Four-touchdown underdog NIU stuns Notre Dame football in South Bend

Saturday’s Notre Dame home-opener never should have been decided by Riley Leonard’s arm, good or bad. But in the end it was, and the Fighting Irish are 1-1 with a two-point loss to four-touchdown underdog Northern Illinois because of it.

For the second straight week to start the 2024 season, Notre Dame didn’t have much of a passing game with its senior transfer from Duke. But on second and 1 from their own 49 and around six minutes remaining, the Irish let Leonard take a deep shot anyway.

It was well under-thrown and easily intercepted.

The Northern Illinois Huskies of the Mid-American Conference worked their way into scoring position to kick a game-winning 35-yard field goal in the final minute and stun the big, bad Fighting Irish with a 16-14 upset.

The Huskies did turf angels on the interlocking “ND” logo at midfield. They cart-wheeled into the visitor’s tunnel. The Irish exited their home field with showers of boos from their,er, faithful and even a few “you suck!” shouts from a particularly angered, er, supporter.

All one week after the exhilaration of a 23-13 win over then-No. 20 Texas A&M in front of 107,315 who fell completely silent because of what the Irish accomplished. They didn’t accomplish much of anything in front of 77,622 of their own kind.

“It’s disappointing,” Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman said. “You go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows in a tale of two weeks, but we’ve got to own this thing. As coaches and players, we’ve got to own it, and we’ve got to fix it.”

Every point mattered. Every timeout mattered. The Irish didn’t get enough of the former, clearly, and they burned through one of the latter early in the second half when it would have come more in handy late to save time on the clock before the eventual game-winning kick — and right before Notre Dame tried a would-be game-winning kick of its own.

Mitch Jeter’s Hail Mary of a 62-yard attempt was blocked, the second time in the game the opposing team got hands on a booted ball. He also had a 48-yarder knocked down at the end of the first half. It was a Murphy’s Law kind of afternoon for the Irish; whatever could go wrong did go wrong.

“It’s the entire program that underachieved today,” Freeman said. “The entire program has to own it and improve from it.”

NIU only scored 16 points, but Freeman said it wasn’t a banner day for the defensive side of the ball. He’s right; it wasn’t. The Irish allowed NIU senior running back Antario Brown to go for 223 yards from scrimmage on 22 touches before he was injured in the second half.

After Notre Dame took an early 7-0 lead on a grind-it-out 13-play, 75-yard drive on its first possession, Brown responded with an 83-yard touchdown catch-and-run to signal it’d be a tight game all afternoon.

That it was.

NIU led 13-7 at halftime. Notre Dame had a tough time running through or around the Huskies. It literally took jumping over them for the Irish to get into the end zone for the only time following the opening drive. Sophomore running back Jeremiyah Love hurdled NIU safety Nate Valcarcel and ran 30 more yards into the end zone to give the Irish the lead midway through the third quarter.

The Notre Dame defense made a few key stops in the second half after that, including a fourth-down pass defended by sophomore linebacker Jaiden Ausberry with the Huskies looking to extend a drive on the Irish 30-yard line. On NIU’s next possession, NIU quarterback Ethan Hampton fired an incomplete pass over the middle of the field on third and six.

Notre Dame couldn’t get the final score it needed to out the game away, though. The Irish leaned on Leonard to do secure it, but it was nowhere to be found. Only the opposite.

Hampton was 10 of 19 for 198 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Leonard was 20 of 32 for 163 yards with 0 touchdowns and 2 interceptions, meanwhile. He didn’t do anything to assure Irish fans he’s got an arm capable of carrying this team to and through the College Football Playoff. His second INT, the indefensible downfield under-throw, was exactly what the Irish couldn’t have exactly when they couldn’t have it.

“Bad eyes, bad feet, bad ball,” he said.

Bad loss. Period.