Defense:
Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah was everywhere on Saturday, leading the Irish with nine tackles, six of the solo-variety. He also batted a pass attempt away. He had a monster game that is worthy of praise but my defensive player of the game goes to Ade Ogundeji. I know his forced fumble that was recovered by Khalid Kareem came when the game had already been decided but he wound being a real pain for Stanford as he totaled 1.5 sacks on the day, the forced fumble and six total tackles.
Special Teams:
It’s not always worthy of getting a game-ball as you’ve seen if you’ve followed Fighting Irish Wire at all this season but today certainly saw someone worthy of one.
Notre Dame dominated special teams today. A blocked punt, nearly a second block punt, recovering muffed punts for added possessions – it’s not often you see the Fighting Irish dominant a usually solid program in that part of the game, but today they did.
I still think the Irish win Saturday had Isaiah Foskey not blocked the punt late in the first half because Notre Dame was simply too dominant afterwards to think it was only that play.
However, that play happened and it was absolutely massive in the moment. It may have only been his fourth game played this year but it was a huge play that turned momentum for the rest of the afternoon.