Notre Dame Football: 3 hot takes as Irish avoid upset at Florida State
Notre Dame football entered 2021 with some new faces on both sides of the ball, and also on the coaching staff as well. Not everything went according to plan for the Irish on Sunday night, but after one game it looks like Notre Dame may have struck gold with their new quarterback.
There were some great games throughout the weekend starting with the kickoff on Thursday night all the way late into Saturday night. With it being Labor Day weekend we get extended College Football since the NFL season does not start until next week. Nobody is complaining though because if you watched the game on Sunday night between Notre Dame and Florida State in prime time you saw one heck of a game.
Notre Dame barely escaped a massive meltdown as they won in overtime 41-38 in Tallahassee in front of a packed sellout crowd of more than 83,000 screaming fans.
The Irish extended their lead up to 18 points in the third quarter. Many fans probably threw in the towel on a Florida State comeback at that point. If you were one of those fans then you were proved wrong as the Seminoles rallied behind an 18 point fourth-quarter comeback to tie up the game at 38 and send it to overtime.
One call that helped turn the tide for the Seminoles was in the fourth quarter where Notre Dame punter Jay Bramblett seemed to be roughed on a punt attempt. The referees called running into the kicker which is only a five-yard penalty instead of a 15-yard penalty which would have resulted in an automatic first down and keeps the Irish offense on the field.
Instead of Notre Dame keeping the ball on offense, it punted it away and that next possession Florida State scored. Maybe the Irish score on the drive to help ice the game and there is no comeback by the Seminoles, but maybe they do not as well.
We never will really know now, but by the way social media exploded with posts after the play it seemed like a botched call from the ACC officiating crew.
Not much makes college football officiating look more illogical than the difference in a targeting penalty and what constitutes a 15-yard roughing-the-punter penalty. The former goes too far and the latter not far enough, as that last ridiculous flag in ND-FDU showed.
— David Haugh (@DavidHaugh) September 6, 2021
Notre Dame ended up getting a key stop on the first possession in overtime that led to a missed field goal from Florida State. The Irish offense then got the ball and Jonathan Doerer kicked the game-winning field goal 3 plays later to send Notre Dame back to South Bend with a victory.
Notre Dame obviously needs to clean up things, but you will always take an ugly win over not winning at all. Here are 3 hot takes for Notre Dame.