In a game many wrote off as an easy victory for the fourth-ranked Irish, Notre Dame had to fight against the top-rated defense in the country in Boston College.
The Eagles (3-8) forced five turnovers making Notre Dame’s (10-1) 19-16 victory a hard-fought one at Fenway Park in Boston.
“You know what I love about this team is they persevere,” Irish Head Coach Brian Kelly said following the game. “It’s been injuries all year. Tonight, it was turnovers. Just found a way to win against a very spirited Boston College team despite the amount of turnovers that we had tonight.”
DeShone Kizer threw two touchdown passes with a 20-for-38 mark, but the stout Boston College defense picked Kizer off three times throughout the game. The Eagles also forced four total fumbles against the Irish and recovered two.
“You know, we’re going to play that way on defense. We talked about kind of going after them physically and whacking the ball out and all those things,” Boston College Head Coach Steve Addazio said. “It’s just the way we want to play.”
Kelly said Kizer wasn’t fazed at all despite the turnovers and remained focus through the game.
“You know, I think that quarterbacks can at times be – they can go one of two ways, right; they can become a bit shell-shocked and withdrawn in a sense,” Kelly said. “(Kizer) stayed aggressive and stayed in the moment.”
Kizer said he’s done a good job of putting drives behind him this year, but also knows when to accept responsibilities for mistakes.
“With that first (interception), it was 100-percent my fault. I accepted it. I squashed it, and moved on,” Kizer said. “On the second one, there was a protection issue. I knew I wanted to get the ball to Alize and behind the linebacker down the middle. I ended up throwing the ball inside and off my back foot, which was obviously idiotic in that situation. We just have to learn from what we did today.”
Notre Dame had issues from the get-go. With the opening drive of the game, the Irish drove the ball 58 yards to the Boston College 7-yard line. Kizer, aiming to thread the needle and find an open receiver in the endzone, failed to read the coverage and instead found John Johnson in the endzone for the first interception of the night.
The good news for the Irish was that the team was able to hold the Eagles to a 5-play, 15-yard drive that ended with a punt. The bad news was that this wouldn’t be the first interception of the night.
Notre Dame fought back down to the 13-yard line on the next drive, ending with a 30-yard Justin Yoon field goal to put the Irish on the board with a 3-0 lead at Fenway.
Disaster again struck after Boston College forced a fumble off of CJ Prosise, which would’ve been a 19-yard rush for the running back.
With just four seconds remaining in the first quarter, Kizer found Amir Carlisle in the endzone for a touchdown pass right out in front of the Red Sox bullpen.
The Irish forced a fumble of their own in Eagle territory after an Irish punt, but Notre Dame couldn’t capitalize inside the 10. Josh Adams dropped the ball after a two-yard loss, giving the ball back to Boston College.
“I thought Boston College did a great job of ripping it loose. Great job on CJ Prosise. They ripped that one loose,” Kelly said. “And I really couldn’t tell on Josh Adams’s fumble. It looked like one he should have secured.”
Justin Simmons picked Kizer off again later in the quarter, ultimately sending the game into the half with a 10-0 Irish advantage.
Colton Lichtenberg finally put Boston College on the board with a 28-yard field goal just under two-minutes in the second half of action.
And again, Kizer was picked off inside the redzone, giving Boston College another opportunity with the drive starting at their 3-yard line.
Kizer narrowly found Chris Brown in the endzone with just 70 seconds remaining in the third. Boston College’s John Johnson looked like he had another pick under his belt, but Brown plucked it directly out of his hands to extend Notre Dame’s lead to 16-3.
The Irish couldn’t secure the ball on the PAT and failed to convert.
“We move the ball, Boston College has a great defense, we did a lot of good things and we did a lot of bad things,” Brown said about his performance. “But the good thing about tonight’s game is you can always push better, and learn from it.”
Chris Brown finished with six catches for 104 yards. Carlisle has seven for 94 yards.
With 10:35 remaining in the game, Yoon hit a 35-yard field goal to give Notre Dame a 16-point lead.
But immediately following that, Eagle quarterback Jeff Smith exploded for an 80-yard touchdown run that silenced the Irish faithful in Fenway.
“Well, I don’t have a perspective, I have an assignment error. It’s crazy,” Kelly said. “There’s one guy in there that is assigned to him, and we just – we have a tendency to lose our focus on detailed items like that.”
The Eagles failed to convert on the attempt after.
With 54 seconds remaining, Boston College scored once again after Smith found Charlie Callinan for a 3-yard pass.
“As well as Boston College intended to play and did play, you know, we turned the ball over four times in easy scoring areas of the field,” Kelly said. “So, those are things that are correctable, and we’ll get them corrected.”
Notre Dame travels to Stanford Saturday, November 28 in the regular season finale.
