If a 100-yard pick-six wasn’t going to intimidate Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl, nothing would. After South Carolina’s O’Donnell Fortune picked off a [autotag]Tyler Buchner[/autotag] pass to tie the score on the aforementioned play, everything looked like it would come apart in the end. Instead, Buchner wrapped up game MVP honors with this 16-yard touchdown pass to [autotag]Mitchell Evans[/autotag], giving the Irish a 45-38 they wouldn’t relinquish:
Buchner to Evans
Back up 7️⃣#GoIrish pic.twitter.com/59Slvz5F9K
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) December 31, 2022
As soon as the Gamecocks turned it over on downs with the help of some dumb penalties on their part, Irish fans were ready to celebrate the program’s first bowl victory in three years. It punctuated a 9-4 season that will serve as a passing grade for [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag]’s first season at the helm. To end with that and a ranking in the final poll is a good year in anyone’s book. If you don’t believe that, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t, take a look at some of these postgame tweets from Irish fans: