When Notre Dame made a fourth down stop of Clemson in the second overtime Saturday night the party was on like it hadn’t been for 27 years in South Bend as the Irish had knocked off No. 1.
But that celebration by students and fans quickly came under scrutiny as the field storming occurred during a global pandemic where masks and the idea of social distancing are the new norm.
Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick spoke to Eric Hansen of the South Bend Tribune about what happened and why the incident wound up occurring.
Related: The best photos from Notre Dame’s upset of No. 1 Clemson
A few of the highlights from Swarbrick, below:
On knowing possibilities of Saturday’s game:
“You’ve got three possible outcomes. One is a loss. You hope that doesn’t happen, but you’re not dealing with a field storm. One is a decisive victory, and I think you can manage what occurs.
“The other is a game, whether it’s a knockdown, two-point conversion against Miami or an incompletion on the last play of a second overtime, it’s one where you know you face the challenge of a field rush.
“And you don’t know which consequence you’re going to face. You plan for all of them. And I was pleased with those plans. We had a lot of extra security deployed.
“You have to relieve the front end of a crush. You have a different safety issue if you don’t. And that was visible. It was there.
“And we talked about it before: ‘If this happens, you get this mass incoming, you have to let people come or you’re going to have broken bones and other problems.’
On extra security detail that was added for the Clemson game:
“A lot of extra security, obviously, extra police detail and extra ushers. In the normal course, as we did for this, any student who presented a particular risk was not allowed in. So we voided over 500 tickets of students who either were in quarantine for close contact, were in isolation for having tested positive or failed to show for a surveillance test.”
There is a ton more from Swarbrick that is addressed in the piece, but I feel that those are the most important as to Notre Dame’s plan being in place to try and prevent a storming of the field and then why they ultimately had to let fans on in celebration.
The optics of it amid a pandemic are far from great, but knowing myself when I was between the ages of 18 and 22, I certainly don’t think I would have calmly clapped my hands and just left the stadium, either so it’s hard for me to blame the students for reacting to this event.