Notre Dame Football: 3 takeaways from crushing loss to Clemson in ACC title game

With Trevor Lawrence back, Clemson looked dominant against Notre Dame football, but does that mean the Irish will be shut out of the playoff?

Saturday was a big day for the ACC. If Notre Dame and Clemson played a close, competitive ACC title game, there would be a good chance the league would have two teams in the playoff.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Clemson, who lost to Notre Dame earlier in the year without Trevor Lawrence, dominated the Fighting Irish from beginning to finish, scoring 34 straight points after falling behind 3-0.

Brian Kelly will have to hold his breath that the playoff committee puts more stock in the 10-0 start to the season than Saturday’s ACC title game loss to the Tigers. If the Irish weren’t in a conference this season, they would have already locked up a playoff spot. Weird how that works, right?

What’d we learn from Notre Dame’s tough loss to Clemson?

3. Third-down conversions made the difference

Everyone knows the importance of third downs. If one team is converting most of its third downs while the other is struggling, it’s fairly obvious which team has the lead and which one is trying to play catch-up.

Clemson kept the Notre Dame defense on the field during key plays, converting 8-of-14 third downs and even though the Tigers lost the time of possession battle, they found a way to create more explosive plays and extend drives. Notre Dame was a paltry 3-for-12 on third downs which was crushing for any momentum the Irish were trying to create.

If you’re trying to win a big game, you need to win the turnover and the third-down conversion battles. Notre Dame only caused one turnover and were dominated in the third-down battle.

We saw the result of this lost third-down battle.