Notre Dame rebounds against UNLV

Notre Dame had their three game winning streak snapped last week with a home loss to Stanford.

The Irish rebounded with a 44-21 blowout win over UNLV.

It was Logan Diggs’ turn to have a big day out of the backfield with 130 yards on 28 carries.

Takeaways:

Diggs’ big day

It was symbolic that Kyren Williams was at today’s game. Last year, he was the key to Notre Dame’s offense being a dual threat out of the backfield. Diggs’ skillset reminded most of Williams but we hadn’t seen it consistently. Today, he showed what most fans thought Diggs could be. The next step is for Tommy Rees to find a way to get Diggs more involved in the passing game.

Drew Pyne was enough

It’s really weird because watching the game, Pyne came away underwhelming. Missing passes he should be making at this point of the season yet his numbers shows that he was enough against a defense that has been bad.

Pyne was 14-28 for 205 yards passing including 4-8 on passes over 15 yards. It was the medium passes where he struggled. He was 1-6 on passes between 5 and 14 yards. Those are drive extending passes that wasn’t there today. He can get away with it against UNLV but the Clemsons and USCs of the world will punish the Irish it Pyne has that type of day.

Missed Tackles

I don’t have the number on missed tackles but, my goodness, Notre Dame’s defense missed a lot of them. Perhaps the most embarrassing one happened on a 4th and 2. The Irish had quarterback Harrison Bailey for a loss but somehow Bailey slipped through five defenders to get a first down. UNLV would get a touchdown on that possession. Again, today it didn’t make a difference but it won’t cut it against the remaining schedule.

Summary

Notre Dame only has four wins with five games left. Three of those games are against ranked opponents including the next two (Syracuse and Clemson). Head coach Marcus Freeman needs a 3-2, 4-1 run to close out the season.

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