Notre Dame Football: Report card for win over USC in Week 8

With a few days to reflect, here is a report card for Notre Dame football in their latest win over the USC Trojans in South Bend.

You could argue that Notre Dame’s playoff chances took quite a hit with Georgia’s overtime loss to unranked South Carolina, but there are others that would suggest gaining ground in the top 10 should be taken as a positive regardless of who it is that drops. In this case, Georgia (who could end up as Notre Dame’s only quality loss of the season) dropped to No. 10 while the Irish were propelled to No. 8 in the latest AP poll.

While the hypothetical scenarios that would lead to a playoff berth for the Irish are quite detailed, the point of all this is to say that the Irish are still alive in their pursuit for the CFP. With five of the seven teams ahead of the Irish in either the SEC or Big Ten, there should be plenty of losses to go around. While the Irish don’t control their own destiny, a path still remains.

While the final score wasn’t ideal, Notre Dame kept their hopes alive with a gritty win over rival USC. As is the case for most rivalry games across all of sport, Notre Dame’s matchup vs. USC wasn’t necessarily representative of the potential of either of these teams, but rather a hard-fought battle over a rivalry that has been maintained on an annual basis since the 1940s.

We figured USC would play the Irish harder than most teams would this season, and that was exactly the case in a game that was one onside kick away from coming down to the wire. With yet another one in the books, here is a report card for each unit on the Irish roster in their win over the Trojans.