Notre-Dame Fight the Irish held off a dashing Georgia Tech Yellow jackets team 31-13 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Saturday.
These five performances are a big reason why the Fighting Irish are still in the playoff race, as they look to potentially win and earn a College Football Playoff berth.
It’s also why Notre Dame was able to take down an upset Georgia Tech team that had a decent start to the 2024 season.
Notre Dame still has a lot of work to do, but if the Irish continue to perform like this, the Fighting Irish should remain in playoff contention.
5 stars – Riley Leonard
Once again, Riley Leonard started slow, and once again, he settled down and finished strong. His final passing numbers were 20 of 29 for 203 yards, although he was intercepted once.
He added 51 yards rushing and two rushing affected out of 10 races.
4 stars – Jeremiah Love
Fellow Jadarian Price actually had better rushing numbers (see below), but Love made a key 25-yard reception and threw the ball for a first down on a fake punt. He also maintained his rushing touchdown streak alive.
3 stars – Jadarian Prize
In terms of highlights, Price was relatively quiet, but his 8 carries for 69 yards, with a long of 23, helped the Irish move the football forward.
2 stars – Notre Dame Defense
Notre Dame’s defense generally put the clamps on Georgia Tech and the safeties Xavier Watts and Adon Shuler both had interceptions, with Shuler take him home. Really, an argument can be made for putting the defense higher after its dominance over the Yellow Jackets, but besides the key offensive stars playing well, the defense is a little dazed for allowing Tech to drive the ball at will early and some bad broken covers. We don’t expect perfection from this unit and we understand that depth players start due to injuries, but self-inflicted wounds are difficult to accept.
Still, the performance was nearly perfect, and if the Irish get what they want this year, defense will play a big role.
1 star – Special teams
A star in this context isn’t bad – it just means you were good but other aspects of the team were better. The Irish would have to settle for a successful fake punt, a successful fake field goal, a blocked basketand a 42-yard field goal by backup kicker Zac Yoakam.
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This article was originally published on Fighting Irish Wire: 5 stars: The best and worst of Notre Dame’s performance against Georgia Tech
