumbled the opening kickoff. Three plays later, the Cardinals were in the end zone for the opening score. That’s when the sold-out crowd of 77,622 was rendered speechless. A total no-show couldn’t be occur again, could it?

Nope. Not this time.

Notre Dame rebounded in a big way, scoring the game’s next three touchdowns, and hung on down the stretch to secure a 31-24 victory. Head coach Marcus Freeman’s ninth career victory over an opponent ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 at the time of kickoff was far from perfect. It was downright wacky in every phase. But a win is win, and Freeman and Co. needed this one any way they could get it.

“Obviously wasn’t perfect as everybody saw, we saw, our players saw,” Freeman said. “When you find a way to get it done when it matters most… At the end of the day, we are evaluated win or no. Did you get it done? We found a way.”

Senior quarterback Riley Leonard was nearly flawless on Notre Dame’s opening touchdown drive. He completed 5 of 6 passes for 31 yards, including a perfect ball on fourth-and-3 to keep the drive alive, in addition to a 9-yard gain on the ground.

It wasn’t always that easy for Leonard and the Irish offense, however. He finished 17-of-23 passing for 163 yards with 2 touchdowns, and Notre Dame had only 280 yards as a team for the entire game. Louisville racked up 395. The Irish cashed in on short fields provided to them by special teams and the ND defense to put 10 of the points on the board. That was the difference.

The short fields are where the aforementioned wackiness came into play.

Louisville quarterback Tyler Shough faked out just about every Notre Dame defender on a disguised, play-action quarterback keeper. He gained 46 yards, running free. Irish freshman corner Leonard Moore and graduate student safety Xavier Watts punched the ball out, though, and sophomore linebacker Jaiden Ausberry fell on it. Leonard found sophomore wideout Jaden Greathouse wide open in the end zone for a 34-yard touchdown a few plays later. That gave Notre Dame its first lead, 14-7.

“Those are the ones that freak me out because I’m like, dude, don’t miss him,” Leonard said. “I missed a couple last week. But yeah, it was good, man. Always a good feeling.”

Louisville later mishandled a punt, and Notre Dame gunner Jordan Faison knocked the loose ball all the way down inside the Cardinals’ 5-yard line. Freshman Kennedy Urlacher recovered it. Leonard scored his seventh rushing touchdown on the next snap to put the home team ahead, 21-7, late in the first quarter.

Watts has had many “look what I found” interceptions in the last two seasons, and he added another midway through the second quarter. Mitch Jeter made a 48-yard field goal after an Irish three-and-out. ND led 24-14 at that point.

Louisville’s second touchdown, meanwhile, followed a junior Notre Dame tailback Jadarian Price fumble inside the Irish 9-yard line. The Irish weren’t the only ones given a gift.

This triumph, bolstered by sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love’s 32-yard receiving touchdown and a last-minute defensive stop, is Notre Dame’s gift to Fighting Irish faithful. With it, winning out and reaching the College Football Playoff remains a possibility. Don’t lose sight of Louisville, a 10-win team that beat the Irish a year ago, coming in unbeaten and likely being a CFP contender in its own right coming out of the ACC as well.

Freeman’s team responded to an early in-game blunder and, on a larger scale, responded to critics calling for them to play better than it did a week prior against Miami (Ohio) against a better opponent.

Check and check. Season stays alive.

“We’re a really tough group,” Greathouse said. “We’re a really resilient group. There’s been a lot of adversity that’s come our way throughout the season so far. But we remained strong, we remain confident and we trust each other. That’s what this team is built on, and it’s going to continue to lead us going forward.”