Notre Dame Football: 3 takeaways from huge road win over Pitt

2. Notre Dame just needs to let Ian Book loose

Some fans were ready to throw in the towel on Ian Book and there were grumblings of “maybe Phil Jurkovec should have started” after four games to start the season and a 12-7 nightmarish win over Louisville. Book looked terrible in the win over the Cardinals and he received plenty of criticism.

Let’s just say people were ready for the post-Book era after last week but what he did against Pitt to respond to arguably his worst career performance was impressive.

Book threw three touchdown passes and had over 300 yards on the day.

The coaching staff had been hesitant to let him loose and almost showed that they didn’t trust his arm, but that changed against Pitt as they allowed him to go deep and he finished with 312 yards and three touchdowns on 16-of-30 passing.

The ground game wasn’t working for the Irish against Pitt’s elite run defense and Book made up for that with his arm. And the Irish won by 42. This goes to show that Notre Dame needs to let Book get loose and return to his sophomore and junior year self.